Last Friday evening, I had dinner with several hundred new friends on the shores of Lake Como. It was the kind of spontaneous delight that I never dreamed I would experience when I moved here. In many ways, it perfectly represented the passion and beauty that I have come to love about the Italian culture.
About a month ago, my friend Sarah mentioned the "Secret Dinner" to me so I checked it out on Facebook. These flash-mob style dinner parties have taken place in a couple of other Italian cities in the past year and one was planned for Como for the 11th of July. The information provided online (in Italian, of course) gave some guidelines: participants were to wear white (with red accessories if desired), participants were to bring their own table, chairs, food, beverages, and no paper or plastic products were allowed. There was no charge to participate and once we signed up, we were given a number and told we would be notified at the last minute where the actual location was. Several of our friends who were initially interested in going, backed out because the instructions and arrangements seemed to be a little vague and complicated. And yes, even Dave balked when he realized that we were going to have to take our own table and chairs and "all that stuff" to a undetermined location. We ended up with a group of six (including Dave) and together, we were able to come up with everything we needed.
An hour before the event, the location showed up on the Facebook page with instructions about where we could park.The waterfront road around Lago di Como is always congested but when he saw our attire, we were able to convince the traffic polizia to let us drive into the restricted area. The all white outfits seemed to be the admission ticket. It was an amazing sight to see the ingenious and creative ways that a large group of people employed to set up an elegant and comfortable outdoor dining room. White tablecloths, cloth napkins, formal dinnerware, candles, centerpieces of roses and hydrangeas - it was a sight to behold. Then the food and wine started to appear from picnic baskets and tote bags and people took their seats. Around 9:00 PM, a signal was given to begin the actual dinner but if the truth be told, our table of Americans and Brits had already started on our antipasti.
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| Piazza Risorgimento - before |
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| Musicians greeted us during set-up |
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| Organized chaos .... |
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| ...but in less than an hour, the space was transformed into this. |
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| Sarah and Katherine |
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| Dave admitting that he is glad he went. (photo by Katherine) |
For the next two hours, everyone sat and enjoyed food, wine, good company and conversation, and the beautiful summer night. The week that was just ending had been rainy and cool, so it seemed like a special gift to have a warm, clear evening. At one point, a buzz went through the crowd as people noticed and pointed at the moon rising over the mountain behind us. The people at our table just looked at each other and agreed that it all seemed almost too perfect to be real.
There was an opportunity to make a donation to a charity and a group toast was made to the organizers. Sparklers were passed out, lit and held high to mark the end of the evening. And then, just as quickly as it had formed, the "mob" dispersed and disappeared into the darkness.
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| Moonrise |
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| Sparkling conclusion |
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