Festa della Mama

An interesting fact to start off this week's blog post- did you know that the clothing sizes in Italy run 2 whole sizes smaller??? The blue shirt above was a gift from the church in Taranto for Eric's birthday. This one in particular, was after we exchanged the original (size L) for an XL. Underneath the blue shirt is one of Eric's shirts from the states, a size L. Needless to say we went back and got a 2XL. When we googled it sure enough, an Italian 2XL is equivalent to our L!

Two weekends ago, the brothers, Eric, Mino, and spent Saturday evening visiting the city called Grottaglie, which is famous for it's hand made ceramics.

Eric and Luca

Fabrizio and Mino

Little Caesar's anyone?

Grottaglie was so beautiful at night. They were having some sort of festival that night in this park. The floors were so beautiful and shiny. It felt like we were in some sort of dream land. Later, we returned back to Taranto and got some pizza to-go. We took it back to our place, watched a movie, and ate some delicious chocolate chip cookies (thanks Jim!).

This particular Sunday morning, was Franco's (Mino's dad) turn to preach at the church inTaranto. Afterwards, Franco and Mino invited us to ride with them to Franco's parent's country house for a Mother's day lunch together. On our way, Mino put in a cd with a familiar favortie tune of mine. . . =)

Above is the Verardi family! Grandmaw, Grandpaw, Franco, Anna Maria, kids, sisters, brothers, cousins, and two Americans =)

After eating a plate full of penne pasta and red sauce, this was our second plate!

What's next? After some mixed nuts and cafe, it was time for desert! Cooking in general is not my strong suit. Both my mom and grandmaw are excellent cooks- somewhere down the line, the gene was dropped. Normally this is not such a big deal- in fact, sadly, in America, most of us are too busy to wory about dinner anyway (at least speaking for Eric and I). However, here in Italy, cooking and eating is like a love language. When someone has you over for lunch or dinner, it is the nicest gesture that the can do for you. The women here are absolutely incredible. The amount of time they spend cooking and cleaning in the kitchen is beyond me- and they love it. All of this to say, no I haven't miracously became an Italian Julia Child over night, but like everything else here in Italy, I have found my way to a different solution- dessert. Out of all of the fabulous food italy has to offer- the dessert course is a little lacking. They have crispy chocolate filled bombolonies, small strawberry tarts, and cream puffed cannolis, but when it comes to a fudge brownie or a red velvet cake- they have never heard of it. I It makes me happy and alot more at ease, that I now have something in return to contribute to this love affair of food! Maria (the daughter of Franco) told me the last time we were together, that she liked peanut butter cookies (a missionary in the past had made for her). Knowing that there would be about 20 something people for lunch that day, I wanted to make something else in addition. My original plan was to make a red velvet, thanks to my mom who shipped the red food coloring =) However, after returning home from Grottaglie and cooking cookies for the boys, I ran out of time. I settled for a cupcake mix with sprinkles instead.

Katia, her little sister, Andrea and Mino

Maria and Salvatore

All together =)

At the Verardi country house, they also have a tremendous garden full of vegetables, flowers, grapes, lemon and olive trees.

Me and Anna Maria (Franco's wife)

Franco and Eric

Eric, Mino, and Andrea

Franco and his iphone =)

The girls =)

What a wonderful afternoon together. It was so nice to be with the Verardi family and enjoy getting to know them better. Eric and I feel very blessed to have them here close to us while we are working so far away from our home in America.