Today, our p-day, we were invited by President Allen to go to a farm-vineyard. It was in a beautiful place a little southwest of Asti (we don't have missionaries there), which is a relatively small town in Piemonte (Piedmont--name in English, which Safeway uses as a brand name and I remember because mother always liked to shop at Safeway in Safford), west of Alessandria, where we are going on Tuesday again for zone conference. It took 1.5 hours to get there, pretty much on freeway. We got off the freeway at Asti and headed for farming country, although all of this part of Italy is farming country
We headed up this road past farms, and some very nice looking new farm houses, as well as some really old ones.
As we headed up the hill, we saw someone's garden, with tomatoes just planted near poles, so they can grow up the poles. The flashy streamers I suppose are to scare away birds or something.
At another bend in the road, where we waited for our guests, there was a fountain, with continually running water. I wondered whether it was potable, then a man pulled up and had in the trunk of his car many plastic bottles which he began to fill up, so I suppose it was not only potable, but very good water.
When we reached the top of a hill we came to a farm house, our destination. The barn is on the right side, the house on the left (white painted part) and further to the left, not visible in this pix, is the rest of the long house, which is owned by another party, an American, whom we met, and will write about later. This, at least the end, is a typical old Italian barn and farmer's house.
We had two couples as our hosts. The lady emptying the basket is an Italian, married to an American, John Omer (they are members), and the other couple now own the farm. The couples have been friends for over 30 years. This is the kitchen of the farm house, built in the 1700s, that he inherited from his father. The owners actually live in Torino and just go out to the farm occasionally. You can see it has a wood stove, used for heat in the cooler months also.
The ceiling of the living room has fresco decoration, as was apparently even done in farm houses a long time ago.
On the wall was a pix of the owner's father and mother, who lived on the farm. I would say the owner is about my age.
And another pix of his father and grandfather, with a white work ox.
This is a work table in the barn room, where they milked the cows and did other farmery jobs. They guessed the table is about 200 years old and has been held together in various innovative, although not elegant, ways. Italians know how to "make do."
We were touring the house while the women were setting out snacks for us on the kitchen table. It was about 10:30 am, but they had to feed us in their house to make us feel welcome. This is very "Italian." Everything was fresh from the farm, or nearby, including the three types of juice (apple, apricot and peach) she had made that morning.(She discussed how she used some kind of steamer to make the juice.)
Fratello Omer, who lives in Varese, cut a sausage he made about Christmas time. It was raw pork, cured in the air, not smoked. He said it grew white mold on the outside, which was just brushed off. It was actually very delicious. Even Myrna ate some. The bowl of nuts are hazel nuts (called filberts in Oregon) which came from the farm and had been freshly shelled and roasted, that morning, for us. They were wonderful.
Out the side of the house, this was the view, of a neighbors vineyard, with lots of farms, a small town and, behind it all were the mountains for which Piemonte (foot of the mountains) is named. They are Swiss alps, including the Matterhorn.
At another point you could see the alps behind the hills, still with fresh snow.
I zoomed in on this little town. We actually went to another town, like this one, for lunch. These little towns, mostly on hills, are everywhere, with farms below. In medieval times the baron (lord) lived on the hill and the villagers (serfs, basically slaves) worked the fields below, and got part of the crops, and were also allowed to have their gardens. They were indebted to the baron and had a hard time leaving, although they were not technically slaves, who could be bought and sold.
This shot was taken from the same place as the others, and you can see modern serfs working in the vineyard.
Zoomed in you can see that the farm workers were tying the grape vines so the fruit will be easier to harvest.
The farm workers live in little villages in valley, and each little village has its own church, or more if it is a little bigger village. Modern day homes are not all that bad, and, of course, some of the people work in the cities and commute.
Behind the farm house we were visiting, the farmer had stacked wood, pruned from the nut trees, which will be used for the fireplaces and stoves in the winter. I will write more about the right end of this farmhouse complex, with barn on the left.
Okay, this is the house from the barn side. But if you look down the row, you can see it evolves to a very nice house (of which I did not take a good pix, unfortunately).
But back from where I took the pix of the wood pile, if you look to the right to the end of the nice end of the house, you can see it has a fairly new swimming pool. This is a "villa" farm house (agro- tourism) that the owner rents out to tourists. He is an American, who has lived in Italy for the past 20 years. He works for a company that sells surgical glue to hospitals, and has three daughters, the youngest is in her early 20's and is going to the Slow Food University. More about Slow Food later. He said that if his house did not have a swimming pool or hot tub (which it also had), no one would rent it as a vacation place, so he had the pool put in as an investment a few years ago. He said he stays with friends when his house is rented out. He said next week a family is coming from Iceland to stay there for two weeks. (I got his website address in case you are interested in renting his farm house.)
