I am in Italy. Parma, where my dad was from and now resides permanently. I hadn’t realised how much I needed to be looked after by (slightly) older Italian female relatives and be fed homemade pasta. It’s been a few years. Early morning in the countryside brings fog over the hills and a surreal air to everything. As the sun climbs, I go for a walk with my cousin. As we trek uphill, and I try to hide how out of breath I am, I see strange tracks in the dried mud (we need rain here). I query them. Wolves, very probably, my cousin says. There are many round here, you can hear them at night. I swallow slowly; there are lots of these tracks. I am glad it’s daylight and look ahead at the woods where apparently the wolves sleep during the day.
Later, my other cousin will tell me about a man found in a field with bite marks to his neck. He didn’t make it.
We make it safely down and get into the car and go into town to buy parmesan cheese and salumi. And this is where I spot them. Baci chocolates. Baci (meaning kisses) were my very favourites growing up. I have a difficult relationship with them now due to their parent company but as I’m in Italy I can let politics slide a bit. After all, most of Italy has. I spy Baci Caffe, a new to me flavour (there is also Amaretto and you can buy both these flavours plus the original from various Italian outlets online in the UK – Google them).
Like most childhood memories made real again, Baci are smaller than I remember but still delicious and still with a little ‘fortune cookie’ note inside.
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