The Dolce Vita--sweet life--is far more than an itinerary

Today we have a rare and special blog entry about the sweet life from my sweet wife Lucy.

Paul and I have always said about our travels, “It’s the people we interact with that make the deepest impression.” The art and architecture, the mountains, the rivers, the festivals are all very important and impressive, but it’s our conversations—with both locals and fellow travelers—that reach our hearts and stick with us for a lifetime.

Paul and I are working with a Christian group called Cru, staying two weeks in Vetralla, about 60 miles north of Rome. It’s situated on the Via Francigena, the pilgrim trail that runs from Canterbury to Rome. People walk this trail for many reasons—spiritual, a love of hiking and nature, exercise, and to meet people. Our aim is to serve these pellegrini (pilgrims), whether that means providing them with snacks, water and wine, fixing their wounds (we have a doctor in the group), providing sympathetic listening ears, and when appropriate, sharing our own experiences with God.

Today I went with my friend Terrie to a local shop called Il Pastaio (the pasta maker) to help interpret while she learned from the pastaio and helped his crew make gnocchi from scratch. We had purchased some ravioli from Cesare Birelli last week, and when Terrie expressed an interest in learning the pasta making process, Cesare responded with “Certo!” and invited her to come back in a few days.

At the end, we received fresh
gnocchi and sauce for our 
group's dinner

We arrived a bit shy and uncertain, but Cesare greeted us warmly, along with co-workers Alexandra Bordeianu and Laura Bartoli. Alexandra originally hails from Transylvania and has been working with Cesare for a year, while Laura started just two weeks ago. They had clean jars waiting to be filled with spicy pumpkin and chestnut soup. They placed them in an industrial-sized steamer to seal, and then they filled more jars with soup made with fresh porcini mushrooms and potatoes. They said that later they would also be processing a mixture that included strawberry grapes—but first, we must make gnocchi!

Alberto is a healthy 97-year-old 
regular customer of Il Pastaio.

Cesare had cooked the potatoes and showed Terrie how to rice them, a fairly strenuous process, she said. Then they weighed out a kilo of potatoes, an etto (100 grams) of flour, two handfuls of salt and 150 grams of potato flakes. All this was placed in a mixer to create the pasta (literally paste). Then they took hunks of dough and hand-rolled them into cylinders which were then cut it into half inch lengths, dusted by Terrie with rice flour who set the pieces on trays. Alexandra would stop as needed to serve customers.

That’s an overview of what happened, but the real story is the friendly banter we shared. We sang songs from “Alexa,” joked (macho, macho, man…), laughed and shared details of our life stories and spiritual journeys. We felt completely comfortable and included as these gentle friends initiated us strangers into the bella vita of Italy. We found that each of these pasta makers has a personalized and somewhat humorous nickname. We heard about their families, and noted that Cesare had a framed photo of “Nonna” on the wall. In the end, we prayed together that God would continue to bless their lives, their families and their shop, and we promised each other that we would share more stories in heaven. Thank you, friends. We love you, too!