Our upstairs neighbor, Pia, invited us for lunch before we left, "so you don't have to mess up your kitchen." She warned us that she's not a wonderful cook, and then wowed us with a perfectly simple, simply perfect lunch: rigatoni in homemade tomato-vegetable sauce with grated parmagiano, then a platter of olives, salame, and mozzarella from Apulia, her home region, which in her opinion is the best mozzarella.
She also made a wonderful dish of zucchini, potatoes, peppers, and onions cooked in olive oil and breadcrumbs. It was all served with a delicious Apulian red wine, a primitivo. For dessert she gave us beautiful strawberries topped with a little sour-cherry gelato. The wonderful food and her friendliness and warmth made us even sorrier to leave.
But the time came and we went off to the station. Here was my last look at Fidenza, moments before our train arrived and whisked us off to Milan, the first leg of our journey back...to our other house. Because "home" now means not just one place, but two.
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