JOURNALIST, AUTHOR & CARTOONIST SEAN KELLY VISITS ITALY

Italy Bike Tours had the pleasure of hosting journalist, author and cartoonist Sean Kelly and his fabulous equally talented wife Cathy. He kindly sent us his next piece in the series Cousin and Sandune for our blog post below:

We’re back after an amazing bike ride around Italy’s northern Lake District, cycling through quaint towns full of centuries-old architecture, along beautiful coastlines with the snow capped Alps overhead, and through its vineyard, olive tree-layden countryside.

I’ve attached a small story about our adventure around Italy’s Lake Garda, Lake Iseo and Lake Como. The piece appeared in the Southern Maryland News, with a bit of a spin for its regional audience.

While we rode for a week with a group of swell Australians, we also enjoyed some amazing dinners throughout our excursion. Pizza was often, and good, so long as you didn’t order any pepperoni pizza.

In America, pepperoni on pizza goes together like cheese on a burger. My brothers-in-law own a pizza business in Southern Maryland called “Pizza Hotline,” and it serves up the best slice of pepperoni this side of New York.

That was how I thought it would be in Italy until I ordered one near Lake Iseo.

“I’d like a pepperoni pizza,” I said. The waiter acknowledged. When he reappeared, he served up the most unusual version of a pepperoni pizza I had ever seen.

The chef had carefully sliced yellow and red peppers lengthwise and baked them in his homemade tomato sauce. It was delicious and healthy. But there was no pepperoni.

“Maybe you have to order salami to get pepperoni,” suggested my wife, Cathy. I don’t know why she thought that, but I later ordered a salami pizza, hoping for pepperoni.

Nope. But the salami was great tasting.

Lastly, my Australian friend, Jules, asked our young Italian guide if he had ever had an Hawaiian Pizza.

“No such thing!” said Marco, looking appalled.

Jules disappeared. Fifteen minutes later, a grinning waiter brought over a beautiful Hawaiian pizza draped with pineapples, ham, onions and mushrooms. Marco was skeptical, but graciously gave it a try.

Our efforts to “educate’ the Italians about their pizza were ineffective. But that’s probably all for the best.