Carciofi Ortano Festa or ‘let’s party for a fun vegetable’ !!

The carciofo (artichoke) is in season and appearing all over town from deep fried, steamed in olive oil, to pizza and the list goes on!! Who would think the village would not only have them at 10+ restaurants in all different types of cooking! So exciting…well exciting is a cautious word here on artichokes but I had to find out. The other night was the ‘Festa’ for the artichokes. I made the reservations and off Carol (my friend) and I went. Exactly where we were to go we did not know, but somewhere around the train station so we shall ask and scope it out. On the other side of the train station is some kind of area set up for small venues. Our reservation for the event said be there at 6pm. Not wanting to insult the Italians, we arrived punctually (shhhh I know I’m usually a bit late..) and to our fascinating surprise the Italians did not show. Well they did…around 8pm they started trickling in!! Asking one of the volunteers about 6:30 when we noticed a severe shortage of people, he said “we put 6pm on the event and hope they show by 7. It’s the Italian way.’ So you try not to laugh, but so true. They don’t eat dinner til after 8pm generally. And of course, that is my bedtime!! But I soldiered through to watch this event happen.

Marcello Balena set up and played his saxophone for a long time, just lovely music. I have a couple of his CD’s. What an amazing talented musician. And so very nice. Sitting on the hay bales, listening to great music, watching cows way up on the side of a hill grazing and walking around, good weather…just doesn’t get much better.

Waiting on covered bales of hay, we had Aperol Spritz and glasses of sparkling strawberry wine. Very sweet and so good. Fragolini, a strawberry wine. Similar to sangria but fizzy and sweet with the fragrance of strawberries. Nice.

More waiting…then the process started and believe me…this event is like New Year’s Eve in Times Square. You do it once. Although there were a few adventures that were oh so cool – the long line to pay, but I digress…here is the process …..

Once they confirm you have a reservation, and help you find your table in a huge covered tent, you get the food choice ‘bill’. You decide what you want, check the boxes, then you get up and go to the cashier line, pay, take your paid receipt along with your food choices back to the tent and give to one of the servers. You sit back down and wait. And then you wait…and hope you get some morsel of artichoke soon. Although with our Aperol Spritz and Fragolini Wine, we did have an appetizer of fried artichoke pieces so we weren’t in the starving mode – the artichokes were tasty and held us off for the main course! As you see from the selection of food – they serve in courses!!!

By 9pm, the place was packed. All you can do is just laugh and remember that an hour or two late is ‘fashionably Italian’. !! Our table neighbors were four young men who spoke English in various degrees. So handsome and adorable…so in chatting them up, I found out where they worked…two at the train company. One a train driver and one an engineer. High school buddies in Orte.

The local Italians speak very little English but there are exceptions and I am so appreciative that they are patient with me. My Italian is getting better and in time I will be fluent. I find them to be a very kind and fun people. And helpful. Learning a few Italian phrases and polite words make all the difference in the world.

I think the dessert of some artichoke pastry was the best, although the pastry seemed to have more berries and chocolate than artichokes!!! We finished off a bottle of Sangiovese wine with dinner…and walked back to the train station and called a taxi. For $10 he takes us pretty close to my apartment. Marcello Balena was amazing. More on him later. A dear friend.

Tomorrow we go to Rome and then to Naples. Naples is having a huge soccer game on Sunday. No tickets available but we can go to a bar and cheer Napoli on!! The trains are just magnificent so easy to get from point to point. But first…the carciofi!!

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