24 Hour Forno

(Note: This post a is a LONG time in coming.  I think I have about 4 posts in the draft phase right now.  My apologies to Jon and  Ryan.)

Summer is not all fun and games around here.  Though I must say there is nothing quite like coming back to campus after dropping the students off at the airport.  The delayed exhaustion from the semester is slowly setting in and the campus is so quite and serene.  All you want to do is make a gin and tonic and sit on the lawn listening to the quiet.  That lasts for a few days and then it is back to work.  This summer the bottom floor of the villa is getting redone, so work meant boxing up books and moving furniture.  Then it was on to cleaning out the RA offices and prepping them for the various summer programs.

After all this taxing manual labor Ryan decided we should unwind with a 24 Hour Forno.  What is 24 Hour Forno you might ask.  It is 24 straight hours spent at the Forno, cooking, drinking, playing games, and keeping the fire roaring.

We started at 12noon on Saturday and went till 12noon on Sunday.  Three of us managed to stay the full 24 hours but we had lots of friends popping in and out, mixing things up.  Here is a recap...

Lunch...hot dogs (Hebrew National bc Kosher hot dogs are the ONLY way to go) and burgers complete with American bacon, dill pickles, and cheddar compliments of Jon Polce's friend who is stationed at a military base outside of Venice.  You have no idea how exciting this was!

Then it was on to bocce and dinner preparations.

Dinner...pizza! Ryan has a reputation for over buying on the food and true to form he went out and bought 10 kg of pizza dough from a local bakery.  THAT'S 22 LBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He was instructed to put it in the fridge to keep it from growing too much.  Unfortunately that did not work so well and the dough broke through the two plastic bags it was in and grew to the size of a 6 yr old.  When Ryan opened the fridge to get a beer it was like attack of The Blob.  In the end we managed to overpower the dough and make some delicious pizzas.

The Champions League Final was on that night so there was brief pause for some soccer watching and then it was back to the forno for s'mores.  It was the first time our Italian friends had ever heard of or had a s'more so that was pretty fun.

As the night wore on we kept ourselves awake with various games (yahtzee, darts) and movie making.  See below...

I had planned on going to bed whenever I got tired.  Surprisingly I was still going strong at 3am and decided that I should bite the bullet and stay up for the whole thing.  6am on was the hardest for me, and for Ryan and Jon too.  The sun had risen and the novelty was starting to wear off.  (And we had been joined by a particular resident of campus who came to see the sun rise but then stayed passionately talking non-stop for an hour or so about the decline of our university and the need for us all to stand and fight.)  Our saving grace was when other people started showing up for breakfast.  They provided us the infusion of energy we needed to make it though the last several hours.

Ryan's sun salutations.

Breakfast...for breakfast we made breakfast pizza.  Yum!  By this point in time Ryan, Jon and I were practically delirious from lack of sleep and over consumption of caffeine/red wine.  The Watermaidens arrived and surveyed the scene somewhat disapprovingly.  They asked me how I could let my husband do such a thing as a 24 Hour Forno and why would I partake in it.  To which I had no real answer other than "Well, he's not hurting anyone..."  (I don't think I will tell them about Farmapalooza.)

And FINALLY is was noon again.  24 hours spent at the forno. The whole campus turned up for the final moments.  It was almost like waiting for the ball to drop on New Year's Eve in Times Square.  There was a countdown and we celebrated with a champagne shower.  Then it was off to bed for the next two days.

I am trying to post the videos from 24 HR Forno, they should be in the next post.