Zucchini Flowers and a Progress Report

Friends came for dinner last night, and they brought us a giant bag of zucchini flowers! So today for lunch, they were stuffed with a little bit of mozzarella and fried. Tasty. But, I am starting to run out of inspiration!

And Bruce brought us a mountain of green plums from his tree, I wonder if they would make a good gallette.  Libby? John? I could use a hand!   Libby and John perfected their gallette technique when they were in Montone, and I could use a little of their expertise.

Here’s a progress report on the restaurant: we have steps! After weeks of picking our way down a path of broken rocks, we actually have steps.  They’ve started installing the front door, which has been an ongoing problem. The first door was rejected because it opened in, which is against code, now the door opens out with this bright red panic bar. It’s code, and so we must learn to love the bright red panic bar. This could take awhile.  Emilio and Ovidio are high on the scaffolding working on an art installation.
Everyone has a bit of the artist in him.  Ovidio is the construction captain, and his contribution was some wacky swirly stucco in the wine cellar niche.  Poor Ovidio, we made him smooth it out.  Now the tile guy has gone Gaudi meets Julian Schnabel! He got into breaking the tiles and putting them back in patterns.  The tile is set and there can’t be any changes, so I guess we love the tile too!

And I thought I’d show you a glimpse of the piazza this afternoon. Truly, everyone uses it as a public living room. The girls are doing their homework, the guys are playing cards, and while technically the tables belong to the Aries bar, which does have table service, they are obviously communal property. Piazza life is amazing, it’s the beating heart of town and we should all be there sharing a Proseco instead of sitting in front of a computer. Ciao!