OK–if you are tired of reading about food, you may as well skip this entry.
We started out yesterday with a nice walk all over Acqui. Cecelia, who is feeling much better, is looking for a sundress. The weather is really warm, reminding us of home. She and David needed to go to the train station to get their tickets to go to France on Sunday.
In the afternoon we just relaxed around the pool but it’s a little strange for us to be in Italy and just laying around. Given the heat, there’s not much choice, though, and it is a beautiful pool!
Diana made us reservations for dinner at Il Giardino in Melazzo, a tiny town about 15 minutes drive from the B&B. and it was really a fantastic meal—so wonderful that I took notes to remember all we had. We were having such a hard time deciding about the antipasti that, the friendly and shy, Piero offered to make us a tasting of all the apps. First was very thinly sliced, perfectly coked veal topped with diced tomatoes, a chiffonade of bitter greens and of course olive oil. Next came a plate they called carpione—it had a small slice of turkey breast, a small meat ball, some onions, zucchini and carrots—all of these were in a kind of lightly pickled—sweet and sour—sauce. The next simple white plate held a fried zucchini flower and a puff called a fagotino—like a large raviolo, lightly fried with hot gorgonzola oozing out as you put your fork into it. We drank a sparkling “favorita” white with all this. I’ve been ordering the local ravioli “al plin” everywhere so here we had them—just 2 orders for the 4 of us. Cec and I had ours with sugo arrosto—just a rich meat gravy—and not too much. David and Ken had theirs with Barbera wine. Very typical of this area, they serve the bowl of ravioli just plain—on the side is a little pitcher of the wine and you just pour it on. These were truly the best of the Plin that we’ve tasted so far; they were homemade and perfectly cooked. Finally we had “vitello alla griglia”—basically a very small steak served with a lemon wedge and some roasted potatoes. We drank a Barbera from Ca Re which we loved.
We had to try the desserts and here’s a picture of the strawberry pannacotta we had for dessert. The strawberry garnish is set on rose petals.

We came “home” and played cards.
I am starting to get sad about Kenny leaving on Sunday.