Monday, 22 April, 2019
In Italy, as in many other European countries, the day after Easter is also a big holiday.
While Easter Sunday is a big family day in Italy, Easter Monday, or Pasquetta as it is called here, is more of a day for friends to get together and enjoy each others company.
Thus Michael and I headed to the home of the Petrillos to join in the merriment of a BBQ as guests of Enzo and Nency.
First on the grill,
fresh vegetables
Giorgio Nardi brought his
hand-made ravioli
As with everything that Giorgio makes, they were DELICIOUS!
Meat on the grill
What's an Italian BBQ without a wide variety of grilled meats.
LOTS of grilled meat.
Igor, Enzo's brother,
using a high-tech device
to stoke the fire
Emma is a Wolverines fan
Who knew?
Igor and Massimo giving
Michael Italian grooming tips
Massimo works with Enzo and is a bicycling enthusiast which made for instant bonding with Michael.
Enzo, #35, dancing with his
sister and her boyfriend
I did say that there was merriment to be found today.
Wine too
Enzo and Massimo together kept us all entertained most of the afternoon.
So much fun sitting around this table
Grandma Petrillo's dessert torta
was AMAZING!
But how would Enzo cut it?
Wisely, and at the urging of most of those at the table, Nency did the cutting.
Enzo and his HUGE
coffee maker
Nency is an artist cutting desserts
What a meal!
There was another delicious traditional Easter dessert on the menu, a Columba cake complete with two large, hollow chocolate eggs.
Usually these eggs are broken apart in to small piecers by hand and then shared by the assembled multitudes.
Not at a Varese Skorpions home. In the photo above, U16 Tackle/U17 Flag standout Filippo Petrillo has donned his Skorpions helmet.
His mother, Nency, then threw the chocolate egg at him, you can see it in mid-air just before contact, wrapped in green tin foil above his helmet.
The resulting Hammer Hit (Should I give Filippo a helmet decal?) exploded the chocolate egg into lots of small chunks and the sharing began.
Time for a strange, post-BBQ
Italian card game
It seemed to be akin to Hearts but just different enough to confuse the two of us Americans.
Enzo's personal "Wine Pusher"
A good guy who did bring several bottles of good wines to the BBQ for us to all share.
He might soon become Laurie's "Wine Pusher" too.
Enzo, the former King of the BBQ
His brother Igor stole that title away from Enzo today.
GREAT JOB IGOR!
And a big GRAZIE to the Petrillo family for hosting yet another 50,000 calorie BBQ for all of us, GREAT FUN!
Now deeply mired in a two day, Italian BBQ induced food coma of major proportions, we still needed to get into downtown Varese for a final farewell to Nicolas Principi at the BellaVita Cafè where he works.
Michael returns to California on Tuesday morning.
Michael and Nicolas
They formed a strong bond last Summer first when Michael coached Nicolas during the Europe Warriors training sessions and game against the University of Chihuahua in August.
That bond continued to grow when we all returned from Mexico and Nicolas and his girlfriend Marta stayed with us for a week in California,
Nicolas was an outstanding player for us last season with the DII Varese Skorpions and is playing for the DI Milano Seamen this campaign.
Nicolas blending one of his special
gin based cocktails for Michael
The BellaVita Cafè serves an astounding 165 different gins.
Michael's drink was SMOOTH!
Note the vacuum packed cheese and salami in front of him that Marta's family prepared for Michael to bring home.
A quality parting gift indeed!
What a GREAT time I've had with Michael the past eleven days!
2 comments:
I'm assuming the grooming tips for Michael featured Simply Man Match products.
Looks like he's had a great time. Glad he had the opportunity. I regret I've never been able to visit during one of your coaching stints.
If I'm not mistaken, the hair drier was a Simply Man Match product.
I think that he had a good time in Lombardia and in Parma too.
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