Coaching for Pizza: Yet Another Wanderlust Wednesday in Alba and Asti

Wednesday, 27 March, 2019

As usual, today was my designated day of the week to set Skorpions football issues aside and do a little exploring, this time in Lombardia's neighboring region of Piemonte.

With this tome as my guide,

I opted to head to the cities of

Alba and Asti

In Fred Plotkin's book, he discusses all sorts of Italian culinary issues, as the title clearly states, in a region by region organizational format.

In each of Italy's 21 regions, Plotkin selects a city that he classifies as the region's Classic Town.

In the Piemonte region he states that he had a hard time choosing between Alba and Asti for the honor of the region's Classic Town before finally opting for Alba.

Since they are only about 15 minutes apart, I decided to visit both cities today.

First up, Alba

Today a small city of about 32,000 souls, Alba was once a powerful city-state. It is considered to be the capital of the vine-striped Langhe Hills area and has a considerable gastronomic reputation thanks to white truffles, dark chocolate and wine.

Today I would try all three.

YES, Alba is a food city!

In the Piemonte, truffles (tartufi in Italian) are a specialty so I needed to be sure that they were part of my dietary plan for the day.

Thank goodness that

Laurie is still in California

The mean streets of Alba

It was a little early for lunch yet and the streets were relatively quiet when I arrived to this Classic Town.

Food signs and . . .

. . . food we're all around me

Plotkin recommended five dining

spots in Alba and I was heading

to one of them that sounded good to me

EUREKA!

Osteria Laliberta

Via Elvio Pertinace 24a

12051 Alba

Tel. +39 017 329 3156

Knowing a little Italian

can be a dangerous thing

In Italian, "Vorrei un bicchiere di vino rosso." means I'd like a glass of red wine.

In Italian, "Vorrei una bottiglia di vino rosso." means I'd like a bottle of red wine.

I meant the first but said the second, thus after lunch I lingered about the city of Alba for a lot longer than I had originally planned before even thinking of getting behind the wheel of my car again.

By the way, the bottle of red wine was a delicious Barbera, according to Plotkin, made from the most popular native grape in the Piemonte.

For lunch I ordered the

Agnolotti del Plin

Agnolotti del Plin is a fabulous dish of small, rich meat stuffed ravioli made in a creamy butter sauce with truffles.

This is one of Osteria Laliberta's signature dishes and it was incredible!

I had room for a dolci and ordered the tiramisu, which in my opinion is the Italian dessert.

I am always trying to find the better tiramisu in my dining experiences, how would today's tiramisu grade out?

Jesus, Mary AND Joseph!

What a finish!

This was easily the best tiramisu that I have ever had the pleasure to consume.

The city of Alba, the Osteria Laliberta and Fred Plotkin all came through today for me with flying colors!

Ok, I needed to start walking that bottle of Barbera red wine off while I enjoyed Alba's sights.

The Chiesa di Santa Maria Maddalena

This Baroque church dates from 1700 A.D., let's take a look inside.

It had a good cupola fresco

Maybe I'm getting somewhat jaded, but the rest of this chiesa was quite ordinary.

I just liked the look

of this weathered sign

While most of the surrounding

hillsides' trees are blooming,

this one is still in Winter mode

The entrance to the

Chiesa di San Domenico

Can you hear me knocking?

Alba's Cattedrale di San Lorenzo

While early Christian buildings on this site date back to the 6th-century, this cathedral was completed in 1652 A.D.

Ok, maybe I'm not so jaded,

the Cattedrale's interior was

MAGNIFICENT!

I liked the Cattedrale's

modern baptismal font

On a Cattedrale pew

The Cattedrale's ceiling

fresco was a nice touch

Back to the streets . . .

An Ancient Pharmacy

Tempting but I'm still full from

that sumptuous lunch

In its heyday, Alba

sported over 100 towers

Weather beaten church angel

No more wine for me today

All that wine meant that I

needed a restroom

STAT!

Cignetti is known for their dark chocolates and their excellent men's restroom!

After using the latter, I ordered a macchiato and a whisky flavored Bumba dark chocolate.

Only one word for everything that Cignetti has to offer . . . OUTSTANDING!

Pasta for sale in Alba?

Who would have guessed?

I wandered some more and decided that I still needed more caffeine.

Looked good to me,

so I entered

OH BOY!

It all looked great, but I did not need to add to my sugar high.

This bar has EVERYTHING!

Including a good cup of espresso

Local Hero

General Giuseppe Govone

1825-1872

It was getting late and I

still had not left for Asti

Spring has sprung

Lions are big all over Italy

A butcher shop specializing

in horse meat

That brought back great memories of several amazing meals featuring delicious, sweet horse meat in Sicily back in 2008 and 2009 when I coached the Catania Elephants.

Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista

It is a relatively new church built in 1884 on a spot used by Christians since the early 13th-century.

Inside I found . . .

Light shining through stained

glass on one side of the chiesa

bathed the other side in

brilliant colors

The Sacred Heart of Jesus

It had been over two hours now since I had my lunch and I felt ready to head on to the city of Asti.

Instead of getting back on the main highway, I opted to take the back roads through the winding, wine grape producing Langhe Hills between Alba and Asti.