Postcards from Italia: Seconda Parte
"She drove a red Ferrari, dress is from Armani."
Postcards from Italia
Benvenuto to all of the new readers who have subscribed to LAST CALL during my continued Italian adventure. It’s great to have you here and I hope you enjoy these spirited dispatches.
First item: Based on some generous feedback is that most American readers would have difficulty pronouncing a key word in my all-new working title for this book project, Bere Italiano. So I quickly pivoted with an assist from my former book editor Emily Timerblake with the Italian-approved Beviamo Italiano (“Let’s drink Italian”). I’m hoping that will stick. Plus, it rhymes!
After spending most of Thursday in Pisticci Scalo with the famiglia Vena, the producers of Amaro Lucano, we worked our way toward historic Matera where photographer Ed Anderson and I spent the early afternoon on a Piaggio Ape tour through winding alleys, caves, nooks, and rooftops. (I chose the baby blue Ape while Ed went with classic royal blue.)
It was a long, construction-delayed drive to Rome, and we got in late but had time for pizza and birra near our hotel in Trastevere. Our hotel is very nice but has a few too many hip-for-the-sake-of-it quirks, such as problematic wifi issues, inconveniently located outlets, and hidden mission-control style switches to turn off the multiple light installations that illuminate my room. But I have a balcony the size of a studio apartment and I’m writing this dispatch from the cornflower blue cafe table per due that overlooks the city (and the rooftop balcony just across from me has two tall trees dotted with bright lemons and oranges).
Many of the specifics of these adventures will be saved for Beviamo Italiano, but when I return to Brooklyn I’ll share some more stories on what I ate and drank here in Italy.