On the Venice Lido, we went everywhere by bike. Late morning, we cycled out from our rented house to the supermarket to pick up bread, salad, vegetables, perhaps fish. These we stuffed into our bike baskets, and rode home by way of an aperitivo in the bar of the day. Although technically everybody was on holiday, my women friends, all freelances, were still working. Just as they would at home in Vicenza, they got their work done, then rapidly put lunch and supper together without fuss or flurry. What good meals we had. Of the simplest sort, they featured pasta most days, with shredded basil and chopped raw tomato (or with home-made pesto), or a risotto with radicchio, or a vegetable soup. Small portions, followed by large ones of salad, a piece of cheese, fresh apricots. One night, we ate Milde's vitello tonnato, tunnyfish mayonnaise and wheels of lemon layering the slices of veal. We ate all together, three generations chattering and arguing, on the little loggia veiled by sunlit green creepers, half in and half out of the narrow, tree-set street frothing with pink and white oleander blossoms.
On Sunday night, on a whim, we cycled several kilometres along the edge of the lagoon to a fishing village called Malamocco, intending just to have an aperitivo. A festa was going on, so we stayed. There was a small funfair, stalls and games on the grass between the edge of the village and the water, with people queuing for food. The celebration was for the Madonna of the Sea, to commemorate her saving the Lido from invasion back in the 11th century. The church, when I peeped in, resounded with the chants of High Mass. A vast, blue brocade-clad Virgin reared in one corner. We backed away, into a packed eatery off the main piazza, where we drank spritzers and ate delicious titbits: tiny red peppers stuffed with tuna fish and chilli, different fish stews. Outside, we bought supper: spaghetti with fish sauce, mixed fried fish with slabs of grilled polenta, chips, wine. As we sat munching on the crowded grass under the trees, we heard a commotion: bells, a brass band, a choir singing. Round the corner came a procession of priests and bishops, with acolytes in blue tunics staggering along bearing the blue-brocaded Madonna I had seen earlier. Behind came nuns, and a straggling line of the faithful. The procession halted, while the red-sashed bishop turned aside to the sea, held up a gold reliquary, blessed the waves. None of the Italians sitting around concentrating on supper took any notice at all.
On the morning I left, Milde and Giuliana began preparing food for the festa of the Redentore the following day. The traditional menu involved sardines in saor, deep-fried sardines layered in stewed onions, and risotto fagioli. I tasted one exquisite sardine: consolation for missing the feast.
