Festival of the Prosciutto

Friday night we went to Basciano, small mountain top village in the province of Teramo, for the festival of prosciutto.

As festivals go, this one is better organized than most. There are several stands selling prosciutto, and they are run like restaurants. The staff help you find a table, take your order, bring you your prosciutto, cold cuts, and other stuff, and then ask for payment. The one we were at last night didn't ask for the money until we had finished eating, but some of the other stands ask for payment when the food is delivered.

The menu is rather limited: prosciutto, couple different salami, since cheese, other cuts of pork, fried dough, bread melon, wine, beer, water, etc.

Here's a picture of one of the stand's display window showing some of the different stuff.

Lazy Saturday afternoon

Spent about 90 minutes at the beach this morning, almost all of it struggling to try to pretend to swim.

Time to relax, find a cool spot, have a cool drink.

It's hot today. At 4 PM it's 87 degrees F and 55% humidity.

Music in Piazza del Popolo, Colonnellla

This past Sunday we went to a free concert held in the town square (in this case it was called Piazza del Popolo) in the mountain village of Colonnella, only a few km from Tortoreto.

We've been to this piazza before, they have festivals here every year in mid to late August.

The group featured was a sort of a retro revue, featuring songs from the 60-90's from a well known well liked artist, Ivan Graziani
( https://www.google.it/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=z33EVbHvFI_F8AeahZcg#q=ivan+graziani )
Ivan passed away in '97, but his son has organized this band featuring many of the artists that worked with Ivan over the years.

The artists didn't all come out at once, they came out in ones and two.
It started out with a keyboard and a guitar.  They played a couple songs from their era, rather easy going songs.  Then they were joined by a drummer (Ivan's son Filippo) and a bassist.  They played a few more songs, now a little faster and harder.  Finally a vocalist came out, and he turned up the fire, asked the crowd to come closer, and got things rocking and rolling.

Personally, I rather enjoyed the early and mid part of the concert, the noisy rock phase at the end didn't do anything for me.

The concert was free. There weren't even stands to sell food or T-Shirts.  The city just sponsored this concert to give the people something nice to do on a Sunday night.

Sagre del Maiale e dei Gnocchi Ripieni

A sagra (festival) dedicated to the pig (maiale) and to a sort of stuffed dumpling (gnocchi ripieni.)
This festival was at Sant Egidio alla Vibrata, province of Teramo, not far from Tortoreto.

They offer many of the usual festival foods for a sagre from Abbruzzo.
They have some combo prices on chosen menus.
The one we chose (and the one you see here) features the Gnocchi Ripieni, 3 kinds of pork, fried cheese, and stuffed fried olives.

Gnocchi Ripieni

The plate on the left has the stuffed dumplings.
The insides are ground beef and seasonings.

Formaggio Fritto

The plate on the right has 3 kinds of pork, fried olives (Olive all'Ascolana), and fried cheese.
Yes, fried cheese.  Yum!

The 3 kinds of pork included a sort of cutlet (I'm sorry I don't know precisely what cut), a few bones with pork meat attached, and a small pork sausage.

The stuffed olives are stuffed with ground beef and seasonings, breaded, and fried.  This recipe was made famous in Ascoli, thus they're called Olive all'Ascolana.


It was all very good.  I could have eaten more, but prudence kept me from doing so.
We only discovered this sagra just last year, and it's already one of our favorites.

Why can't i find this type of small mild green pepper in Columbus?

See the picture.

In Napoli you can find these small green peppers, mild, not hot.

I can't find anything like this in Columbus. Everything of this size is hot or super hot.