Windier beach day.

Oh man. I just had half a bottle of wine and a couple of shots of limoncello. And I am sitting across from Mark and there is more limoncello here. And it’s late on Monday and I still haven’t written my blog post about Sunday. Let’s see what I can do.

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So the first thing that happened on Sunday was that Mark and I went for a very pleasant walk to find coffee and pastries and to scope out a different beach to play on with the family.

Mark got a hazelnut pastry cornucopia thing, and I got a quilted puff pastry full of “crema.” Which was a sort of eggy custard.

 

One of the things I like about Italian dolci is that the “neutral” dessert flavor is not vanilla. Vanilla is okay, but I can overdose on it. The neutral dessert flavor is just sweet cream, or sweet custard. No vanilla. Just the flavor of the milk and cream and sugar. In ice cream, it’s fior di latte, the flower of the cream. Or crema dell’uova, the cream of the eggs, for an eggier flavor. No vanilla. Sugar and cream; or sugar, cream, and eggs.

Good cappuccino, and a sea breeze, and a faint but not unpleasant scent of tobacco from neighboring coffee drinkers.

It was windy on Sunday! The waves were breaking all over the beach, and people were surfing! And windsurfing too.

We decided to go to a beach that had a play structure for kids, Tortuga Beach, in case the wind was too strong for the little ones.

We made our plan: We would go home, gather up the kids and dress them with clothes over their swimsuits, go out for a full Italian lunch, then go straight to the beach, then go home and have dinner in the apartment with our tired children.

We stopped at the grocery on the way back for dinner food. Look! Proscuitto in single-serve packets:

We bought breadsticks, and cheese from the deli (sold by the weight, so you have to talk to someone to get it). Cereal. Crackers. We moved on to a pastry shop and bought loaves of fresh bread, and six cookies for the children, and two stuffed cannoli. We stopped at a final small grocery and bought wine, and apples. The store owner’s two little daughters brought me a basket to put the apples in as I selected them.

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We gathered the children and went out walking, looking for a good full lunch. The first place we tried would not seat us without a reservation. So we walked back, and found a good-sized table at “Il Bastione,” a restaurant in a medieval stone tower.

I asked for a smile from these two and got this:

I don’t think I could have gotten a smile out of the 3yo. He was rapidly melting, saying things like “Your red car is better than our car in Italy. It has faster tires.” And there were no breadsticks to be found! Mark picked him up and carried him around the restaurant, looking at the interesting windows and lamps.

We ordered penne pomodoro for him, and a marinara pizza for our 11yo and 7yo, and a shared pasta with tomato pesto for Mark and the 17yo. Me, I saw “insalatina di farro con tonno rosso” on the list of antipasti, and knew I had found my lunch. Chewy wheat berries, herbs, olive oil, lemon-soaked raw fresh tuna, and thick shards of parmigiano reggiano? Please. I didn’t want to share with anyone.

Except the 13yo, who had ordered the pizza Genova: pesto, with roasted potatoes and slim green beans. The crust was perfect, crisp and light. We traded some. It was heavenly.

For dessert: gelato, and crème brulée (very like eggy vanilla pudding), and a fudgy chocolate log with hazelnuts sliced and served with gelato, and a fantastic panna cotta served with seasonal fruits: melon, kiwi, peach. I had a semifreddo with pistachio and chocolate, a bit too rich but lovely. Finished with espresso.

On to Tortuga Beach!

By this time the wind and the waves were quite strong. We tried to take the little children to the play structure, but it was closed for lunch and wouldn’t open for twenty-five minutes. So we went down to the beach, where there were literally no families playing in the waves and no one but wet-suited surfers in the water.

Our older kids were excited and ran in, but then the lifeguard and a manager both came out to tell us not to let them in deeper than their bellybuttons, because the water was “molto pericoloso” today. The waves crashed and broke all around us. I saw a jellyfish washed up on the sand, told the 3yo not to touch it. “It will sting me,” he said gravely. Kid has watched a lot of Octonauts.

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So I kept a firm grip on the 3yo’s hand, and Mark kept the 7yo, and we ordered the tween and teens to stay close in. And the lifeguard watched us nervously, as we were literally the only family on the whole beach. And at three o’clock the lifeguard got my attention and said: Il parco de gioca è aperto adesso. And I said “Thank you! Grazie!” and asked the two little boys if they wanted to go to the playground, and they shrieked yes and ran over the sand, with me chasing after them warning them not to step on the jellyfish.

 

 

The wind from the sea blew a fine sand into my eyes, even with my sunglasses on; I pressed them closer to my face. The two little kids attacked the play structure with relish, and I sat on a bench and felt the sun—even with the wind, it was warmer today.

Eventually the water got so rough that Mark called it off even for the older kids. They all came in and hung out with me in the play area.

 

We didn’t stay long, long enough for some play on the play structure, and for the big kids to get money and go buy themselves a soda. Then we walked tired home through the town.

There is a little herb garden here. Lemon thyme, and oregano, and rosemary, all carved into little signs.

Home, and a little rest. Mark produced some espresso from the machine and handed it to me proudly. I tasted it: “Sorry, it’s brown, but it’s ice-cold. Freddo.”