Sam and I go to a party
I have a friend named Alberta who has a B&B not far from my house. I like her so much that I often drop by on my way home just to peek in and she’s usually there working at something. They have a huge farm as well as the B&B, and there’s always something doing. She is as slim as an arrow, and small wonder.
The other day she rang at my door and asked me to a party for last night, a little party to which her B&B guests would also be invited. I said yes before she finished the sentence. Sam came to the top of the stairs to bark at her, and she said, “Oh, bring the little dog too, but bring a leash just in case.”
So Sam and I got all cleaned up and put on mascara and high heels and went to Alberta’s. The little party was the 18th birthday celebration for her son and there were 100 guests, from 7 to about 85 years old! At first we were outside in the mild night having aperitivi and cheezy crunchy stuff. Sam was in Sam Heaven. People gave him cheezy crunchies! When my arms got tired of holding him up at face level, two girls offered to hold him. Wow! Crunchy cheezies and girls!
Then we all went inside for supper. I found a seat that was nicely out of the way with a clear stair area behind me, so if he wanted Sam could sit up at our seated face level. Sam wandered under the tables and around peoples’ feet, so I leashed him and kept him near. But that just made him want to get in my lap, so he was clawing at my satin pants. So I tried him on my lap, but he placed his little chin on the table, nose a micromillemeter from my plate of crostini, my napkin over his back. That was clearly not going to work, so down onto the floor he went.
Have you ever dined with 99 Italians, at least 40 of them aged 17-20? The noise level built. Corks were popping. Balloons were exploding. The laugh of a hyena rose above the roar of the crowd. Sam became ever more confused and frantic and I understood completely. We walked to the car and I lifted him in, and unlike Sam, he was happy to settle down and see me go! I checked on him several times and he was peacefully napping.
Selfish me, I was eating six different kinds of crostini and pecorino with honey. Then we had an exquisite pasta with a pink sausage sauce. Fantastic. We were treated to homemade tigelle, which are 3″ round flat breads, split and filled as you like. We were given homemade sausages and uncured pancetta, both grilled over wood outside, and zucchini agro dolce. Red and white wine from just outside the door were served as well as the sweetest well water I have tasted since my own West Virginia farm well water.
There was then an elaborate distribution of the gifts from Riccardo’s friends outside. He is studying to be a geometra, so he was asked potential exam questions and if he answered correctly he got one of the gifts to open. Probably because of the prosecco, it took quite a long time to open all the gifts! Forty handsome young men and only two girls. One could sigh for all the girls who stayed home last night.
Riccardo then came into the room family and friends were in and opened the presents they’d brought. I thought it was an interesting range, from black designer briefs to riding trousers, with some supposedly tigerish colognes along the way. There were some sweaters that were almost as handsome as Riccardo.
I helped bring out no less than four lemon panna cotta, that Umbrian cake that looks like a snake and whose name I can never remember, a Tira mi su, and then three people carried in the birthday cake. It was one meter long and half a meter wide! Sweet red sparkling wine called Brachetto d’Acqua was served. Tanti auguri a te was shouted, sung and smacked onto Riccardo’s cheek. I was tired. A lot of the guests spoke only dialect and it wears me down. So I kissed everybody whose name I knew, and then Sam and I slipped off to home and bed. He wanted to sit in my lap while I was driving, but it’s too dangerous for him, so he had to wait until face and teeth were washed and the fancy pants hung up.
And today he had another adventure, but this time he stayed firmly in the driver’s seat. We’ll tell that one when the leftovers are all stowed.
2 comments November 12th, 2006
