8/30/11 Fig Overdose

The drive to my zia Maria’s house took slightly longer than it should have.  I blame this on two things: our lack of maps; and a wrong turn at Pordenone.  Dad had made this trip many times, the directions should have been automatic, but time had impacted the scenery and his recollection.  No worries though, it’s all about the journey.  It’s funny, my father is definitely changing.  Years ago he, like the typical man (your author included) would never stop and ask for directions.  Doing so is an admission that you don’t know where you’re going which can be indicative of larger struggles than just directions…its emasculating.  But stop and ask for directions is what he did when he admitted that we were lost.  I had to laugh when the helpful woman said “Codroipo?  Oh, you’re going in completely the wrong direction.” Which I can only assume meant that we were driving away from there.  The only thing that could be more completely wrong is if we were burrowing into the earth or shooting ourselves into space.  She followed that up with “Where are you from?” as if to imply that nobody from around here would dare to get lost.  She was relieved to know that we were from out of country.

Predictably, we received a warm welcome on our arrival at zia Maria’s house in Iutizzo.  She wasn’t alone, my zia Rosa was also there.  Both of them are widows…fiercely independent widows.  We’ve never discussed details, but I recall my zia Maria telling me that since she’s been on her own she’d welcome the company of a man, but nobody was going to move into her house.  I take that to mean that she has no plans on leaving her house either, which is fine by me; I like it here for many reasons, not the least of which are the fig trees.

Mom planned this trip to coincide with fig season.  If we were going to miss out on the height of tomato season back home, they’d have to be supplanted with something equally delicious.  Within the first half hour of our arrival I must have eaten twenty of them.  I was on a pure fig overdose.  The taste and the texture, sweet with a hint of crunchiness because of the seeds, the delicate seeds, is completely unique.  Close your eyes, and some may have a hard time telling the difference between an apple and a pear; a fig cannot be mistaken for anything else.  Having access to the fresh fruit reminds you of how much the dried version sucks.

Lunch was a simple but delicious affair: pasta followed by the freshest prosciutto, pancetta, mortadella and salami possible.  It all went down extremely well with the red wine and grappa.  Then, surrounded by hundreds of acres of corn fields with nothing to do but relax, I laid down on a recliner in the sun and let the time pass.  All that was missing was the splash of ocean waves; in their place, the chirps of chicks pecking at the grass under the watchful eye of the mother hen.  It’s good to get away from it all.