It is only my first day in this northern Italian city and I am already completely bewitched.
We had arrived via the Mont Blanc Tunnel, stopping for espressos in Valle d’Aosta before heading to the quiet town just outside Turin that would be my home for the week, a pastoral fairy tale of mild skies, wide open fields, and placidly grazing cattle.
Home itself had a carefully tended garden, windows that opened to views of the Alps, and two resident felines. It also came with a sunlit patio, a larder filled with vegetables, a truck smelling marvelously of fruit, and the vestiges of a household wine-making operation in the garage.
My first meal in Italy took place in the brightly painted kitchen: it was a memorable plateful of pasta al pomodoro fresco, whipped up with professional efficiency by my Turinese host while I let myself be lulled by the lilting cadences of Italian TV in the background.
He was unfazed by the drive from Geneva and just needed another espresso jolt, brewed in the silver moka pot that I was going to see a lot of over the next few days.
Real Italian pasta is a revelation, and so is real Italian coffee – if their cuisine was a religion, that was my big come-to-Jesus moment right there.
After lunch we went to load up on groceries and I got a good look around town while the locals (mostly of the typical Italian-grandparent variety) also got a good look at me.
You must be the only Asian here, my host observed.
A quiet afternoon in the garden with the furry neighborhood welcome committee followed, and then it was time to prep for dinner. My sole contribution: cleaning the mushrooms for a stew.
My host’s voluble parents joined us for the evening meal, and that was both my introduction to their sociable dining customs – the long and leisurely enjoyment of food, accompanied by local cheese from the market and a red wine produced in a nearby vineyard, with proper china and linen napkins – and a crash course in conversational Italian, albeit with the sweetest, most charming interlocutors.
A few French words helped, and my university classes in Spanish and Italian from long ago also came to the rescue, bolstering a wavering comprehension enough for me to catch Mamma asking her son something that sounds like, Lei non mangia veloce?
Me: Oh yes, I’m afraid I’m usually very slow. The food is great!
Cue surprised smiles all around. Oh, you do understand Italian!
Parlo italiano un po. I am glad to trot out one of the very few sentences I can say without overthinking.
To end the meal they pulled out a bottle of mirto, a myrtle liqueur that I liked much better than grappa.
You might tell your mom we are alcoholics here, the parents chuckled.
Sitting at that cheerful table, with a warm belly and full heart, wrapped in the convivial affection of my host family, what I do want to tell my mum is this: I don’t want to leave Turin anymore.
Discover more from Cassandra Cuevas
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
