Dinner in Sassocorvaro

October 24, 2006 Saturday night we went to have dinner with the rest of the volunteers from the Festa. We had only helped a little with the chestnuts (and found out later that many of them had exploded!) and Larry had helped set up some tables, but we felt kind of funny about going. Felice had made such a big deal about the free meal we told him that we would walk there with him. On Thursday, I went over to Paola's house and she told me that this year the dinner was to be in Sassocorvaro because it was too cold at the palestra (gymnasium) in Belforte, which is where it is usually held. She wanted us to go with them and we didn't know what to do because Felice wanted the three of us to go together. Sassocorvaro is probably about 15 km away. much too far to walk, but after all, it was because Felice had taken us to work on the chestnuts that we were invited in the first place. We see him almost everyday so we decided we would talk to him about it when we saw him. Finally, on Saturday, when we still hadn't run in to him, Larry went to his house to tell him about the change. He wasn't home. He had told us that his son was supposed to come down from Bergamo (near Milano) on Saturday to pick him up and take him back to his house so we thought he'd already left. Paola, her daughter Carlotta, and her husband were supposed to come over at 7:45 to pick us up and at 7:30 the doorbell rings and there is Felice dressed up in his finest! So we tell him about the change and you can tell he is upset--no one had told him. Larry called Paola's house and her husband told him that a group of people were meeting at the bar to drive together so Felice could go down there. After Felice left we felt so bad. I told Larry that if Felice couldn't find a ride I would stay home so he could ride in my place. We saw him coming back up the road so Larry went out to tell him that he could go with him, but he told Larry that he had found a ride. We were so relieved!

The meal was fantastic (and free!). There were bottles of wine and water on the tables when we got there. They brought out platters of polenta with mushrooms or sausage, bruschetta and crostini (kind of like bruschetta but with mozzarella cheese and pancetta (like bacon) on it). Il primo piatto was pasta with mushrooms (of course I picked through the mushrooms to get to the noodles), il secondo piatt0 was filet of pork and rolled pork roast stuffed with tartuffi (no, I didn't take any of that!), salad, and dessert! Even eating only the things that I liked, I was stuffed! Larry and Felice both ate a ton and Felice drank enough to last a lifetime! The people around us made a great effort to include us in the conversation and we talked about mushrooms, tartuffi, Halloween (they said a few kids will come trick or treating), music, and dancing! In fact, there was a large dance floor that people kept trying to get us out on! Poor Felice, he wanted to dance, but couldn't seem to find anyone to dance with him! I would have danced with him, but I can not dance at all and would have made a fool of myself! In fact, Daddy always said that I was as graceful as a goose and I always took that to mean that I was not graceful. But I was just thinking that geese look very graceful when you see them flying so maybe all this time I really have been graceful! I guess maybe I should have danced with Felice after all! Once again, they were doing line dancing to all kinds of different music, some very fast music, too! They also did some very fancy ballroom type dancing!

We had a great time! We finally left at about 12:15 and there were young people just showing up! Hopefully, we will be invited to more of these get togethers!

***BTW, Larry is still breathing! Friday night we went to a class on wild mushrooms and we were happy to see that all of the mushrooms Larry ate were good ones! We were given two big books with colored pictures of all the mushrooms in Le Marche. The books tell you if they are edible or not! I guess we will lug the books around with us next time!