Tenuta Regina

Brett is out the door this a.m. He has already made friends with the Romanian couple downstairs and secured 5 mountain bikes for our family. I am in bed, but I still beat Jessie to the breakfast table. The local market is called Pam Club. We have Pam club cornflakes, milk, olives and cheese for breakfast. Brett is quite the chef.
It’s a clear sunny day. Our neighbor from Romania and her husband work for the Agriturismo. He farms and she cleans. Her name is Joanna. As we talk, she is crocheting lace. It’s beautiful. She has the string in her purse and she works while walking around the farm. I’m following her. She tells me how she makes little crocheted tea cups, perfume bottle covers, table covers…I’m hooked. She offers one to me and I buy on the spot. It’s beautiful. She comes out with a woven treasure purse for Jessie “un regalo” a gift. She wove the purse on a loom. She also knits all her own sweaters. I’m living above a folk art queen. Brett is anxious to get going.
We take our bikes to the end of the road and over the embankment. Here fishermen have nets suspended above mangroves. Pulleys raise and lower the giant nets that span from shore to shore. We look out into the Adriatic and peddle around the mangroves awhile. Hundreds of little frogs jump for cover.
After lunch the host children are home. Everyone plays soccer, badminton and ping pong. Even with the sunshine and the mountain backdrop, trouble brews in paradise. DS8 is upset by the host boy “cheating” at soccer. Not easy to assert your rights in Italian.
We politely round up our own and head for the local Trattoria for dinner. It’s a pub in the front and dining room in back- a roaring fireplace and rustic décor similar to Northern Wisconsin. Instead of a menu, the owner/chef relates the menu in Italian…we’re pretty sure of what we’re getting this time- homemade gnocchi, made this a.m., spaghetti ragú and spaghetti carbonada. Well, that’s the first course, primi piatti. In the meantime, the owner’s niece who is 6 years-old comes to join us. She is learning English “One Two Three” and is willing to instruct us in Italian for the evening. She brings me a Winnie the Pooh book to read and corrects my every word, laughing- “Teee-gri” with the lilt that lives in Italian pronounciation. I feel like I’m singing to get it right. She’s tough.
Identify the next course, our host says with pride of a day’s work “Stink-O.” Tell a table of kids they’re about to eat “Stink-O.” Well we did, with potatoes, peas and sausage. Little Bambina is getting bold and is trying to trick me with 6 y.o. swear words…the equivalent of bathroom talk. Hey, I’m a mom. You can’t fool me, especially with a stomach full of Stink-O.