My blood is filled with pizza and pasta as I write to you. I’ve only been here since Thursday, but it feels like an eternity since I’ve arrived with my adventure-filled days, so I wanted to share some of the first highlights!
This week I’m currently living in Buttigliera d’Asti (45min south of Turin) and working on an organic vegetable farm growing cabbage, zucchini, trumpet zucchini, eggplants, tomatoes, sweet peppers, kale, broccoli, red and green lettuce, basil, garlic, onions, shallots, and hazelnuts. The parents, Federico and Manuela, have been extremely welcoming and kind, teaching me how to harvest vegetables, giving me tips in Italian, and sharing useful cooking tips (like don’t add pesto to your pasta when it’s piping hot, or else the color will get darker and the texture will get worse). They have a very cute little dog named Selkie—his name comes from the Italian half human/half seal creature (apparently he looked like a seal when he was born).
Working on this farm has been fascinating, educational, and colorful so far. I’ve learned how to properly harvest vegetables for their produce stand, added organic fertilizer to the cabbage patch, and cleaned hundreds (maybe a thousand) of garlic heads already. I learned that if you can smell garlic before peeling the skin, it’s bad. The kale is so fresh it almost looks purple. Basil shouldn’t be cut from the very bottom so it can continue to grow. Eggplant has very thorny leaves on top so you should pick them from the bottom. On the farm they grow native plants and flowers on the perimeter of the crops to promote soil diversity; they also change where each crop is planted each year in order to confuse the bugs that want to eat the plants.
My first evening on the farm I learned that Federico bought 2 female ducks to accompany the 4 lonely male ducks in the local town’s pond. Along with him, his 11 year old son Leonardo, and 4 year old daughter Alice, we let these ducks roam free into the pond at dusk. Afterward, we picked up local pizza for dinner as a tradition for any volunteer’s first night. I picked a pesto/mortadella/burrata pizza that was so fresh, I got to put the burrata on the pizza myself. Delicioso! That night I learned “pepperoni” in Italian means sweet peppers, not the spicy sausage you expect to see. Apparently Italians get very confused by “pepperoni pizza” outside of Italy!
Besides the first night, most meals have been cooked and eaten all together, and they always use fresh produce from their farm, whether it’s lettuce to make a salad, zucchini and eggs to make a frittata (they have a chicken coop too!), or tomatoes, garlic, and basil to make bruschetta. Slowly but surely, I’m making my way into their kitchen to help cook and share recipes. Something I love about mealtime here is that they don’t rush eating and go on to the next thing, but instead they take their time to chew, chat, chew some more, and chat even longer.
On Sunday, Federico and Manuela represented their farm at a festival in a nearby village. I borrowed their bike to check it out. While my 20 minute ride was quiet, I passed beautiful, bright green pastures, tall mounds of hay, and wheat fields almost as tall as me. The Arignano festival was everything you’d imagine to be a farmer’s market in the Italian country-side. It was sprawling with farmers and craftsmen selling their vegetables, meats, cheeses, pottery and baskets beneath a beautiful medieval castle. These men appeared out of nowhere and started playing traditional Piemonte music and singing tight harmonies. The local nonnas were serving heaping plates of ravioli, agnolotti, and penne for 5 euro a plate. If you don’t know my love for music, food, or markets, you should know my heart was bursting with joy.
There’s so much more to say, but I won’t drag on. Last thing I’ll share–cleaning garlic is teaching me to let go of my perfectionism. When Federico showed me how to prepare the garlic bulbs, I tried too meticulously (and thus too slowly) to unravel the layers before exposing the cloves. He stopped me and said, “It doesn’t need to be perfect. Also, people won’t think they’re organic”.
