It’s our seconed Easter here in The Vicolo. We had just moved in last year when we hosted a major feast for Peg and Paul Spera, Jim and Carol Thomas, and my brother Rich. This year we have a pretty healthy guest list too; Josh and Audrey, Rosa and Vasily (Catalina doesn’t feel well), our new friends the French couple Gaelle and Geoffroy and their kids the toddler Blanche and the newborn Salome’, Roberta and Michael….

Sadly, the weather is drizzly and cold so we can’t take advantage of our killer terrazzo, though I cook the meat outside on the grill which is essential. We have lamb, kielbasa, and rabbit, mashed potatoes and cauliflower, greens, Nana’s rolls and that crazy pineapple/bread bake. Josh and Audrey bring cakes, so does Rosa, and there’s just a silly amount of Chiaretto courtesy of Roberta and that killer enoteca right by Lake Garda.

I love how the men all congregate around the grilling meat, despite the cold air and spitting rain. Everybody wants to hold the tongs and kind of manipulate the food a little. There is actually no single language in which we are all fluent, but Italian ends up the default most often. It doesn’t matter, though; everybody’s having fun, Lawren did an incredible job with the food, and that Chiaretto goes down so easy.

After coffee, I regale our guests with another Italian song I’ve learned recently, a sappy love ballad called “Come Triste, Venezia” or “How Sad, Venice”. We ate early in the American fashion and so L., Mary, and I are left alone with the mess of dishes and empty bottles around nineteen hundred hours.