Luchiano called up and invited me to his place for dinner. I went of course:-) He told me to get there at 8. I’ve always given by Italian friends (Luchiano and Luca) a hard time about how late they eat. Well, I got there at 8 and the only person there was Lauri. The rest of the guys showed up half hour later. We didn’t sit down to eat until 9:15 or so and I was famished. The food was, as usual, great. Had some homemade salami, an aged beef thing, with the necessary cheeses of course, some ham, and that was just the first course…. Between the courses, they were all engaged in very Italian conversation. I couldn’t understand a word, but that’s OK. I think that Italian is a rather lovely language and I could listen to it all night. I was reminded of the old joke, “How do you keep an Italian from talking? Make him put his hands in his pockets.” There was much gesticulating and I joked with Luchiano that I was afraid of getting hit:-) They then brought out the pasta, bookatoni I think it’s called. It looks like really thick spaghetti, but it’s actually got a small hole in the middle of it, much like a straw. It was great, but the thickness made it difficult to eat since we couldn’t swirl it on our forks like usual. Salad was next, it had an unexpected dressing made up of lemon juice and oil. Then there was an interesting fruit salad made up of cantaloupe, pineapple, and pomegranates. Pomegranates are in season right now but I hadn’t tried any yet. The ones here are a bit different than what I was used to getting in the States. First, they are much sweeter here, and the things you eat look different. Here they are red on one end and it fades into being clear on the other side. In any case, they are delicious. The last thing was the chocolate cake. One other thing I noticed was that whenever food is placed in front of an Italian, no matter how full they said they were, they would instinctively pick up their fork and start eating. THey wouldn’t always finish what they started, but they would always, sometimes absentmindedly, start eating. Despite my history of not drinking, I am beginning to appreciate an after dinner liquor. Luchiano introduced me to something called Limonchello, a lemon liquor that just seems right after one of his meals. He keeps it in the freezer, and just a little bit to sip is wonderful. Anyway, another great night and meal, what would I do without him?
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