Festival
649 College Street
416-539-3985

They are all sorts of travelling rules: pack your identification cards and money in a waist pouch that fits snugly under your clothes. Plan to arrive 2 to 3 hours early to the airport, don’t leave your bags unattended, and bring your own toilet paper… There are books upon books devoted to travel preparation and safety and while I like to be prepared for the trip, I prefer fitting in when I’m there. Fine, I’m still recovering from social extradition in high school.

In Italy, for example, I find myself gesticulating dramatically, a natural accompaniment to passionate conversation, which of course can be something as un-academic as whose mother makes the best tomato sauce. As expected, when it comes to the Italian diet, I pretend I am one of the locals as well, capable of digesting inordinate amounts of alcohol, cheese, pasta and gelato. I am beginning however to understand the repercussions of excessive consumption, though in my youthful naivety, I still think I can beat the system. Preparation, as with travelling, was all I needed.

Along College Street, there are numerous restaurants where I could begin the gastronomic research, but I wanted an experience that would approximate my upcoming year of study in Parma. I needed to shop for food and cook meals myself. Enter Festival, an unassuming shop posing as a variety store, with its lottery advertisement out front and generic signage.

The initial attraction was the bevy of Italians loitering outside, discussing soap operas and soccer games. I have a deep set desire to grow up and become a nonna; the real thing. Preferably dressed in black dramatically mourning a lost partner (cat, dog, human being, whatever), constantly tsking provocatively-dressed girls and carrying beads of some sort to pray for their lost souls. I have neither Italian parents nor relatives. I have never even dated an Italian man. I wonder what my therapist will say.

Inside, it is a veritable festa of food: eggplant caponata in tin cans, a half dozen types of canned tuna, twenty odd types of dry and fresh pasta, cases of plump figs, breakfast biscuits and grissini, the Italian breadstick, simple cured meats and cheeses and a respectable selection of Italian olive oils and vinegars. Curiously, the pro-Italian selection is dotted with expatriate products like Maille mustard and dumpling wrappers. I scooped up enough food for three meals and I was off.

The next day started with what essentially amounts to cookies ($3.95), though the package promises it is enriched with wholesome grains, some hot milk and coffee. Lunch was a simple ciabatta ($0.50) with a few slices of mortadella ($4) and apricot nectar ($1.29) in the cutest little bottle. Dinner was radiatori pasta ($3.19) drenched in Nonna’s Arrabiata sauce spiked with olives ($2.99) with grated aged sheep’s milk cheese I had in the fridge.

I was stuffed, my sister called and I answered with pronto, I was saying ciao a lot more and my hands, they were up to their gesticulating again. When I was missing the right Italian word, I took the French one, confidently added an “a” or an “o” and I was speaking better than I have in years - nothing to do with the Italian Word of the Day Facebook application I recently added.

Guido, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Toronto anymore…