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Valentine’s Day endurance test

By PAMELA HASTEROK with photos by DON LINDLEY

It’s a rare occasion that I would return to a restaurant that took 90 minutes to serve me a single piece of food, but Lido Bianco gets the Come-Back Award any way.

That’s not to say I’ll abjure venting. When we arrived for our 2 p.m. lunch reservation on Valentine’s Day, the chic waterside restaurant in our newly adopted hometown of Monopoli, Italy was full to brimming, not a seat to be had. Really. The maitre d’ checked his book, checked it again, and then asked us to wait. After much scurrying around and two free glasses of prosecco, he led us to our hastily installed table, wedged between a door and a waiter’s service station.

And then we waited: 45 minutes before a server took our order, 15 minutes before he brought wine, another 15 minutes until the insalata mista arrived. We would have left – how long are we going to put up with this, my husband groused at the halfway mark – but it was obvious this was an overwhelmed kitchen, not a personal slight. To pass the time, one diner played solitaire on her daughter’s tablet.

But once the food began rolling in, each dish was worthier than the last. Two plump oysters (an apology from the house) were juicy and full of briny flavor. Tuna tartar was fresh, rustically chopped and spiked with onions and capers. The kitchen simply seasoned and grilled to perfection large shrimp and a small octopus (a true art with naturally chewy polpo). But the piece de resistance was the locally caught sea bass, known as spigola. The grill rewarded us with a charred skin, moist interior and sweet, sweet fish.

By this time, we’d stopped complaining and fell into satisfied silence as we polished off a bottle of crisp chardonnay (local and cheap, at 12 Euros). We ended the meal with a fragollotta, strawberries layered with whipped cream, not quite a full dessert, but enough to leave one content.

So I’ll give Lido Bianco a second chance, but on a very slow week night.

Notes to my girlfriends, one month in

Darlings,

It’s a month on and here I am just writing the letter I’ve been meaning to send since before we left. But mea culpa and onward ho.

Our adopted hometown of Monopoli is as beautiful as we remember and more welcoming than we expected. Despite the language barrier, which is vast, people are generally kind to us and often go out of their way to help. We are celebrities of sorts at our little gym – Americans who work out – and our capers and difficulties are occasion for building-wide discussion. Today the staff and members took up our plight trying to find out how to get a national identification card and we left with the address of the office and the hours of operation, carefully written down by our trainer, Ronnie, on a fuschia colored sticky note.

I’m picking up words and customs as quickly as I can, but it’s difficult without basic grammatical structure. Finding a school that holds Italian classes for English speakers has proven impossible, so my notion of taking an immersion course is nixed and we’re left to hiring a tutor. While I’m disappointed, I’m undeterred. As soon as Don and I get back from Venice next week, we’ll start lessons.

I’ve circumvented the language lapse by becoming a regular at every necessary shop, favorite restaurant and gelateria. Once you return more than twice, you’re a local. Merchants extend to you if not charming courtesy, then at least good natured tolerance. On one early excursion all three clerks in a small grocery scoured the store for burro di arachidi (peanut butter) without having any idea what it was. When they offered me first bullion and then butter, I carefully wrote out the Italian words and we all had a good laugh. No such luck finding this exotic American staple.

It’s hard to imagine a First World country living without our brand of Arm & Hammer toothpaste, Dove soap, ziplock baggies and herbal tea, but Italy does. We’ve had to buy a toaster (toastapane), an espresso machine and a cheapo food processor (robot cucina) just to make the kitchen operable.

Shopping calls to mind our grandparent’s generation with a particular store for each thing – bread, fish, fruit, cheese, ham. Every day items like garbage bags and toilet paper can be had at a supermercato, generally on the outskirts of downtown. I’ve even discovered one that carries pane senza glutine products – gluten free bread, crackers and a cookie similar to animal crackers, a true treat.

Yet, the superlatives here come fast and furious — a fascinating coastline crossed by the wide open Adriatic, sandy beaches and rocky cliffs, the sweetest seafood you’ve ever tasted (even for a Floridian) and wildly decadent gelato.

My favorite thing, however, is the outlandish footwear. It is not uncommon to find a professional woman wearing conservative black pants (black is the sole color of winter) and sequin-encrusted walking shoes with rubber soles. I adopted this look and now that I have glittery sneakers, I’m on the hunt for black patent wingtips and red high-top sneakers (the latter of which young women wear with dresses in the summer.) Who knew Italians would figure out how to be high-fashion and high comfort, too?

For the most part, women wear jeans and fitted down coats or the I-forgot-my-skirt-look so common at home. On Saturday nights and Sunday lunch (the traditional family outing) they don short pleated skirts with black tights and chunky heels. The occasional stiletto can be seen, but it’s a rarity – medieval cobblestones are their own discouragement for 6-inch heels. Still, weekend dinners that start at 10 p.m. – most restaurants don’t open until 8 and the only diners at that hour are tourists, children and Don – deserve some glamour.

As Don and I settle in, Monopoli continues to offer up surprises. Drinking our morning tea and coffee last week, we were startled to hear music wafting over the clatter of construction next door. It got closer and closer, until, there, beneath our balcony at 9 a.m., an accordion player appeared and serenaded us. Another morning walking across the major square, I was startled to find it packed with families and children dressed in costume – you’ve never seen so many pre-school princesses and policemen – Carnevale, of course. Walking home, I was accompanied for two blocks by a white-plastic clad storm trooper. Best of all, strolling out on the barren beach cliffs south of town, I saw a man leaning over to put a leash on his dog. But as I neared, I realized I was wrong: he was setting up a microphone to amplify his tuba.

Ah, Italia, always an adventure. Come along on our escapades

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