Summary
We felt the need for a lazy day – a little ‘dolce far niente’. Having thoroughly enjoyed our home-cooked meal last night, we decided to make both lunch and dinner at our hotel. Drove to the weekly outdoor market in nearby Alba in search of ingredients but eventually got impatient with the inefficiency of the vendors and ended up at a local grocery store. Back at our lodging we made lunch and hung out all afternoon in the shade to blog and catch up on emails.
Details
We have many types of days between relocating or planned activities, moving in or moving out, long drives. Today we have none of those. We don’t really have any big plans either so maybe it’ll just turn out to be a quiet, relaxing day, which would be fine.
Of course we have to do the usual, getting up, bathing, and dressing. It’s not hard when you know what a delicious breakfast awaits. As good as it is, we have some leftover fruits that we’re adding to the mix. We also have some chopped up sautéed mushrooms and turkey breast. Karen asks that they be added to a made-to-order omelette with cheese and ooh-wee-baby it’s good.
Raffaella or Stelle (or the other lady, we never got her name) are always coming around asking if we want yogurt or more coffee or some magic fruit juice that they make themselves. Today’s fruit juice? Strawberry. Oh my, so delicious. I look at the breakfast in front of me and I think of the adage “eat your colors”. We’re doing well by that measure. We’re offered water, too, but Karen will typically get up and go outside, across the driveway to the always-on flow of well water and fill our glasses. It has some tasty minerals.
After breakfast we do head out in our car. We’re driving up to Alba to the outdoor market. It’s covered, which is nice, but it’s still open air. We can warm in the sun for a bit and then duck inside and cool off in the shade. They have everything you would expect: cooked meats (including rotisserie chicken), raw meats, cheeses, clothings, housewares, hardware, and of course lots of fruits and vegetables. That’s where we focus our attention.
We’re always intrigued by the tribal nature of vegetable shopping. You’ll have three or four or more booths selling produce. It all looks colorful, fresh and good. And yet one place will have a long line of people waiting to put in their order and the others will have a client or two. Is it habit? Price? Knowledge about the best sources?
We buy a few things at one of the lesser in demand stalls. What we buy looks perfectly delicious. Later we make a list of everything else we want. We go to the one big “in demand” stand. They have a “take a number” machine, and we do. We’re number 90 and they’re servicing the person holding the slip of paper with 72 on it. Yikes. The good news is that they have four people on the other side of the produce. The bad news is that two are on break, one’s restocking, and one is waiting on customers. Hm.
After twenty minutes of waiting they’re up to number 80 and we’re still holding 90. We’re out of here. Our GPS says there is a Carrefour grocery store not too far away. It’s a French grocery store chain and we have a prejudice for such things. Alas it seems not to have done well here as it’s dark and shuttered, and the parking gate is fenced off and padlocked. Maybe there’s some bad blood between the two countries. Or maybe it’s the other three supermarkets a stone’s throw away.
We head into one of the other stores and grab a trolly basket. The fruit and produce here looks pretty much as beautiful as that at the market, but with no waiting. We’ve been bitten before so as we grab stuff we look around for how the weighing goes. On each bin of product there’s a number from 01 to 99. Take your bag of [whatever] to the scale. Press the corresponding number on the scale’s big matrix of numbers. And out pops an adhesive printed label with the price. Easy-peasy. This seems much more logical than in the US where we’re forced to remember that zucchini is 4067.
They also have rotisserie chicken which we’re very much in the market for. It’ll last us for both dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. It’s going straight into the fridge so I look up and ask (in Italian) if she has it cold. She gives me a funny look and assures me they don’t. We don’t buy wine but do look. We see a couple of Italian brands from our past: Lancers and Mateus rosé (shudder).
Back “home” we have the kitchen all to ourselves. We make two big salads with a big variety of ingredients and, for tomorrow’s lunch, we make a big tuna salad, again with lots of finely chopped vegetables. We have a gorgeous head of butter lettuce and each leaf will serve nicely as a conduit to get the tuna into our mouths. We eat our “today lunch” al fresco where the sun and temperature continue to be idyllic.
After lunch, pretty much for the rest of the day, we spend our time outside, alternating between sling back chairs on the lawn and normal chairs under a cute patio cover of tile.
At dinner time we chat with fellow Americans Peter and Laura, also on a very extended holiday over here. He’s a big wine aficionado (now that he’s retired from the rigors of orthopedic surgery in San Diego). He speaks highly of Raffaella’s wine so I order a glass of the 2021. Indeed delicious.
We’re again the only ones doing anything in the kitchen so throwing together dinner is quick and fun. We again eat outdoors, the way we’re sure our ancestors (the cave men) used to do.
Post dinner we clean and head back to our room for one last night. We’ll definitely miss this place.
Photos
