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Posted: May 15
This has been a busy week with the visits of two long time Jesuit friends, one of whom got me out of Rome for a Sunday outing where I think I made a new friend. On Wednesday Father Alan Deck came for pranzo. We first met in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1968 when we were studying philosophy, and then spent time together again studying theology in Berkeley, California. We were ordained together in Hollywood, almost thirty years ago, but have not seen each other since. He now heads an innovative multi-cultural retreat program in Southern California that offers retreats in English, Spanish and Vietnamese; and he is a major authority on Hispanic culture. He came over to the Curia a little early and we spent time catching up on each other’s work before eating. Our lives since ordination have taken very different paths, but we fell back into conversation as though we had only seen each other recently.
On Saturday, Father Phil Steele came back to Rome to spend the last few days of his sabbatical before returning to St. Louis and the harsh reality of going back to work. Phil and I belong to the same province so we have seen each other regularly and even lived in the same community in St. Louis for a number of years; plus I visited him in Florence a few months ago. So it is no surprise that we found much to talk about, with him giving me an undeservedly hard time, as he always does. He reminded me that I promised to write about him in this web log after that visit and never did. Of course, something more interesting came up and bumped him from his spot.
”You can’t write more than one blog per week?” he queried.
And that’s the way it goes with Phil. (Maybe that’s why new friends are so nice; they don’t know you well enough to make trouble.) But he wanted to do something special on his last day in Italy before flying back to the States. We got a car, opened my map of Lazio and headed northeast out of Rome with only a general destination and the hope of discovering some new place. It always works; this is Italy after all.
Of course, the adventure started as soon as the main road along the Tiber River in Rome ended in a parking lot and I realized that I should have taken the unmarked turn that we passed up minutes before. I knew an alternative way, which turned out to be a long loop through neighborhoods that Phil had never seen before. Finally we reached the Via Salaria and headed north through the flat farmland along the Tiber. Leaving the river flats, we started winding up through the foothills of the Appennines: our goal was any town that sat on top of a bunch of squiggily lines on the map, indicating a road that gained altitude rapidly. Finally we settled on a destination, mostly because I liked the sound of the town’s name: Scandriglia.
We caught site of the church tower and the old stone houses perched atop a rocky promontory high above groves of olive trees and knew we had chosen wisely. A bit later we were walking narrow streets that ended in alleys no car could pass. People were friendly, although the old men sunning themselves in small squares did not look like they had seen too many tourists. At least our passing provided new grist for their conversation. We took lots of photographs and then found a spot above town to draw. I worked in pencil while Phil did pen and ink. By one o’clock we were hungry, so we asked some passersby for a suggestion.
”La Maddalena,” they all said; that’s the place to go. Their unanimous enthusiasm encouraged us. “It is just down the main road from the school, near the fountain.”
We went back to the car, drove past those landmarks but could not find the restaurant. There was another place called “La Fonte” but no Maddalena. Down the road, up a side street, back up the road. Finally we popped out into the fields below the town, clearly off target. We asked one last time and found a man who explained that La Fonte and La Maddalena were one and the same place. Quickly we returned up the hill, parked and walked into exactly the kind of country restaurant we were hoping for, with a rich but not too heavy tomatoe sauce on the pasta and big smoky pieces of grilled meat. Strawberries topped with homemade whipped cream finished a simple but elegant meal. On our way out we explained our initial confusion to the young woman running the restaurant. She started laughing and explained that her name was Maria, but her mother was Maddalena, whom everyone referred to when they talked about the restaurant. Then she went into the kitchen and dragged out Maddalena herself who looked old enough to be retired, not working over a hot stove. Scandriglia is the kind of small town where everyone is known; people recommended a restaurant which they only know by the name of the cook. What difference does a sign make?
We reassured them that the food was excellent—it was—and then went out to the car. I was about to pull out when I saw Maria running after us. She pressed a handful of the calling cards that restaurants use into my hand. “Tell your friends about us,” she said. So I am telling you. Go to Scandriglia, don’t be confused by the sign, and say the artists from the Stati Uniti sent you.
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