Another view from the farm house, in another direction.
So we started walking down the road to the fruit and nut orchards. The guy in the white shirt is the American who owns the nice end of the farmhouse, and the guy with the blue cap is the owner of the farmhouse, who was born there, but now lives in Torino.
We were approaching the fruit trees.
With tons, literally, of ripe fruit. These were yellow cherries, Myrna called them Ramier (her father grew cherries in Washington state), which were ripe and wonderful.
These were red cherries, also ripe. We picked and ate all we wanted, but the farmer was apparently not picking them or having them picked this year. I don't know exactly what his plans were, but there was a lot of fruit on those trees going to waste. At least the birds will be well fed this year.
Then we got to his nut trees. These hazel nut trees are not very big (easier to harvest), but he said they are very productive. He apparently has these picked, because he had sacks of them. He gave a big sack to the other hosts (the Omers) as we left.
Our party walking down the road past the orchards.
The street is called Ca' Colomba (Dove Street) and is part of the agro tourism business, of which there were many in this area. You can see grapes behind on the other side of the road.
We walked down the road to an ancient little church, apparently for the serfs, now abandoned.
Approaching the church.
Fratello Omer, who is an American from Utah, went to Italy on a mission just before my brother Fred did. He returned to the US, but met an Italian lady in New York, married her, and they have lived in Italy (Varese) for the past 20 years. He is now an Italian citizen, as well as an American citizen. In this pix he was telling us about the old abandoned church.
About all that is left is a coat of arms above the door
Inside it had been whitewashed, apparently all the frescoes are underneath the white wash. Perhaps at one time it had been used for storage. Interestingly, there was an electric hookup inside.
This is the tree lined road leading from the other side of the old church to an area where people once lived.
Down the other side of the road, past grape vineyards. A family on bikes passed us.
At the end of the road, there was a large rose bush. It was, according to the farmer, not just for decorative beauty. He said they plant rose bushes around grapes so if disease comes to the grapes, the rose bush is the first to show the disease. They replant grapes from time-to-time so they will be more productive. In Italy, they license grape plants, so if you have some die, you can re-plant, but you can't just plant more grapes, without buying a license. I guess this is the way they control the quantity of wine produced in that area, to keep the price up. They make very good wine in this area.
All of the grape vines had small grapes. They are harvested in the fall.
When we got back to the front yard, so to speak, of the farmhouse, Sorella Allen wanted their pix taken with the old sickles that were in the barn, perhaps to use for something motivational, e.g., "thrust in your sickle" at a zone meeting. The tree that looks like a banana tree is a banana tree, which the lady said had produced small bananas in the past. The climate in this area is affected by the Mediterranean Sea, which is not very far away. According to Google, the weather in Asti (this area) is warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than Torino, because of its proximity to the sea.
Then we drove to this building, which looked like a new farm house, but was a winery. The family lived above (see their Madonna on the wall). The office was on one end and the area where they take in the grapes at harvest time was on the other.
In the parking area was an old wine press, now used for decoration.
And a new shipment of wine bottles.
In this pix, at the end, is the father, now owner of the winery,and his son, to the right, who will take over the business. (The owner's father just died a few years ago, and they had his pix proudly displayed on the wall.) The guy to the left is the owner of the orchard and farm house, and the man to the close right is the American who owns the other end of the arm house, and went with us to the tour of the winery. He is also an expert on wines, and told us a lot about the business. We later learned that the son of the owner of the winery also speaks excellent English. These stainless steel vats are used for new wine and is where the wine becomes alcoholic, in just a few weeks.
Then the wine is put in these large oak casks to age, for years. Here the son is talking to President Allen about the business
He said the casks are all oak and come from different countries, because they each impart their own distinctive flavor. This one came from France and contains, translated, "red wine which is in the act of becoming Robro Docg Mompissano, from 2016, which is biologico (Italian word for organic), and has 225 liters."
This one is from Austria and also has last year's wine in it.
There were many wooden casks of wine in the aging process.
When I first saw this drip, I thought of blood, it was so dark red. But the winery was very clean and had just been hosed down.
In this pix you can see the wet floor, and also the owner's large and very friendly dog, who followed us everywhere we went.
Back in the office, they had treats ready for us. Of course, they offered us wine, but only the non- members had any (they even bought some). When we told them we don't drink they offered us sparkling and natural water, from the same cooler in which they keep the wine (apparently wine is best consumed at a certain temperature, cool but not cold). They also offered us grissini (bread sticks, specialty of Torino area) and freshly picked, cherries, which we had been eating all morning. They were very generous and kind. There was no charge for the tour and they seemed to enjoy showing us their winery, which the American told us is considered a small winery, because it produces less than 10,000 bottles a year. He also said that you make a small fortune with a winery, but you must start out with a large fortune. Knowing how wine is supposed to taste is a very interesting art, and there is also some science in running a winery, we learned.
