Attending the Santa Rosalia Italian Festival in Monterey, California with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Summertime means festivals on Fishermans’ Wharf in Monterey, California. My favorite festivals when I lived in Monterey were the Turkish, Greek, and Italian ones.
My husband Laurent and I took our daughter Florence to all
of them to get doner kebab, Greek desserts, and pasta. Florence learned the words to many of Dean
Martin’s songs and especially liked going to the Santa Rosalia or Italian
Festival.
I had to move to Monterey with its large Sicilian community
to participate in an Italian festival despite having traveled to Italy several
times.
Monterey’s Santa Rosalia Festival commemorates this saint’s
saving the Sicilian city of Palermo from the bubonic plague in 1624 when she
appeared to a young Matteo Bonello. She
told him to go to her hermit’s cave and dig up her bones so he could scatter
them in every corner of the city, which ended the plague.
In Palermo, they still parade Rosalia’s image to thank her
for succor. In Monterey, her image is
paraded down Alvarado Street from the San Carlos Cathedral to the Wharf where a
mass is said to bless the fishing fleet.
Before the procession arrives, there is plenty to do at the
Santa Rosalia Festival. Bocce ball
players roll baseball-sized, leaden balls towards a ping-pong sized ball at the
end of a lane as long as a bowling alley.
A player makes a good shot when his ball gets very close to the white
ball.
A player makes an excellent shot if he (it is invariably a
‘he’ who plays) can get his ball to the white ball while knocking one of his
opponent’s balls away from the white one.
There are no scorecards, but obviously a predetermined number of times
you can roll your balls, because the players change ends of the lane a few
times.
I just enjoyed listening to the aficionados cheer as I
sipped Moretti dark beer. (Italy’s
northeastern corner was Austrian at one time and has a beer-drinking heritage.)
The food offerings at the Santa Rosalia Festival feature the
foods of southern Italy. I like penne
puttanesca, which appears to be Roman.
Penne are short, hollow tubes cut at an angle that are good at catching
sauce. Puttanesca sauce gets it savor
from capers, garlic, anchovies, olives, and tomatoes fried in olive oil and
topped off with parsley and basil.
At our first of many Santa Rosalia Festivals, we ate and
drank as the procession from San Carlos Cathedral paraded past our table in the
sunshine. A high school marching band
did their steps double time, which garnered applause from the presto lovers in
the audience.
Then came a phalanx of spit-polished 1970s convertibles
crowned with two or three teenaged beauties, wearing white gowns with their
hair up in buns that were topped off with diadems. They played the part of beauty queen well,
waving to the crowd with some of them blowing kisses.
Finally, the float with Santa Rosalia’s statue came down the
Wharf. Little girls wearing blue angel
outfits, who were too shy to move, graced the float.
“That’s my granddaughter to the right of Santa Rosalia,” one
of the ladies said to another one at our table.
“I made her costume,” she sweetly boasted.
“She’s adorable,” I said.
“I know! I know!
Thank you,” came grandma’s proud reply.
A boat float with little boys on it passed by signaling the
end of the parade.
I loved being part of the pageantry and settled back to
listen to more Dean Martin music and dance the chicken dance with Florence each
time it was announced, so we could have some silly fun.
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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