Chook! ‘Pollo’! Freshly roasting chicken…I could smell them. Started salivating, followed the nose and there they were! And there too, in front of the van selling chickens directly off the rotisserie, were 17 Italian mamas also hell bent on claiming ‘Pollos’. Not just one, whole rotisserie forks full! And that when the trouble started.
It was ugly. Hair flew! Kids scattered. Tourists dropped their Zeppoles (donut holes). Dogs leapt up and down in the dust adding excited yapping to the cacophony of screeching Italian fishwives and, like a conductor with baton in hand enticing the best from the brass section, the chook cooker waved his empty rotisserie fork. Empty!
Took some time for the scrum to settle as the scowling women, clutching just two chooks each to their heaving breasts, dispersed into the normally peaceful Thursday markets. But why the kerfuffle?
Well it seems cooked chook isn’t as common as an Aussie barbie ‘Coles drive by’ in this neck of the woods. The ‘supermercatos’ don’t stock them and the lone village butcher takes orders a week in advance then delivers the little gems into hands waving tickets on Sunday morning between 10 am and 1pm. I learnt this the hard way. No order, no Pollo. Hmmph!
Today I scored! And you know what? That poor bird had not given up the fight without a serious battle of her own. Small, tough and coated in a golden roasted skin. Actually she reminded me of…
Meanwhile, a lovely collage of fishing nets I found piled in a little corner of the village.
Have I told you about my little nest? My abode? The one I sacrificed my first born to rent? Eh! eh! And you thought Port Macquarie Holiday Inn was a tad on the dodgy?
ce you persevered you’d be sleeping in the bathtub for there’s only one bed, a permanently folded out sofa protruding from under thewardrobe cupboards. And it’s mine. I’ve grown quite fond of my bed…and the bedspread. It closely resembles a green and orange checked picnic blanket and is complimented with matching lime sheets the texture of table cloths. Thread count? Let’s just say, exfoliation while you sleep.
I grasp enough to respond with ‘massiccia!’ (massive) as we drive up and around Italy’s main military and commercial harbor which hosts the arsenal of the Italian Navy, ‘mozzafiato! (breathtaking) while hugging the coastline affording spectacular views of warships, yachts and mussel beds and ‘e cosi bella!’ as we slip down into Porto Venere.
