Nonna's Turn to Shine

we had to have an easy morning, there was no doubt about it. a sleepless night because of major stomach stuffing had rendered me useless. so we walked around town, and came back in time for...lunch, where we watched nonna create tagliatelle. she is such a pro. no wonder we love our food when we have someone like this to show us how its done. everything she makes, my mom makes, and in turn, we learn. i have a video posted on facebook of nonna serving us our meal. i will send you the link if you want to see it! its too big to post here.

for the afternoon, rosalba took the ginas and me to camigliatello, the banff of the region where we looked at the tourist shops (i bought a sachette di pane - a bag for bread) and we had our one and only gelato. i know, its a sin but i'd rather sacrifice the ice cream for the home cooking any day. to get to the town we had to swap cars with our cousin's panda because rosalba's car was blocked and we couldn't move it (uber long story that involved a lot of loud italian language being bandied about). we had to borrow battista's car - ya, he's 18 - just so we could go get some gelati and i tell you that thing could barely go over 70 km/hr. it was hysterical. at one point we weren't sure it could get up the steep hill which made us laugh our asses off (but mind you, we had a touch of fear as well because what do we do if we can't make it up the hill and the car starts to roll backward?)

after a trip to banff, we head back to san giovanni to stop at spadafora's to buy our jewels. gina got this pendant she had been obsessing about and i found a pair of earrings to fall in love with...but at 900 euro, just couldn't do it. so i bought another pair fresh from the new summer line (or is it autumn) that were similar but definitely not as pricey! we ended up at zia serafina's house for some quick pizza for dinner, thanking god that we had something light to eat after a marathon of italian cooking. but tomorrow we were going to zia caterina's. wow.

we got home to find that nonna had bought us a few gifts and such is the case anytime someone goes to visit. its so nice she does it but so hard to accept because she's a pensioner, but you know, us gals are sneaky that way too in giving her money at the last moment when she can't refuse us. :) aside from the things she bought, she gave us more of her little gallinas and penguini she loves to make with her yard, plus some sleeping socks, oregano and chamomille tea that she dries herself.

its always hard to accept these things as well because nonna, now 88, is so concerned she might not see us again so wants to make sure she gives us something to remember her by. but to me, i don't need a thing, i have all these memories, and her tagliatelle. but she's going strong my nonna...i will see her again.