Easter in Puglia

Easter weekend I went Piero's hometown of Motta Montecorvino in the northern province of Foggia in the region of Puglia. Puglia is the heel of the boot that is the Italian peninsula. This tiny little paesino of 800 inhabitants is one of my absolute favorite places to visit. I feel like I know everyone in town and now even get the "hello" honks from passing cars as I hang laundry out on the balcony.

Motta Montecorino

Of course not everybody knows me there. For instance old men who hang out at one of the two bars - either "above bar" or "below bar" - know me very well. And obviously the old woman with the face whiskers who scoffed at my bare legs all during Easter mass had no idea who I was. I'm pretty sure she thought I was some sort of bare-legged anti-Christ. I tried to assure her I was not by offering an extra large smile while giving her pace. She just shook her head. Old biddie.

Anyway we spent the rest of Easter Sunday with Piero's family eating and drinking. My favorite things to do in the whole wide world. The Motta specialities are roasted agnello or lamb, and torcinelli, which are a sausage-shaped mixture of various parts of lamb like lamb brain, lamb liver and lamb stomach. While these sound (and look) super gross, I must say I'm a huge fan. But let's get real I'm from Kansas City and I just really like good food. Big beast, small beast, ugly beast, cute beast - I'll try it if you tell me it tastes good.

Torcinelli

We had two primis - one a long spaghetti noodle with porcini mushrooms and another a risotto with artichoke hearts. Then I witnessed something I had never seen before. They cooked lit a fire in the fireplace and roasted the agnello and torcinelli in the living room right next to the table. AWESOME! I may have been a bit buzzed from the five glasses of 14% wine but I just couldn't help myself from singing campfire songs and requesting a harmonica.

The Monday after Easter is a holiday in Italy called Pasquetta. It's basically just another excuse for them not to work (seriously, they need more excuses?) and spend the day with friends. They do Easter with the family at home and Pasquetta with friends, generally at the beach or a country home.

Costantino's cute country cottage

Seven of us arrived to Costantino's little country cottage at 1 p.m. and immediately started making pasta, followed by a solid fire hours of roasting various meats over the wood-burning fire in the indoor fireplace. Still awesome. By 9 p.m. we all talked about leaving and going home to sleep as we were inebriated and bursting at the seams from all that food. I don't recall who exactly the jackass was that suggested we just finish the 7 cold beers that remained, but we agreed. Three hours, 48 beers and 10 rounds of a drinking game later, we finally left.

Tuesday morning we drove back to Rome and I vowed to eat only fruits and vegetables for the next week. I felt like I had gained 10 pounds in those 3 days and had eaten enough lamb to last me...at least a few weeks. That night when planning dinner - something quick and easy as we didn't have the energy or stomachs to eat, we decided on grilling a few torcinelli the stove. What? They were going to go bad.