Tu vuo' fa l'americano

My Blip today is a strange mixture.

I see these cars every time I go to work.
Big, brash and beautiful Chevrolet. Cars from the past which have been lovingly restored and conserved for the future. The song Tu Vuò Fa' L'Americano came to mind this morning.

A funeral was held in Italy today, for a person very dear to me. My thoughts have very much been in Italian. The connection with these cars?

When I first met Esterina, I was 19. She was my sister in law's mother... As inappropriate as it may seem, this was probably one of the first "all time" Italian songs which I was introduced to, around the time I met her. I've spent only happy times in Esterina's company and know she'd give me a disapproving "oooooaaahhhhh" , then burst out laughing. I was a mad "Inglesina" with strange ideas. I hardly spoke Italian and she spoke the Abruzzese dialect . In all the years I've known her, we've always had to have a translator at hand!

For me, every visit to Esterina's house was an enlightenment. When I met her she would cook delicious meals, for however many were present, in a copper pan over an open fireplace. The only cooker, as we know it, was covered and rarely used. Her husband went to work on a mule and the bread, made from local grains mixed with home grown potatoes was baked in a real wood fuelled oven in the basement of the house.

There, I learnt of the delights of Uva fragola and Pizzutello grapes from the vines on her terrace. Collecting water from a spring and foraging for wild salads. My first steps into the world of fungi... Miles of walking for Porcini and Cantharelle, and the excellence of the meals to follow their find.

In the winter, high in the mountains of Abruzzo, our breath froze on contact with the air in the house, and you thought twice about braving the cold in the bathroom! The communal fountain was the fridge for watermelons in the summer, the thirst quencher for the mule and the place where you washed your linen, in public. The ash from the hearth was the only bleach and the soap was made from fat, but the whites were always brilliant white.

There I learnt the reality of keeping a pig. It's slaughter... the realisation that black pudding was actually what my father told me it was! I learnt to make sausages and how a real proscuitto is made. That the phrase, every part of a pig is used, apart from its grunt, is absolutely true!

When I tripped over one day and broke Esterina's entire dinner service... in my "wealthy" ignorance, I couldn't know the cost.

I'll be indebted forever for the knowledge and the insight that woman gave me. The mad English woman strikes again!

I'm happy for all you gave me, Esterina.
Let's dance!