Casa Primo Sole: August 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Macarronara festa, August 13, 2011

If you are familiar with macarronara's you would understand why a village would hold a festival for this and the villagers would wait over 1 hour in line to consume them. Macarronara is homemade pasta made very simply of flour and water (AND LOVE). It is rolled and imprinted with the thumb and dropped into a pot of boiling water for a short time and then ready to eat with either fagioli (beans) and tomato sauce or just with sauce. This year they were running over an hour behind so i had to wait in line over an hour with italien ladies elbowing my back. I don't really know where they wanted me to go or what they wanted me to do but i was almost in the front of the line; as were they and i guess it wasn't close enough! We did eventually get our maccaronara and a bottle of wine and yes it was worth the wait.
the other exciting thing about the maccaronara festival is that it brings Achille to Castelvetere. Achille is the tarantella superstar around here and everyone follows him from village to village. Check out the video of me dancing the 11 min long tarentella on you tube:
www.youtube.com/user/videoshields
The tarentella (the tarantula dance) is an old folk dance that is danced through the campania region. All vary in song but all require the accordion!!! Love it!
We danced about 3 times through the night. When dancing this dance it is necessary to pick a good circle with some older folks because they know how to dance the dance well although some of the older ladies have very sharp shoes and pointy elbows. We held our own and i pushed in there like a good italian girl!

Me at the Zupo water fountain; fresh srping water. People come and fill trucks of water up at this fountain downtown Castelvetere. Everyone says it is the best around.

Dad with the fiat 500

Ash and Dad finding a seat to eat our dinner.

The village all set up for the festival.

Macarronara menu (click to enlarge)

Line up for the goods!

Tool used to cut the pieces of pasta by rolling.

Yeah! We got our pasta!

Superstar Achile all set up in action.

Maria's garden, August 12, 2011

Our neighbour Maria has been named our Italia Nonna because she's the sweetest and takes care of all of us and makes sure we are eating. She always asks us if we are coming over for lunch or dinner and insist that we help ouselves to her garden and to eggs from her chickens. In fact, she's a bit insulted if we don't and very happy when we do! Awesome for me. She said that this year her garden wasn't as large because Gelardo her husband is too old to help her and it has become too much. After walking through the garden it is very obvious that i couldn't imagine anyone doing all of this work my hand. Its beautiful. Every little bit of left overs are used including a bed frame as the gate to the garden and bits and pieces of wires to hold up fruit and vegetables.

Maria's garden..rows and rows.

Mom and i picking produce for dinner.

One of the wells for the garden.

The counterweight to pull buckets of water from the well.

mmmm. tomatoes!

Even a kiwi tree!

Beans!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Monte Verde, August 11

Nonno was beginning to feel not so good today so he took it easy and Tony brought Zia Sonya, Ash and I to another village not too far away called Monteverde. It is another beautiful small village where Tony's Priest friend Don Cossimo (also from Castelvetere originaly) has a church. We went to a dance performance on a series of docks on a lake way up in the mountains. Before the performance there was a park area with live music and food and wine. The performance told the story of San Gerardo with lights and dance. Saint Gerardo is known as the Saint of Mothers and Children and had a very difficult childhood. He was a tailor until he later became a missionary and then a priest and supported those less fortunate.

After the show Don Cossimo brought us to his church to see the impressive scene set up by volunteers and the church youth group. Awesome church...as usual!

Saint Gerardo

Monte Verde

driving to the forest; fields of wind turbines were everywhere.

Il Grande Spettacolo Dell'Acqua's

Don Cossimo's church.

Zia taking a picture of the elaborate nativity scene to show Nonna.

festa San Antonio , August 10, 2011

Today we ate Lunch at Maria and Gelardo's to celebrate the festa with them. Their son Tony; better known as Tony Canadese because he was born in Canada, was also there along with Maria's sister and brother in law. We had an awesome meal (as always). Lots of pasta, beef cooked in tomato sauce and a wonderful salad fresh from the garden with lots of wine and the hugest watermelon i've ever seen!
We also enjoyed the stringed up hazel nuts (my favorite) and of course espresso.
After lunch we got all dressed up for the procession of Saint Anthony through the village into the Piazza for a mass outdoors.
Nonno's new buddies stopped by for a quick toast and hello mass too.
reno update: the renovations have come to a halt since the arrival of nonno....still no kitchen sink! We are doing our best by going into one of the large basement rooms where there is a massive laundry sink that my dad said he will take a bath in soon after all this walking! haha It's pretty small for a bath but i guess if he's desperate enough i could see it happening.

Lunch at the neighbors.

Maria with stringed up hazelnuts..mmmmm

tony with the pizza sized watermelon.

Pierro, Nonno and Torquado.

Gelardo and Nonno all dressed up. (no kitchen!)

Procession through the streets.

Procession; the statue coming by.

Nonno walking in the procession to mass in the piazza.

Visiting in the Piazza.

Tony, Zia Sonya and Ash in the Piazza.

Ash and I walked back home to change since the weather at night was crazy cold!

Castelvetere and gelato, August 9th.2011

Back to the village. Ash and i arrived in Castelvetere after a long day of waiting around for buses. We got to the bus station in Rome which wasn't too far from our hotel by city bus and then waited for a few hours for our bus to Avellino. Once in Avellino we thought we were set to get to Castelvetere but not quite. After triple checking which bus goes to Castelvetere the guy who ran the show in the bus lot eventually told me to relax and have a gelato since it would be another 40 mins. I laughed and said okay. Then he said he would tell me when the bus got here since it was obvious that we had no idea. Well about 45 mins. later i was wondering what was up and didn't want to bug the guy anymore so then he walked by and i asked about the bus and he gave me this look like 'ooops' and explained that it left. You can imagine that we weren't too happy but also not very surprised so we waited another hour.... It is very obvious that tourist do not travel here in this way. We learned that it is necessary to ask each bus driver; up to 10 buses at any given time just to be sure you know where you are going. oh well.....

We got to the village and to casa primo sole at around 8ish and while walking down the narrow cobblestone roads could hear mom and zia talking ofcourse and i thought maybe they would have some food since he hadn't ate for the entire day. They did indeed! Procuitto and cheese with fresh bread...mmmmmm vino too! i was one happy traveller.

They were excited to see up and be all together again and Ash and I were happy that we made it alone from Rome. They then explained the crazy night of beer and dancing that we had just missed. Nonno made some new friends (who drank all of my canadian beer!) and played the accordion and stayed up in the casa until 5 or 6! The partners in crime were Torquado; or neighbor just accross the road (who now does a double honk every time he passes...weither it is 1, 2 or 3 in the morning!) and Pierro, one of Miliucio's sons (the bar/restauraunt owner in town). They took quite a liking to nonno and were very happy to party with him. They stopped by the next day to see how he was.

The night Ash and I got there the festa San Antonio began so we took to the streets of Castelvetere to see the lights and people and have some tasty gelato! Nonno also said hello to some old friends and took part in a nice gelato himself.

The piazza filled with lights for the festa.

Table of nuts and candy!

Enio Nargi with Ash and Sonya.

Nonno with Marano Follo (Archangelo's brother)and Maria (She the sweetest little lady who likes to tell us stories and dance the tarantella! She is also our neighbor Gelardo's sister; everyone is connected here!)