They had lots of awards on the walls for their wines, mostly from the Slow Food movement.
Now, if you don't know, the Slow Food movement is an international organization, with headquarters in an old Savoy (rulers of this part of Italy for several hundred years) palace not far from where we were. Slow Food is, I suppose opposed to fast food, and you know what that is. David actually is a part-owner in a slow food (hamburger) restaurant in Los Angeles, so he has at least heard of this movement or organization. I love their cookbook, of which I found a copy in our apartment. Myrna bought me one on Amazon for Christmas, which is waiting for me at Amy's. Also, as mentioned above, the American owner of the nice end of the farm house has a daughter gong to the Slow Food University to become a writer about food, so we learned a lot from him.
After leaving the winery we went to a very nice restaurant, across from an old church, in a little town called Guarene (in the province of Cuneo), not far away. Fratello Omer is siting to the left of Myrna. The table was set with breadsticks, called grissini, and are a specialty of Piemonte, and rolls, which the waitress came and replaced whenever we ate one. They were just placed, artfully, on the cloth table cloth. There were fresh roses on the table and, interestingly, all of the chairs were placed at 45 degree angles to the tables.
We had a fixed price (€30 each) meal, that began with this appetizer, one plate like this for each person. The round meat slices are veal and the sauce is a tuna flavored, and the dish is called vitello tonato, and is very famous in Piedmonte. On the bottom is insalata Russa, or Russian salad, which is the Italian equivalent of potato salad, except it has vegetables (peas and carrots), a hint of tuna, and freshly made mayonnaise. It was freshly made and not yet chilled. The interesting offering on the right was carne cruda, or raw beef (from a special breed of beef), with a hint of spice (garlic and olive oil) flavoring, also at room temperature, topped thin slices of a hard cheese. Now, we did not choose these appetizers, they came with the meal, and none of us would probably have had the raw meat (except the Italians and Bro. Omer, who ate Myrna's). I did eat mine and sort of got used to eating room temperature raw calf meat, which had no fat, to speak of. It was very soft and sort of melted in your mouth.
Myrna had asparagus with a bagna cauda (dip), typical of Piemonte. This pix was taken as Myrna was about finished, there was a lot more asparagus when it first came. I had a plate of home made egg noodles with meat sauce, which was good. The meat course was young lamb with oven roasted potatoes. The meat was fairly spicy, for Italian food. They also had a chocolate pudding like dessert, which had nuts (hazel of course). They served us water, natural and sparkling, and would have served us wine and coffee for dessert, had we wanted it, all for the fixed price.
We sat fairly close to a window overlooking the valley, and this was the view outside.
The restaurant is the first building on the right. Our car, Opel Merieva, we named Minerva, is on the right.
Right across the street from where we parked is the village church, which was closed when we first came, but open when we left.
Of course, I had to admire the old organ above the front door. But when I asked to play it was told that the wooden balcony is weak and they don't let tourists go up there.
The altar was typically beautiful.
As were the walls and ceilings. This is all just fresco on plaster, not three dimensional,as they usually are. There were no marble statues either, just paintings of them on the walls. I thought "smoke and mirrors, " but did not see either.
But one thing I have never seen before an an old Italian Catholic church, in fact not in any church like this, is red padded theater style chairs. This must be a pretty wealthy church and town. (Those wine makers must not like to sit on hard, cold chairs, and kneel to pray).
On the outside of the church, was this interesting solar orienting clock sort of thing. I don't know how to read it.
There must have been some structural problems with the old church, which they apparently fixed with these metal things within the walls of the church, which weren't obvious from inside.
The city hall (comune) was right there in the square, and I took a quick pix of this vehicle to remember the name of the city. According to Google, it is a town of 3,476 inhabitants (same size as Soda Springs, Idaho), and is in the province of Cuneo, not Asti, although Asti is only about 15 minutes away (we did not go over to Cuneo, where we have missionaries.)
Leaving the town, we followed this car of our hosts, (our GPS was not working at that point), through the narrow streets of town.
Past another old church on the side of the hill--this one was not open or I wold have stopped.
Still down the side of the hill.
Past another rose bush guarding grape vines
To the floor of the valley and back to the freeway, where our GPS started working again, to home in a little over an hour. We had a very pleasant day, and you can see, the weather was ideal, pleasantly warm. My hay fever didn't bother me all day, until I got back into the area were we live. (One of our missionaries is drinking apple vinegar and honey in warm water, which he said is a miracle cure for hay fever.)
Ciao for now.
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