Three Summers: Eataly

Italian food deserves a post of its own as it's true that Italians make food their own - as if they themselves invented the humble tomato or the olive. They are as passionate about food as they are about their language and their history.

There are a few unforgettable and special Italians that we have met over the past few weeks for whom food was their passion.

Antonio has been cooking in his small terrace restaurant down on the shore of Lake Como at Careno, for 30 years now. We had made a reservation for 7.30pm and as Antonio's is located some 200 stone steps away from "La Vecchia Casa del Prete" we headed down around 4.00pm to have a swim in the lake before dinner.

"Tonight you will forget about pizza and spaghetti" is how Antonio greeted us. From that moment we were entirely in Antonio's hands. No menu, no wine list, it all just arrived - all five courses - perfectly timed and each course with a flourish and a mouth-watering description by Antonio himself before revealed the dish that he placed in front of each of us. A variety of local wines, according to the course, were enjoyed by senor and S with a 'salute!'. Antonio's speciality is fish from the lake and the menu included pate, smoked fish, local cheese, Risotto with perch. This is the most well know Lake Como dish. Tender, delicate lake perch, filleted and perfectly cooked with a creamy risotto. Apparently, each Como chef has his own secret risotto recipe and Antonio's was sublime. Panna cotta - light and delicious finished the meal.

After the meal, and in that fine Italian tradition, Antonio delivered to the table his own limoncello.
We watched diners leave via the preferred method of transport - a sleek, varnished timber motor boat - which sliced across the lake.

By the end of the meal the lights all around Lake Como were twinkling and we couldn't bring ourselves to leave. It wasn't the thought of 200 steps up, up, up to our 'home' that kept us there. It was the feeling that we had just experienced something very special and we just didn't want it to end.

In Moneglia, where we stayed in an apartment in the large villa of Nonna Lina, Peppi and their beautiful extended family, organic food grew in abundance. Peppi is a quiet and gentle man who grows tomatoes, cherries, strawberries, green vegetables, has an olive grove and a vineyard, and early each morning collects the gifts from his fine hens. His wife Lina, large, smiling, laughing Lina, makes vino (blanco and rosso), limoncello, peach nectar, Italy's best pizza, formaggio, coppa, salami, biscotti, olive oil, olive oil soap, fruit torte, coniglia casserole (rabbit casserole - the rabbit was caught one day, cooked for us the next), and baked fish from the bay around Moneglia. Oh, and Lina bakes fresh bread every morning!

And so, after a long day walking the villages of the Cinque Terre, or even after a hard day lying on Moneglia beach and swimming in the blue, blue Med, we would arrive home knowing that at 8.00pm Nonna Lina would deliver culinary delights from her kitchen (via Peppi's garden) to our dining table on the terrace outside our apartment. With a 'buon appetito' she would disappear, only to appear a hour or so later to collect the china and hear our "molto buona!" "delizioso", "grazie mille!, Nonna!". After dinner when the sun had disappeared, we would watch the fireflies dance around the vines.

Each day Nonna deliver to us a gift of cherries, or strawberries but she would also invite us into her 'larder' where we could purchase any of her produce, wine, nectar, eggs, cheese. What hilarious times we had in the larder! Nonna spoke not a word of English, but somehow we always managed to conduct business with all of us (Nonna included) laughing hysterically.

There are, of course, other Italian culinary pleasures..... delicious pizza by the slice, proscuitto, gelato, the panificio with its array of Italian bread and rolls and the pasticceria where I cannot resist the tiny stuffed pastries - sfogliatelle cioccolata - and at just 1E each there is nothing to induce any guilt - nutrionally or economically! And ...oh the coffee! We love the trattorias - every table with crisply starched linen cloths.

Mi sento bene.