Polley and I had a wonderful dinner last night. More about that later. It was in the preparing to go out for our meal that I became aware of some primary adjustments that one has to make as we travel about. They are adjustments of space and time. Each place offers challenges regarding these notions. The idea of “settling in,” which I have mentioned “countless” times (please see previous blogs to count) seems to be working with the problem of space: how to set up the apartment, rearrange furniture, store clothes, finding the light switches in the dark when you need to use the bathroom; where the nearest store is, where to take your laundry, all these sort of spatial considerations and adjustments. Compared to adjustments of time, these seem easy and within our first week here, most of them have been solved.
In making our dinner reservations, I became aware of this challenge of adjustments of time. While there were certainly adjustments to be made in France last year (or Mexico for that), they seemed subtler there. Here the differences are more obvious and we are still struggling. Our arrangements for dinner seemed to emphasize the point.
We decided to have dinner at the Shui Wine Bar, a place we had frequented, had been invited to the opening of the wine store and exchanged daily pleasantries with the owner and our new found friend, Mario. We stopped by to make a reservation only to find Mario there and to discover that he was, in fact, the chef for the evening (he had been a chef in London for 15 years prior to returning to Lecce). He was in the midst of preparing the menu for that evening and read out to us what sounded like a wonderful selection of choices. However, when we made the reservation, I said, “8:30 or 9.” He confirmed our reservation by repeating the times by saying, “9:30 or 10.” I let it pass, but this seamless alteration of times, along with our observations of night life in Lecce over the last week caused us to realize that we had not come close to adjusting our sense of time.
While life here in Lecce begins at more or less the usual time as back home, there is some major traffic congestion on the main artery just around the corner from us by 8:30, there is also a sense that things move more slowly. The mid-day siesta is very much in effect in terms of most of the local shops. They close from about 1:30 until 4:30. Some of the larger stores remain open, but largely life comes to a halt for 3 hours. By 4:30 shops are beginning to open and as people get off work (I am still not exactly sure how Lecceans make their money, but from the price tags in the shops, some of them must make a great deal) and the main Piazza becomes a gathering spot as people stroll, shop and sit for a coffee or a glass of beer or wine. However, dinner does not begin to be seriously considered until after 9. And I mean seriously. In many ristorante, they won’t even take a reservation before 8:30 and if you go at that time, you are most likely the only ones in the place and the staff are still sweeping the floors and folding the napkins!
Trying to split the difference last night, Polley and I left for Shui Wine Bar at 9:15. It is no more than a 5 minute walk, so we arrived at 9:20. We had reserved a table outside and it was waiting. In fact, nearly all the tables were waiting. Hardly anyone was there, and certainly no one for dinner. Mario had carefully printed out the evening’s menu for us, in English, and then I was escorted to the wine shop next door to select our bottle of wine for the evening.
Wine was served and we just sat and watched the people stroll by. Doing our best to allow the evening to slowly unfold, we sipped wine and by 10 p.m. could wait no longer, However, it was only then that others began to appear.
The meal was wonderful. There were three choices in each category: antipasti, primo and secondo. For the antipasti we had a baked radicchio, with bacon and mozzarella. It was to die for and we could have stopped right there. But not wanting to offend the chef, Polley ordered a primo, a mixed meat kebab (chicken, sausage and beef) with a side of ratatouille (eggplant, red and yellow peppers, and zucchini) with some mixed greens (arugula and romaine); I had the Octopus Carpaccio with sautéd potatoes and pine nuts. The octopus was in very thin, round slices like a sort of octopus salami. Again, it was wonderful. By the time we finished, around 11:30 p.m., the street was finally beginning to fill up and people were still arriving for dinner. This photo will give you a sense of the atmosphere as the crowds from Shui, Santa Cruz (the wine bar next door) and Trumpet (perhaps the most popular of all three, at the end of the street had overflowed.
About 11:45 we headed home; I cannot report on when the others left and we were soundly asleep. However, we will know our adjustment is complete when we become some of the last to leave.
Ed and Polley
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