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In the summer, you will find them in their
gardens,
surrounded by radicchio, beans, peperoncini (hot Italian
peppers) and zucchini. They walk among the vines, and the pear and
fig trees, as if they were still in Italy, on the paths that linked
their native village to the gardens and fields. On their knees, as
in prayer, they contemplate the plants they know so well because
they have sown their seeds, propagated them and nourished
their soil.
If you are lucky enough to be invited to their home, you can
see them in the basement, just as serene, checking the state of
the ricotta, or selecting a prosciutto or a jar of pickled eggplant.
Surrounded by the produce of
their own hands,
they seem to be talking to old friends they will always be able to
count on.
Of course, you will also find them in supermarkets, filling
their carts with packaged, processed, modified and transformed
products that have come from who-knows-where but are so very
practical. Like us, they wonder about the
nutritional value
of those products. But they know that when they return home, they
can leave their plastic bags on the table and check on the garden
or bring some wine up from the basement. And that is reassuring.
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