Following Jennie's adventure in Italy (in the episode 'My name is Maria'), Rolando and Elisabeth arrived at our Donna Vittori farmhouse in Paliano and we spent 2 unforgettable days together.
Maria knew everything, but I didn't realize that this American couple from New Jersey would come to Italy just to meet us. In reality, their vacation lasted a week: 3 days in Tuscany and 3 in Ciociaria just to be with us.
The trip basically coincided with Elisabeth's birthday and in a certain sense we were her gift.
"We love Korean TV series, and we fell in love with My name is Gabriel, especially the episode where Jennie Kim lived Maria's life. We also have children of this age and we found ourselves in many sentences that were exchanged between 'mother Claudia' and daughter Maria-Jennie".
They knew a lot about us through the episodes that were very ‘intimate’, and they treated me like a friend. Actually: a special friend. They immediately entered my heart, and I wanted to welcome them in the best possible way.
They arrived on a beautiful Sunday in November when everyone was eating in the garden in the autumn sun and the first thing they asked for was ‘a spritz’. I was a bit surprised because we were giving them a pizza, but then I understood everything and they told me: “we didn’t know about spritz, but we saw that Italians really like it and so we decided that we would drink our first spritz at Donna Vittori prepared by Maria”.
Rolando and Elisabeth are originally from El Salvador but have lived in the USA since they were 17. Elisabeth has two grown children from a previous marriage and then they had a son together who is now in college studying medicine.
Getting to know them better, I discovered that Elisabeth is an expert cook and had remade all the recipes as gnocchi and fini fini (the typical pasta from Ciociaria) that are shown in the episodes, but not the pizza that in its complete version requires a wood-fired oven and, above all, our ancient grain flours. However, they were lucky because it was a Sunday dedicated to pizza experiences, and they were able to do exactly what Jennie did with the tourists do during the episode.
After a long walk through the fields, while we were finishing the reorganization after the event, we sat down together to chat a bit, and I felt enveloped in a great human warmth.
We had dinner together and started exchanging Italian recipes but, above all, getting to know each other better.
I thought that the first 'Jennie tourists' would be young fans, I received so many messages on social media from people who live in Asian countries, and I would never have expected an American couple close to my age.
The second day was Elisabeth's birthday and while they were on a trip to Isola del Liri, we bought her a cake and set the table in a special way, worthy of friends who come to visit us from far away.
Maria taught her how to cook her famous carbonara and we were all together in the kitchen to film so that they wouldn't forget the steps of the Roman recipe, which is perhaps the most distorted dish in international cuisine! (Let's remember that carbonara is sacred to Romans, and has even a day dedicated to it: Carbonara Day!!).
A beautiful dinner together at the table and the cake with candles to seal the event.
The next day, Elisabeth and Rolando went to visit Villa d'Este in Tivoli and in the afternoon we went together for a walk in Anagni and went shopping at an artisanal dairy. They had never tasted buffalo mozzarella or Cacio di Morolo, the smoked one: they went crazy.
In the evening we met once again in the kitchen for a taste of the famous tortillas de El Salvador. This time the roles were reversed: Elisabeth cooked and we learned!
After Elisabeth and Rolando left, I started to feel strange sensations and to think that I have always talked about experiential tourism, about telling stories, but I could never have imagined that the last frontier of the tourist experience would be me!
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