Two in one: Elizabeth, cook and entertainer of many, and Martin, everyone’s favorite local artist and all-around great fellow. How can you celebrate two such exceptional people? Melchiorre knows. You roast a suckling pig in the kitchen fireplace.
The place is Melchiorre’s family home in Umbria. The festive ones are expatriates from many countries, and the chef is said Melchiorre, Sardegnan by birth and Umbrian by rearing. The man has a way with meat.
The first course was raviolone, or big ravioli, stuffed with potato and cheese and sauced with piquant honey from his own bees and chili peppers. There’s no photo of the finished dish, because I decided to be the assistant and waitress.
This capable and generous woman always seems to be the helper, and it seems like it might be time for her to a bit more the guest and a bit less the worker bee.
But what is Melchiorre doing in the kitchen? Why he’s talking the piglet through rehearsal.
Where shall we eat this feast?
Maybe this table set for twenty six will do.
Who is Martin, again? Right over there in the corner among his friends.
After dinner, Brian played the accordion for us as we pretended to know the words to the songs. At the British sea chanties, we gave even the pretense up.
Then I drove home and 2 miles from my house had a flat tire. It was dark, there were 80 kilos of salt in the trunk on top of the tiny spare and I hadn’t so much as a match to light the job, so I took off down the road in my party heels and halfway there I was rescued and given a ride the rest of they way. Did you know your cellphone makes a decent warning signal to approaching cars? Now you do. And who gave me a ride?
The Samaritan was the chef of a local restaurant, and I call that serendipity.
Saturday night, for the second time in my life I was serenaded by an Italian man. If you think about it as I do, it’s extraordinary to be serenaded twice. Once, even, was memorable. It was on the hillside near Bar Zodiac in Rome, and I don’t remember the song, but I remember the man, Pasquale, in Rome from Bari to take his bar exams. It was 1973 and for an American girl it was both a little unnerving and absolutely wonderful.
Saturday night I was serenaded because I’d been helping the chef in the kitchen plate the food and take it to the table. And I am a female and wore a skirt, because I’m sure in small ways it helps to be female if you like being serenaded.
This is the song he sang, an old timer by Domenico Modugno who is most famous for creating “Volare” and “Ciao, ciao bambina.” Modugno is no more, but his legend and his music lives on, at least in Italy. Most everyone here can sing along to those two songs, but the fellow who sang “L’uomo in frac” is the first I’ve known who can sing that sad song all the way through, and perhaps the only man I know who would. Especially who would sing it in front of a crowd of people picking up their bits and preparing to go home. I’ve translated the words for you below.
You watch Modugno sing this song by going to YouTube. The film is in black and white because it predates color television in Italy, but it’s a wonderful piece, I promise. On that page there are a number of early Modugno performances you may never have seen. Do yourself a favor and listen in.
L’uomo in frac
Domenico Modugno
È giunta mezzanotte
si spengono i rumori
si spegne anche l’insegna di quell’ultimo caffè
le strade son deserte
deserte e silenziose
un ultima carrozza cigolando se ne va
il fiume scorre lento
frusciando sotto i ponti
la luna splende in cielo
dorme tutta la città
It’s reached midnight,
the noise is gone,
even the sign of the last cafe is off.
The streets are empty,
a last creaking carriage goes off,
the river flows slowly,
murmuring under the bridge
the moon shines in the sky,
all the city sleeps.
solo va un uomo in frac
ha il cilindro per cappello
due diamanti per gemelli
un bastone di cristallo
la gardena nell’occhiello
e sul candido gilet un papillon
un papillon di seta blu
There’s only a man in tails,
wearing a top hat,
two diamonds for cuff links,
a walking stick of crystal,
a gardenia in his buttonhole
and over his white vest, a bow tie,
a bow tie of blue silk.
s’avvicina lentamente con il cedere elegante
ha l’aspetto trasognato malinconico ed assente
e non si sa da dove vien
ne dove va
chi mai sarà
quell’uomo in frack
He nears slowly with an elegant yielding.
He looks dreamy, melancholy and distracted,
and one doesn’t know from where he came
or where he goes
but who can he be,
that man in tails?
Buona notte
va dicendo ad ogni cosa
ai fanali illuminati
ad un gatto innamorato
che randagio se ne va
Good night
he says to everything:
to the lighted street lamps
to a cat in love
who strays and goes away.
È giunta ormai l’aurora
si spengono i fanali
si sveglia a poco a poco tutta quanta la città
la luna si è incantata sorpresa impallidita
pian piano scolorandosi nel cielo sparirà
It’s already become dawn,
the streetlights go out,
little by little the all the city wakes.
The moon is enchanted, surprised, faded,
slowly fading in the sky to disappear.
Sbadiglia una finestra sul fiume silenzioso
e nella luce bianca galleggiando se ne van
un cilindro un fiore e un frack
galleggiando dolcemente lasciandosi cullare
se ne scende lentamente sotto i ponti verso il mare
verso il mare se ne va
chi mai sarà
chi mai sarà
quell’uomo in frack
A window yawns on the silent river
and in the white light float away
a top hat, a flower and tails,
floating softly under the bridge toward the sea.
Toward the sea it goes away
who could he be,
who could he be,
that man in tails?
Addio al mondo
ai ricordi del passato
ad un sogno mai sognato
ad un attimo d’amore che mai più
ritornerà
Goodbye to the world,
to memories of the past
and a dream never dreamed
and a moment of love that will never more return.
In a week when the edges of my love affair with Italy have been seriously scuffed, it’s a wonderful thing to be reminded once again that they have some thing exactly right.
