Prima Colazione (Breakfast)

Wereen is an older guy in Gemma's family's village in Italy, a real character, he is always doing nice things for me when I am there. Several times during the stay, I opened the front door to find a bottle of wine there that he had left for us; he makes wine, that is his big thing, and Grappa. Under his house in what they call the cantina over there, or what he calls his office, he has a still as well as various other grape related paraphernalia. Outside the cantina there is a bird cage where a minor bird lives, she will return your “Boun Giorno” with an unsettlingly human voice. Between her cage and the road is a high hedge, Gemma’s mother had become quite angry when, walking down the road last week, she was wolf whistled at a number of times.

Yesterday Wereen came round to the house in the morning to say that he was off to the next village to get his paper, and I suppose to see if I wanted to go too. Gemma’s mum intercepted him at the door telling him that I was busy, which I kind of was; I was writing a letter to Nat West for a lady who had an account there in the 60’s with about £200 in it; she wanted to know how she could retrieve the balance.

Anyway, when I had finished the letter I went after him. He was in his garden, he’d been and come back but thought he might have left his paper at the shop/café because he couldn’t find it. So off we went in his old Fiat Panda through the heat, down the hill across the bridge that Gemma’s granddad built in the 50’s (he was the foreman) and is now occasionally used for bungy jumping or suicides, up the other side into a sleepy village, through some very narrow streets before stopping outside the shop. When we went in we saw that the owner had ordered three copies of Il Centro (Abruzzo's daily) for the day (he showed us his manifest) and that he only had two left, the assumption being that Wereen had left with the other one. A shrug later we went through an archway into a deserted and dark room, the shop keeper followed us through and became barman. Wereen ordered two Sambucca al Centerbas.

Centerba is 70% alcohol and smells like it should be illegal. You can buy it on its own, usually only a splash is added to coffee (after dinner). Sambucca al Centerba has a slight taste of the "hundred herbs" spirit, it is delicious if a bit strong for 9.30 am. I declined, but agreed to have some in my coffee. Wereen had the drink in a measure that I would describe as being about the size of a small glass of wine. When we left there he insisted that he would like to take me to another bar. We drove through a maze of tiny streets arriving at the little square where, in one corner there were five or six mainly older guys sitting outside what looked like a very small shop, some of the men were drinking. It was very hot and bright, despite the early hour, as well as very quiet, it reminded me of a western film set. Everybody knows Wereen and he exchanged banter with some of the guys in French (he and a number of the locals had all gone off to Belgium to work in a coal mine in the 50’s) and the local dialect before we stepped into the cool of the bar. No tables, two slot machines, one not working. He asked for two Sambucca al Centerbas. The lady behind the bar produced the bottle but it only had enough for one (wine glass sized) shot left in it. There was a short debate about whiskies and other Sambuccas before Wereen suggested topping up our glasses with neat Centerba. Our hostess looked shocked at the idea, I couldn't understand everything that was said but I could see that she felt it was important that I knew what I was letting myself in for. Sambucca al Centerba is clear, Centerba is bright green and so were our cocktails. Five minutes later when I left, I knew I had had a drink.