All of June

Holt joined Barbara at Stabia on 5 June. We’ve been staying at the wonderful Instituo Vesuviano, headquarters for Restoring Ancient Stabiae.

The pictures on the website don’t lie. This really is the view from our room.

The only problem is that Barbara and her hearty team from Brock have been too busy actually Restoring Ancient Stabiae (specifically excavating the gardens at the Villa Arianna) to keep much in the way of notes.

So just a few highlights. The kitchen does a remarkable job of providing three meals a day, to varying groups of students and scholars, with due (if perhaps not over bold) consideration for vegetarians. The crowd at dinner ranges from 30-90 depending on who’s where. The food was always good and every so often great. There were fresh baked croissants dusted with powered sugar for breakfast (at least there were until we all had to start the day at 7:00). An eggplant parmesan (for about sixty) stands out in the memory as does the going-away dinner for the Brock group, with phenomenal salt and pepper shrimp and calamari (for some reason the phrase “shrimp eyes” made the rounds of the Brock students).

Our main culinary adventure occurred on our way to Paestum, when we stopped off at an ultramodern, ultra-fresh buffala mozzarella factory, Vanullo. The cows even have their own automated milker and scratchers. People line up for hours to get the mozzarella which is made fresh every day and sold only on that day. Since a long bus ride in the heat is not good for mozzarella's freshness (or ours), we were served bocconcini that had been in a cow only a couple of hours before and which popped with fresh whey (No whey! Whey!).

One other memorable night was dinner with the Villa People, a group of friends, many of whom had worked for Canada Bell in British Columbia, and were now traveling about and stopping to work with Kathy on the garden excavation. They had rented a huge villa (hence the name) in Piano di Sorrento and invited us over for a game of Dodgem Cars (to get to the villa), Follow My Leader (to be led through the lemon trees of the garden of the villa), King of the Mountain (to climb to top of the villa), and Eye Spy (to be flabbergasted by the views from the top of the villa). The Villa People were so kind and so generous. The antipasti were perfect for sopping up the lashings of wine: roasted artichokes, all kinds of olives, cheeses, salamis. Then pizza. Yes, we finally had pizza near, if not in, Napoli.

Barbara really only got away once. Following Steve Ellis’ advice, after a long day in Naples, we set out to find some seaside shanty called “San Maria’s” or something like that, above what Steve swore was the best water in the Mediterranean. Not much to go on, but we learned that the name had “chalet” in it, and by asking everyone every two blocks and following the old tramway tracks to the very end, we discovered ”Chalet Annamaria,”* The real clue was asking if there was a fontana proprio qui vicino, and being directed to the cunningly disguised source. People were filling up every kind of container, from reused coke bottles to 10 liter tuns, with what one must confess to be mighty tasty water indeed: just traces of magnesium, not too minerally, but with a unique but refreshing palate.

While watching the boats and feeling the evening breezes, we had a insalata di frutta di mare (a little too much kamaboko), fried calamari and shrimp (not as good as the good-bye meal), and vongole verace in a rich buttery sauce (the best of the lot), portioned out over a couple of hours, several refills from the fontana (not so) segreta. But the hit of the evening came around 8, when normal people start eating, and the Oyster Kind set up his stand directly opposite. He shucked ( but did not jive) and presented us with fresh tasty salty oysters. The folks at Annamaria (including, we think, Annamaria stessa, seen bustling back and forth between various chalets) have no objections. A perfect marine ending to a long day.