AUGURI PER UNA BUONA PASQUA!!!!!

Sorry it's a day late.... :)

Anyway, Easter here was AMAZING. And also very very Italian.

Every Easter a significant portion of my host dad's family (with six brothers and a sister, all with their own families, there's no way all of them could come together at the same time) eats lunch together at the nonni's house in Osnago. Sunday morning, we all woke up (my host mother at 6 am, to continue the cooking she had been working on steadily since the same time Saturday morning), and everyone but my host mom (still cooking) went to church. That was rather exciting - my host dad was singing with the choir like usual, but the service had a twist because the priest was a visiting Vietnamese man who looks like he's twelve, and a woman who we think was pregnant had to be rushed out right before Communion.

After church, we dashed back home, tried to figure out which of the dishes piled in the refrigerator we were supposed to get, ran back inside because we had forgotten the bottle of wine and vase of flowers, and then drove to Osnago with all of the food balanced on our laps. Luckily my host dad was driving, and not Luca, because otherwise the vitello con tonnato wouldn't have ever made it to Osnago in one piece.

In Osnago, we all piled into the formal dining room, and shortly commenced eating. A snapshot: Four courses. Starting with an antipasto of four types of meat, insalata del mare, three types of salad that my host mom had made, three types of crostini, and lots of other stuff drenched in olive oil. Then risotto ai funghi....creamy perfection, with just enough woody flavor from the mushrooms. *sighs of contentment* Then lamb and potatoes, although by this point everyone was so stuffed that most people passed on it. Then gelato. Then colombo, a type of cake shaped like a dove which is traditional at Easter. Then caffè, finished off by a round of chocolate egg. I just wanted to make sure I recorded this meal for posterity.... But the really nice thing is that the food isn't the focus point. Everyone compliments everything and thoroughly enjoys it all, but no one pays any attention to how much you eat, unless to offer you more. Mainly it's just a time to enjoy family. Everyone talks really loudly and at the same time, spills wine on the tablecloth, and tries to stop the 97-year-old grandmother from trying to do everything by herself.

Afterwards everyone was basking in happiness and too much good food, and my family decided to go for a "giretto" since the weather was good. We finally made it to Bergamo, which is closer than Milan and actually much prettier, since all of the old stuff in Milan was destroyed during the World Wars.

When we got home, everyone was exhausted. We all drank warm milk with sugar (nature's comfort food) and ate peanuts and biscotti, while my host mom recounted embarassing childhood stories of Maria and Luca. And then bed.

La più bella Pasqua....per sempre!