an ordinary lunch

I should have taken my camera.

 

I didn't even think to take it.

I was just going over to my friend's house for lunch. Just an ordinary day and an ordinary thing to do, right? No need for a camera.

It hit me as I shoveled the last strand of linguine into my mouth and watched my "bimba" being bounced from one loving Italian woman to another that to my blog readers and to myself before living in Itlay, it was not just an ordinary lunch.

I imagined telling someone in an office in middle America about my day. I'd tell her I drove through orchards and vineyards and gardens and castles to my friend's house where her mother and father live downstairs and her sister and family live upstairs. I'd talk about how I laughed as I took in the garlic scent while Rosalinda greeted me from the window and shouted, "I'm cooking!"

I'd have to tell her how everyone doted over my little baby daughter as if she were royal, and how they so perfectly Italianey (I think I just coined that word) argued over who cooked the better sauce and whether I put salt in my pasta water or not (for the record, I do, ever since learning about it in one of my many cooking classes over here). I'd tell her about how I sat at a table of powerful, Italian women. The mom, her two daughters, her granddaughter, and, of course her niece who brought along a delicious caprese cake (my favorite) that she'd spent all morning cooking. Yum.

Out of nowhere, Papa appeared with a paper sack full of fresh bread baked by his friend around the corner. He threw it down on the table, proclaiming, "Pane!" I devoured it and then discussed how to cook it with the niece. Yum, again.

I couldn't complete my story without saying that they all so perfectly Italianey shoved food in my face and made me take a bigger piece of cake to eat right there and then take an even bigger one home with me. "Mangia Katherine! Mangia!"

See? I should have taken my camera.

Looking back on it now, it sounds more like a very Italianey, romantically extraordinary lunch.

Yesterday's sunset. It never gets old, people.

Hope your weekend is extraordinary!