We arranged a Lyft at 4:45am for a ride from an Earl’s Court hotel, our base lodging for this Fall’s adventures, to Heathrow for a British Airway flight (before their pilot strike) to Rome. Arriving at the Rome airport, we caught a bus to Avesano, a 2 hour ride east. Our Malta friend, Stefano picked us up in a little red car. After an ATM stop, we drove 20 minutes across the countryside to a little hillside village, Corchumello, where Stefano and Marie have their “ cottage” a courtyard away from Stefano’s mother and stepfather’s “cottage” in this small hillside village.
After dropping our backpacks off at the Agritourismo Le Acacie, owned by friends of Stefano and Marie’s —their Italian wedding celebration was held in this same venue 13 years prior -we headed further across the country side hugging the hills to Tagliacozzo, with Marie and Lilli, their teenage daughter, for a late lunch in the square where we were the only tourists.
The stage was set for a whole weekend full of fun- walking tour of quiet Tagliacozzo, Lilli guiding us on a tour of Corchumello, an outdoor market, an incredible lunch made by Stefano’s mother for 11 of us on their porch overlooking the valley below — including homemade wine and a digestive-aide liquor.
As hoped, we did a little farm work, picking tomatoes— a bit back bending like strawberries. The garden contained black cabbage, which I had never seen before. The leaves are edible so it maybe more kale-like then cabbage-y. It makes for a rich soup.
The 5 of us piled into the little red car for a Sunday picnic and a swim at Lake Scanno with a hike along Lake San Domenico on the way. We had to stop for a wedding procession at the start of the journey, which reminded me just last Sunday we attended our friend Courtney ‘s wedding in Nashville. Andrew and I had put a few miles under us in a week.
Andrew and I took the train into Rome for the day while Stefano and Marie prepared to close up their house for the summer. The Colosseum, Forum, Pallatine Hill, Pantheon and the best gelato (Marie’s recommendation) were all part of the tour scripted by Stefano and guided by Andrew, who had been to Rome a few years before to attend a conference.
Our last night, the 4 of us, as Lilli was in Rome at her grandparent’s house for the night, shared an incredible 4 course vegetarian meal at our agritourisma.
After a quick spin along the countryside on their bikes, the 4 us packed into the little red car and we caught a bus back to the Rome airport to catch a Veilung Airlines flight back to London as our British Airways flight was canceled due to the pilot strike- still trying to get reimbursed for that flight. Stefano and Marie drove on to Rome for one more family night before they flew back to Malta and their teaching jobs at the University of Malta and Lilli’ s transition to middle school.
Marie is so wonderful to be with as she starts conversations with so many people and is so engaging and curious. She is also very bright and quick to understand the complexities of a situation. She is my favorite behavioral economist. Marie is also an environmentalist- rides her bike to work and has co written a book of environmental cartoons called No Man’s Land.
Stefano is a chef and an environmental economist specializing in 3rd world and island economies.
I hope we can share a Michigan weekend with them soon. I am eager to show them Torch Conservation Center’s TRUE BLUE Gallery as both of them are eager to find ways to expand awareness of sustainable living.
I noted a few sustainable living practices worth sharing from the Abruzzo region of Italy. For one, their love of food leads to an intimate interaction with food products. It is not just the gustatory pleasure but their involvement in the whole food process from the foraging, planting, harvesting, drying, seed collection for next year’s plantings, fermenting, canning and finally cooking. It is so much more than “farm to table.” I know it takes more time but it seems like gardening with a purpose.
Another sustainable food approach was the Italian use of pork. Thin slices of pork- more for flavoring-than as an entree may place a smaller demand on pork. Consolidated pork production in the US is an environmental hotspot. I do not know if smaller demand would drive smaller pig farmers back into the market. Probably not. But, if they not only butchered but prepped and cured their own sausages and slices, as we saw in the family run butcher shop, the American appetite for hand crafted foods might be able to carry the economic alteration from big mass production to small hand crafted pork goods.
Not only changes in food but also changes in housing appeared more connected to nature than our American practices. The clustering of housing in their villages not only builds tight communities, it also keeps more land in a natural state- for forest, grazing or farming instead of roads and buildings. While this concentration of hard surfaces may be a problem with increased storm runoff. It seems easier to incorporate buffer or wetland areas around the village than around individual residences. In my eyes, more green scape than hard scape is more efficient use of land. In a way, the condo market is addressing a clustering of housing.
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