La Cinciallegra

One degree at 8:30am and snowing wetly both in Carmine Superiore and Carmine Inferiore. So it wasn't just us after all...Bar Centro lore has the latest snow in this area falling on March 19th. Let's hope this doesn't turn out to be a record-breaking year - if only for the sake of the baby lettuces I planted in an excess of springtime jubilation last Friday.

To La Cinciallegra Agriturismo, a stone's throw from Torino and its shopping delights, in search of La Bionda Piemontese. No, not a latterday Italian screen goddess, but a breed of chicken raised only on a handful of farms in this region, and a breed that we abandoned last year in the search for new blood.

The journey brought us twenty-one hopeful eggs, now in the artificial hen, humming away at 37.5°C (would that I were so warm!).

We were treated to a tour of the agriturismo, which offers rigorously clean and modern facilities, delicious home cooking, great views of the flatlands southeast of Turin and an authentic farm experience. Click here for more.

On the way home we, suprisingly for us, motored straight past Asti and Ghemme and all the delights of the Val Sesia. What! No barbera? No nebbiolo? No lip-smacking gorgonzola? Cellar full? Given it all up for Lent?

No. We had another appointment. An appointment that has turned out to be dramatically life-changing.

And when a brief moment of life-unchanging comes along, when the earth ceases to shift on its axis, when my world stops fluttering around my head in confetti-like shreds, I'll let you in on the secret...