Good-bye to Montagano

By Saturday afternoon (we're still back on Saturday, June 24, god help me) the kids had left for Rome (Max and Stephany) and Naples (Lina and Steven) and the various adventures that lay beyond. Danny and I settled in to pack for our departure the next day and to finish cleaning up the apartment where six people had been sleeping, bathing, cooking, and eating for two weeks. The children had done a good job of tidying their areas, but that still left quite a bit of scrubbing and sorting to be done.

We also had a bagful of leftover pizza to get through, plus assorted cheeses, salad greens, and other food that had to be disposed of. Some of it went into the garbage, and some of it, the best things, we piled up as a big gift to Rita and her family. And some of it, of course, we ate ourselves, including most of the pizza. (Maria was right--it was even better reheated in the oven.)

That night we went down to the Circolo for one last drink and to make final arrangements with Rita about keys, garbage, and other logistics. Claudia and Maria turned up, and everyone got a little sentimental about our imminent departure.

(The photos show, top to bottom, Claudio, Maria, and Rita. Fernando was across the room, participating in a very lively game of cards. Raucous card games and beer drinking seem to be the raison d'etre of the Circolo Unione.)

I wish I had a movie of Maria and Claudio talking. Their English is heavily accented, flavored with both their native Italian and with the Italo-American inflections they picked up during their years living in Queens, NY. Plus they both have, in spades, that Italian genius for comedic gestures and grimaces that makes even the most pedestrian marital bickering sensationally funny.






Apparently the Montaganesian appetite for partying had been merely whetted by all the celebrations during our two-week visit. Rita and Maria informed us that the next day, Sunday, they were all planning a meal out in the woods, with an open-air spit roast. Surely we'd like to stay another day so we could get in on it. Please, please, wouldn't we stick around till Monday?

We were tempted, because we knew the food would be great. But we had already paid for a room in Barletta, over toward the Adriatic, and our bags were all packed, and we were still trying to digest the pizza from the day before, and I wasn't sure I could take one more Montaganesi blow-out. Furthermore, I was afraid that if we didn't stop accepting these invitations we'd never leave. So we declined, with great regret.

Later I regretted it even more. The redoubtable Paolo posted a photo on Facebook showing the barbecue. The main offering, aside from a very healthy-looking chicken, was a banquet-sized array of torcinelli, those fabled skewers of lamb innards wrapped in milk-fed intestines.

 Now I have to go back to Montaganesi, just to taste that dish.