The Grill, and some uninvited guests

For me, part of vacationing at the sea means eating the freshest seafood. A few nights ago, we grilled these spigola, Italian sea bass. I bought three thinking I could easily eat one and a half, and Roman would surely like to try this mild, white fish.

While preparing them, I noticed a wasp buzzing around the kitchen. No big deal, I shooed it out and went about my business. Later when P. lit up the grill, more came. These were not just regular back yard wasps. They are more your long-legged variety. In sum, they are scavengers that eat meat and fish (shudder) and they were after ours. We quickly moved our plates, food and baby inside to finish our meal, although my appetite was largely gone just thinking of carnivore insects.

This morning we drove to the next town over, Bari Sardo, to buy fish, Tuesday being the recommended day to get the freshest and most abundant selection. I bought two of our favorites. Fresh squid and fresh sardines. I marinated them both in garlic and fruity, local olive oil. They tasted divine, but again, the wasps came, so we ate inside, luckily with a nice breeze coming through.

In Bari Sardo this morning, we were delighted to find that we can do all our shopping in town. The butcher, fishmonger, baker and a vegetable stand are all conveniently located at one intersection. We bought this beautiful, rustic bread and P. got another bottle of Cannonau, which is best consumed chilled, wasps or no wasps.

3 on vacation

Two days ago, we arrived in the remote town of Torre di Bari on the eastern coast of Sardinia, a rural and actually quite rustic community on the Tyrrhenian sea. Other than being soothed to sleep by the sound of the surf and the swish of pine trees, awoken by doves cooing in the morning and breathing the lovely sea breeze on the terrace, we are discovering some of the Sardinian culinary products.

For our aperitivo, we tried some sausage from a nearby town, Villagrande, along with some mild sheep's cheese and the local flat bread, "pistoccu". The bread is the simplest thing you can imagine. It was made to last while the sheep herders were tending their herds, apparently it keeps for up to eight months. I bought the whole wheat version, containing only stone ground semolina, water, salt and leavening agent. It's bland but surprisingly addictive with its strong crunch, I find myself munching on this without realizing how much I've been eating.

Talk about remote, there is almost no commerce here. Just one supermarket in a nearby town which is good for provisions, but other than that we're buying fresh fruit and veggies at roadside stands, all grown here in the countryside. This morning I ate a peach that was the most succulent and flavorful I've ever tasted and it was actually a shame that I contaminated it with yogurt and weetabix cereal.

Last night I sauteed up some onion, garlic, zucchini and red pepper in local olive oil and made their local pasta called fregola sarda, toasted semoline pasta- a close relative to Moroccan couscous, only a bit larger and not uniform in shape. Roman enjoyed it tossed with some olive oil and parmesan. We sampled some of their local wine, cannonau, from a guy we met in town, but more on that later when we visit a vineyard.