In the Swing of Summer

Creamy white and violet-striped eggplant have just started to appear in Martina Franca’s fruit and vegetable market.

When we’ve been away from Martina Franca for any period of time, we try to get ourselves to the weekly open-air market as soon as we can. Not only do we need to stock up on whatever looks especially gorgeous in the fruit and vegetable department, but meandering through the stalls and listening to the vendors confirms that we’re really home.

Bentornati

The Camino de Santiago is a very long walk across Spain.

If you stop by this page from time to time, you will notice that there has been precious little writing happening lately. My last few posts focused on our U.S. sojourn to visit family and friends and sell olive oil. Oh, and I hinted at our (then) upcoming adventure in which we proposed to walk 500 miles across northern Spain, joining thousands of modern-day pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela. No one was more surprised than me when we actually did complete the Camino on June 4^th after 32 exhilarating, wearying and often emotional days on foot.

La Pausa

Getting ready for one in a series of Pascarosa olive oil tastings we held throughout Oregon and California this spring.

After a month and a half of unbridled hedonism —and absolutely no blog posts—we have slipped back into the now familiar cadence of our lives in Martina Franca. We went back to the U.S. to see our children, parents and friends these past few months, experiencing a pausa from Italian life while escaping the tail end of winter. We also peddled our extra virgin olive oil up and down the west coast, reconnecting with olive oil aficionados and meeting some truly lovely new friends, too. It was a rollicking good time between the world class I.P.A. craft beers in Portland, John Locke’s bewitching Birichino Malvasia and my father-in-law’s deadly margaritas, which ought to be illegal. We need a vacation from the vacation.

The Heart of It

Extra virgin olive oil adorns this savory butternut and nut butter soup.

When we moved to Martina Franca for good, we knew what we would find. We’d been coming here for years and years, sometimes for a few months at a time. We knew our neighbors, where to buy mozzarella and which nearby beaches have the best sand and the shadiest parking. We chose this new life with our eyes wide open.

Making Our Way

We’re not out of the woods yet. After a brilliant, blue sky morning that brought our town’s residents to the piazza to revel in the bright sun, dark clouds rolled in yesterday afternoon with wind and rain aplenty. While winter has been pretty mild in Puglia this year, it isn’t ready to give up its hold, so we’re still dodging rainstorms and scirocco-fueled gusts from the south.

La Palestra

After the holiday excess, ARCI Martina has become my home away from home.

Christmas, New Year’s Eve and the Epiphany have all come and gone, but the wretched excess we encountered at the Pugliese holiday table lingers on. And in our case, it’s taken the considerably less appetizing form of excess weight. Now that January has rolled around, we’ve said “arrivederci” to seasonal delights like purcidd, cartellate, pettole and pasta al forno and all of its cheesy goodness for the time being. But considerably more desperate measures are required. It’s time to go to la palestra (the gym).

Come Si Fa

Artisanal spaghetti from Benedetto Cavalieri in Maglie, Puglia, is come si fa la pasta in Italy.

We have come to understand that most Italians we know are not particularly burdened by uncertainty. Firm ideas about come si fa (how it’s done) are routinely offered on a staggering range of topics. From child rearing to olive harvesting, there is little room for doubt here on the correct approach. Confusingly, though, the correct approach varies widely depending upon the advice giver. So we stagger through our days in a valiant effort to make sense of this wellspring of well-intentioned advice, secure only in our conviction that we routinely fail to grasp Italian come si fa in so many fundamental ways.

Bye Bye Befana

A surfeit of Santas compare notes on their Vespas, the sleigh of choice in Italy.

Just before lunchtime on this chilly Monday in January, our town’s streets are filled with family groups bundled in fleece from head to toe, men in winter wool caps and scarves huddled together on benches or in conversational packs and teenagers roaming the old town streets clutching cell phones and giggling. On a typical Monday, children are at school, most adults are at work and only a few elderly men gather in the piazza. But this is not a typical Monday. Today all of Italy celebrates the Epiphany, marking the last day of the month-long Christmas season here. January 6^th is a national holiday that sends everyone into the streets to revel and rejoice before it all comes to end. So we joined the festivities to bid farewell to all the fun before we settle in for the quieter winter days to come.

Comfort and Joy

Neighboring Alberobello’s trulli quarter is ready for Christmas.

Christmas is little more than a week away and our little town is hopping. From living nativity scenes that re-imagine village life at the time of Christ’s birth to the somewhat less charming Villagio di Babbo Natale  (Santa’s Village) in our town’s main square, our wintry air is charged with the electricity of the season. And all this activity reminds us of what we cherish most at this time of year: a sense of community and belonging that we’re slowly but surely building here.

L’Immacolata

Made of cartapesta or papier-mâché’, this larger-than-life statue of the Virgin Mary is paraded through towns all over Italy on December 8th.

Despite outliers who try to get a jump on the holiday commercial frenzy, the Christmas season in Italy officially begins with l’Immacolata on Sunday December 8^th, the day when Catholics celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. And what a beginning it is. We’ve noticed that almost everything here happens collectively, so it feels as though everyone has been given permission to, well, party.