Dedaland

What about Mardì Gras.

What? Did you think italy did not celebrate it at allo? Why it came from Europe and in Italian is called: Carnevale. Carnevale literally means: meat is still allowed. Tomorrow is wednesdays of the ashes, lint begins and meat won't be allowed anymore. How do we celebrate then this festival of fools in Italy? In many many ways depending were you go.
Venice has fancy smancy costumes, San Remo has chariots made with only flowers, if you go to Viareggio you might see some of the funniest papier maché carts ever and if you go to Ivrea, you'd see the battle of the oranges.
I went to Ivrea last year and it was so much fun.

This year I had to work so I just went to my dad's home town, Pontecorvo, to see how people in Smallville It.a.ly celebrates Carnevale.
They dress up, have fun, drink a little, play pranks at each other... unlike fondi were they only play stupid pranks and people ends up in jail (but they should be forced to fix what the wreck!)...
So what's the picture about? why am I showing the ceiling?
well this year my parents decided to catch two birds with a stone, we went to the farm house for a nice meal and so that I could work close to the fireplace... and they decided to hang sausages to dry on the ceiling.
I am not kidding, here they are:

Mhhh sausages... right? yeah! I don't eat them... so I only find them to be a pretty interesting looking type of decoration for my ceiling.
Supposedly with the fireplace going they will dry up and we can put them in a jar, under void, with olive oil.
They might be a little spicy but they don't look orange to me so I guess the spiciness will fade off while they dry up there.
The smoke form the fireplace is also supposed to do something to them.

Personally I think there's nothing better than a nice fire to grill mushrooms.
if you melt cheese on top of them they taste even better.
but these are just regula mushrooms and salt and they aren't bad at all.


and artichokes too.
yummie.







after the mushroom and some bruschetta with olive oil
there's nothing better than a good dish of pasta.
this type of pasta is called anelletti... it's like Sicilian Lasagna.
There's many different types of baked pasta in Sicily, not only lasagna, there's pasta and broccolo and anelletti... they are called "pasta mpustata" or "timballi" simply because the pasta placed in the baking pan sticks together like lasagna does and stays in a shape.
what I like about this type of pasta is the fact it is... crunchy!
it's very simple to make, natuzzo, if you find the type of pasta I can give you the recipe.

Dessert. You only get these During Carnevale, first to the right: Cacchiere (in Tuscany they are called Cenci, in the south they are also called Frappe). These are baked but the round one are fried, they are light and crunchy and lightly sweet. The big round ones are fried and have a lemon flavor to it (the peel of the lemon especially) it's dipped in sugar and it's soft. In Fondi they call them Struffoli but actually the resto of Italy calls Struffoli the little ones to the side (that in Fondi are calle ciciarelli - small chick peas).
Now the small chick peas ones are my favorite. They are small round cookies, supercrunchy and they are covered in honey. They have a light lemon flavor and usually are served on lemon leaves. if the honey is good this thing is Heaven!
Not much of a selection of Carts in Pontecorvo but at least they don't run around destroyng people orchards to steal oranges and emulate Ivrea or tossing rotten eggs at you (no, this is what the people fo my discomunicated since 1371 town would do - I have to believe that 700 years of discomunication does something to people, it can be that all the sons of satan live here! XD LOL).

but let's not talk about Discomunicatedland, here's a funny cart about the devil of gambling.
apparently Italians are pretty poor but spend still millions to gamble. Hunger does that to someone very desperate to pay to get a bit of luck and have a life changing miracle happen.

Heads down - name of the piece.
that's how our lives went.

not many other carts deserve to be nominated here! XD I believe this ones came in first and second and, oh, I forgot to mention: they moved.

left to right the first one and up and down this one.

Although the best thing of them all was my own little Calcifer talking to me the whole day!
I made sure to feed him properly too.