Grilled Chicken, Molasses Barbecue Sauce; Italian stories

I have not been making pretty food lately

I have been making good food, however….. Appearances can be deceiving.

In this case I’ll blame it on the cook (mon mari).

He does warn to be careful once you start basting as the barbecue sauce can burn easily.

He did not burn ours. Even though it looks quite black it’s not burnt – that’s just the molasses sauce.

We use legs and thighs because that’s what we can get here. Mon mari is balking lately at having to cut up whole chickens himself….

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We had the strangest thing happen when we were in Italy last month….

Well, two strange things, actually.

The first was that we couldn’t find a place to have lunch.

In Italy…. On a Saturday….

We left Bologna in the morning and drove to Modena. I wanted to go to the Saturday market to buy Balsamic vinegar, which I did. As it was still too early for lunch we left Modena and decided to take the back roads to Verona. We were confident that we could find a nice little restaurant to have lunch some where along the way.

We were wrong.

None of the little towns and villages we went through had a restaurant or a restaurant that was open.

Finally, as it was getting close to 2:00 and we were worried that even places that had been open would be closing (restaurants don’t stay open here all day long) we stopped at this bar / cafe.

You can’t really tell from the photo but the front tables, under the awning, were filled with men of all ages. And they were standing around, leaning on the wall, perching on the fence….

No women or children, just men.

We said ‘buongiorno’ and wound our way to the door.

Yes, we could have something to eat. There was a choice of a ham and cheese sandwich….

Freshly made, of course, on fresh bread.

While we were enjoying our sandwiches the guys all started wandering in and through a door in the back.

Turns out they were all there for the Saturday afternoon poker game.

The second strange thing happened an hour later.

We stopped for gas.

Mon mari got out of the car, as usual, to pump the gas.

I stayed in the car, as usual, reading a magazine.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big stick coming right at my face!

Our windshield was being washed by a service station attendant.

I have not been able to say any part of that sentence since I was child.

I looked over my shoulder and mon mari was not pumping the gas. That was also handled by the service station attendant.

I excitedly waited for him to offer to check the oil – and then thought to look around in case I was in the Twilight Zone.

Neither happened.

We left with a full tank, a clean windshield and a receipt for gas that was perfectly in-line with all the other gas receipts.

And, of course, a story to tell….