Alba - Giorno 11

It's Saturday and time for the market - not only do we have the regular market supersized we've also got the Slow Food Market going on in the Piazza behind us.







Be "still" my heart


Do you think I could get this through customs?

We also discovered that there's a horse butcher just down the road



but more about that later.


There was something a bit unusual going on today...



many groups of costumed folk were wandering around the laneways, armed with banners and instruments.

From the Slow Food Market we bought some



Toma Pastoral and



a cows milk blue...



...along with some sunflower honey and an artisan choc hazelnut spread called Nocciolape...




...refreshing Baladin beer...





...and this amazing culatello salami - it's made from the meat that is cut from the leg when making culatello.

Our final purchase and some might say our finest



lovely white truffle.

During our afternoon walk yesterday Paalo had said that he'd love to see a wedding at the Duomo and guess what - there's a wedding today at the Duomo!








awwww...so pretty.

Strange juxtaposition - time for dinner. I mentioned earlier about the Horse butcher - it's a very discrete business and unless it's open you don't even know it's there. I know we've walked up and down that road and never noticed it.

Now having a blog called "eat almost anything" we feel we're obligated to do so which means I toddled into the very busy butcher and bought this:



a tramezzo di cavallo - there is rocket and fontina sandwiched inside two thing layers of minced horse - a kind of triangular hamburger.

I sautéed this in a pan in a little olive oil and butter and served it with a new potato and red pepper stew.



Delish!



The empty plate a sign of satisfaction.


After our dinner we headed downstairs and jostled for a vantage point to see tonights festivities.



Next weekend, the Palio degli Asini (Donkey Race) is on and tonight is the start of the festival - the  teams from the 9 different borgi of Alba are competing and later the donkeys will be assigned their borgo.






















here comes the stars of the show...



The donkeys are paraded round and round the square and every now and again the commentator announces an allocation of the donkey to a borgo - I not quite sure how they make this decision - but I do know



that these two guys are the most important people of the night



After the piazza is cleaned, it's back to flag tossing!









It's comes to and end with an explosion of glitter and the "royal and sacred" party marches off into the night.