Holiday doldrums

One of our favorite restaurants in Fidenza is one I've mentioned before, Trattoria San Giorgio, a very unprepossessing place that serves a home-cooked three-course lunch, including wine, water, fruit, and coffee, for 13 euros. We are heading into our last week here and wanted to get one more San Giorgio meal under our belts, so we went by today for lunch. A sign on the door announced that they're closed for the holidays until next week.

How unprepossessing? When we first saw the restaurant we thought it was a soup kitchen.

Similar news greeted us last night when we walked over to another budget favorite, Ugolini Ristorante e Pizzeria. And two coffee bars we frequent told us that this week they're not serving hot lunches, as they usually do, just sandwiches and focaccia. So we had to make do with brie and eggplant on an Italian version of a bagel and a focaccia strewn with grilled red onions. Delicious, both, but not the full-blown lunch we'd been looking forward to.

It's not just restaurants that have closed up shop at year's end. Aqua classes at the town's covered pool are canceled till sometime next month. We've been going to a qi gong class in a little studio down the street, which in addition to being excellent for my back has been great for learning anatomical Italian. But that class has been off line for two weeks and will remain so until after we leave. Even the local supermarket is on reduced hours this week.

As you can see, it's qi gong for older folks.

As you can also see, I am by far the largest woman in class. Guess which shoes are mine?

Moreover, most of our Fidenza friends are on break, too. Some are going away to visit relatives or to have one of those travel experiences everyone's so keen on nowadays, and others are in town but busy with family. No wonder all the restaurants are closed--this week apparently everyone's eating at Nonna's house.

One of the few restaurants that has remained open is a brand-new Indian-Pakistani place, the only one in town. The food is good, especially the vegetable dishes; their baingan bharta (stewed eggplant) is the best we've ever had. But most of their business is takeout and the restaurant's empty tables, harsh lighting, and lack of heat make for rather grim dining. We hope they can hang on until the weather gets warmer and we come back.

Not wanting to spend our last week here eating Indian, we have been relying on take-out pizza and our own cooking. Today, in search of something appropriate for New Year's Day, we went down to the Latteria--which, incredibly, was open--and bought some anolini. We already have brodo on hand to serve them in, which we picked up a couple days ago at the supermarket. We'd been eyeing these slightly sinister-looking bottles of mixed-meat broth (chicken, beef, pork) ever since we first got to Fidenza, because their generic labels make them look a bit like medical waste.

We had some a couple nights ago with those tortelli d'erbetta we bought from Gelopasta last spring. (It's probably good we have to eat at home, since it's helping us clear out our freezer.) The broth was delicious--light but flavorful, a perfect complement to the pasta. I'm looking forward to ringing in the new year tomorrow with the rest of it and the anolini. Lucky, lucky us.

As I was writing this the piazza outside erupted into explosions and squeals. Not a terrorist incident, just free-lance fireworks to celebrate the midnight hour as 2019 becomes 2020.

Buon anno e auguri a tutti! Happy new year, everyone!