I’m a city boy. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, sheltered from certain realities of life. So when I ate that bacon, I never really considered that a pig grew up, got slaughtered, was cut up and shipped to my local supermarket. To me, the bacon was just bacon. It comes from the supermarket, wrapped in plastic. Of course I knew the process, but I never really had to think of it.
In 1984 I visited Soriano and met Paola. Her parents were ‘play farmers’, meaning they lived in town, dad had a normal job, but since they had this old family farm, they would go down in the afternoon and take care of the garden.
One day I visited the ‘old family farm’. It consisted of a bunch of land, an 18th century farmhouse that was in practical ruin (now our restored villa), a garden, a fenced off area with chickens running around, and a pig-pen with one very big pig named “Giorgina”.
I honestly think that may have been the first time I had seen a pig in real life. She was both cute and disgusting. I stayed for a bit to take it all in, then left. That was that.
Fast forward a year later. I had gone back to the states and had returned to Soriano. Paola and I were now engaged to be married. I was at the house one night for dinner, and Paola’s mom had cut some prosciutto. It was unusually good. I mean it, it was truly amazing. I ate it and asked for more, then more again. I raved about how good it was. Then someone told me I was eating Giorgina.
At first I just stopped eating. I had trouble processing it. Yeah, Prosciutto is pig… I know. But how do I eat a pig that I had been introduced to? I mean really! She had a name! This was a first for me. It was a defining moment in my life… One that lasted about 30 seconds before I decided that she just tasted too good for me to care.
From that day forward, no other prosciutto ever tasted quite as good as Giorgina. Her memory is honored.
We never named a pig again. It was really all left to that until last year. Paola’s parents had both passed away, we restored the villa, and we don’t keep any animals there. But there is a family of farmers across from our house, and they do.
One day a guest of ours and I were walking around and spotted their pig. He jokingly decided to call the pig ‘Ramon Jamon’, and I got the naming on video.
From that day forward, the name stuck, and with each group of guests we would take that walk, and they would invariably meet Ramon. He became a star of sorts. Everyone knew that he was sitting there on death row, so they would visit him, feed him, etc. I got quite a bit of that on camera.
As I write this, our 2009 season is just starting up. We will have many guests back at the villa for the cooking classes, and they will all find a prosciutto on the counter... They will find Ramon in the form of his destiny.
So in Ramon’s honor, I decided put together a tribute to him. A video about the life of a pig we called Ramon.
For my first video post in a while, I thought I would start with a cool little video compilation made of some of the video I shot during some of the cooking classes we had earlier in the season.This video concentrates on 3 groups we had in May and June of 2008 -- I’m not sure why I didn’t break out the video camera for more groups.
Featured in this video are:
Mary, Erica, Maka, Sue, Terry, Katie, Mary, Mark, Dave, Cindy, Mike, Peggy, Teresa, Anita, Steve, Jessica, Arlene, Gail, Marisa, Tiziana, Paola, Rita, Carla, and a few more.
The reason for the title (Dances with Mozzarella) will become evident at the end.
16 days to go before I make my trek to Italy for 5 months this year, but our tours have started. Fortunately, so that I could get some last minute work done and finish coaching our son's baseball team, Paola went over ahead of me for our first tour of the year.
Scott & Michelle (from Texas), and Don & MaryAnn (from Washington) are our guests for this week that ends tomorrow. They have chosen to do a somewhat custom itinerary that more or less mixes some of the highlights from other itineraries we offer... making it somewhat intense: Rome, Florence, Cortona, up into Umbria, etc. etc.
To my utter pleasure, Michelle has a Blog where she has been posting daily trip reports. It's a great read! Have a look.
Let's face it... when I am in the US, this blog runs pretty dry. After all, a blog about Italy doesn't do too well when you are sitting at a computer in Florida. Well, that is soon to change.
On May 12, I'll be heading over again, and this time I will be there for 5 months straight. No back and forth this year like I have done the last few years. But the news gets a little better... I'm heading over there with some new high-tech toys for the blog (and the rest of the site).
I'll be bringing a new Canon Vixia HF-10 High Definition camera, as well as a new Gateway P-171XL FX with a full compliment of video editing software.
My intention is to get pretty serious with the videos this summer. I'll be doing very in depth video blogs for all of the towns we visit on tours, as well as all of the festivals and events. Considering that we already have 14 tours booked, there will be a great deal of material, so stay tuned.
For the first time, Soriano hosted the Tuscia in Jazz Festival. This international festival had been held in nearby Ronciglione for the past five years, but apparently that town had complained about the noise and decided they didn’t want it anymore. The festival promoter, Italo Leali, was faced with the chore of finding a new host last year. According to Italo, he chose Soriano for several reasons: It has very good access to Rome, Florence and Italy’s main freeway, it has enough restaurants and hotels to support such a large festival, it has the character and ambiance essential to such a festival, and it has appropriate venues (large piazza, etc) for such a festival. For all intents and purposes, his reasons are in sync with my own reasons for promoting Soriano: Character, Beauty, Proximity and Infrastructure.
The festival was not at all what I had expected. I honestly thought that it would be a cute little festival with a few nights of music, headed by some local Italian jazz musicians. Instead, it turned out to be a major International event.
Roughly 1,400 musicians from across the globe appeared in a series of concerts every night for nearly a full month. Some were young musicians that came to learn in the workshops or participate in competition for the Jimmy Woode prize, and some were seasoned jazz musicians that saw this as a truly international event. Some of the bigger names included Jimmy Woode's daughter, Shawnn Monteiro, Benny Golson, Joey De Francesco, Jimmy Cobb, Buster Williams, George Cables, Bobby Durham, Jesse Davis, Giorgio Rosciglione, Gegè Munari, Eddy Palermo, Piero Odorici, Massimo Faraò and John Kinnison. Aside from the nightly concerts, every night after midnight, Soriano’s Rotezzia Pub, a large pub that is made from a series of connecting grottos and caverns, would host the nightly jam sessions. Here, artists would get up and perform at random until daybreak every night.
In all, it is said that 70,000 spectators came to Soriano for the concerts. In fact, Soriano reached critical mass by the second week, when there were no more rooms available and people were renting spare bedrooms out of desperation. Word to the wise: Reserve early if you plan to attend in 2008.
The festival built up to a single ‘main event’ night one Saturday, when Soriano hosted its ‘Notte Bianca’ (White Night). On this night, all stores were open until 5:00 AM, street vendors were out all night, several outdoor taverns were erected to serve grilled sausages, pasta, etc., and six stages were setup all over town to host an all-night event with 40 concerts.
All in all, this was by far the most impressive event I have ever seen in Soriano. I’m already counting the days till next year’s festival…. It was a huge success, and will be here for at least the next five years.
Italian Culture 
Let's face it... when I am in the US, this blog runs pretty dry. After all, a blog about Italy doesn't do too well when you are sitting at a computer in Florida. Well, that is soon to change.
