Lazy Sunday

Sundays are typically a lazy day in Italy.  Italians eat dinner much later than Americans, especially on the weekends, and so it's not uncommon to see them arriving at a restaurant with their children child at 10:00 at night! They like to stay out late and sleep in on the weekends...

In the Veneto (the region of Italy where we live), many people go to Camisano, one of the bigger markets in our area.  Market-going is common practice in Italy; it's a central place where townspeople can get anything that they need for the week.  It's common to find smaller markets in each of the local towns on a set day each week, ours is always on Mondays,  where people can walk into town to buy a few items that they need for that week.  

Vendors selling food items like fresh fruits and veggies, honey, and cheese are always found at even smaller markets and clothing at very low prices compared to local stores is usually sold as well. I almost always get my flowers to plant at the market and there's even a vendor with a large cart selling awesome cut flowers for "dirt" cheap...(get the pun??)

Steve and I LOVE the Camisano market but it's something we usually do just as a couple because there are seriously HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of people there each week.  It is hard to keep up with the little ones there and so Steve usually ends of carrying Delilah.  My reasoning for living them at home and he and I just going is this:

How can he carry Delilah when he has to cart all our purchases back and forth to the car, right???

We almost always follow the same routine.  We park in one of the pay-to-park lots (it's only €2 for as long as you want to park) that's centrally located and arrive at the market in its center.  If it's close to lunch time, we head left for our highlight of the day, the porchetta sandwich. Porchetta is pork in Italy and if you've never had a porchetta served on a big crusty bun with onions and peppers (cippole e peperoni in Italian), you simply don't know what you're missing.  The same two ladies in a food truck serve it up hot and semi-greasy wrapped in a giant napkin and by Wednesday, I sometimes find myself craving one. It's one of the many everyday things that I'll miss about Italy one day.  Molto Bene!!

(And yes, if you caught that, you DID read that right...the Italian word for "Peppers" in Italy is "Peperoni") Imagine how many of us spend the first few weeks ordering pizza with pepperoni and wondering why they always get it wrong and put green peppers on it!  (The word for "Pepperoni" is actually "Salami--somehow I think WE are the ones who messed that one up years ago....)

After our sandwiches, we head back into the main part of the market to do a little shopping.  What we buy depends on our week ahead, but we almost always buy oranges, kiwi, and strawberries. And of course there's always wine. During the spring and summer, I usually buy some flowers to plant--I am my mother's child.  I have favorite vendors for everything and I like the fruit guy at the far end of the market the best. I tell him this constantly and he appreciates that and gives me a good price instead of the "Americano price". When the kids come with us, they love to buy the fresh fried seafood from a truck in the center of the market.  They eat things I'd never even seen before moving to Italy, but somehow they think it's delicious...I think it's gross...

While I shop, Steve usually runs back and forth to the car to drop off my purchases. He refers to himself as "the pack mule" on these days.  I just hand him the bags or boxes and point towards the car. Have a great Sunday!

The Camisano market 

 The Porchetta Sandwich Lady

 The cheese truck at the market in my town.  Yep, those are giant wheels of cheese.

Market in Verona 

Fruit at the market 

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