Little Italy was the inspiration to begin playing bocce. My friend Linda and I were exploring the Little Italy neighborhood of San Diego during an Italian Festa celebration when we came across the bocce courts in Amici Park. We zeroed in on a bocce tournament and stopped to watch. Older gentleman, many Italian, were playing a spirited game of bocce. Voices were raised and arguments ensued about the placement of the ball and the closeness of the larger ball to the little white ball. We asked one of the men, who turned out to be the president of the Encinitas Bocce Club, about the game and realized he was from Encinitas. He said “Yes, we play in Encinitas. Come out to our club in Oak Crest Park in Encinitas on Thursday night.

Linda and I took him up on the offer and arrived the next Thursday at the courts to discover a group of mainly men and a few women engaged in a lively game of bocce.

Introductions were made and we were welcomed to play.

Bocce is a simple game on the surface,with the main goal of getting your ball as close to the small white ball, called the polino, as possible. The strategies are endless, much like pool, with the ball caroming off the side walls.

Playing bocce at the Encinitas Bocce Club turned into a great pastime and amazing social experience. Gathering with men and women (many Italian) from the local area and folks from New York, Chicago and other places on the East Coast, a breath of fresh air for a laid back Californian.

My first in-house tournament was truly one of my “best days ever”, as my dad would say. It was a beautiful , warm spring day, people arrived early for a breakfast of coffee, fruit and sweet rolls.

Everyone brought their Italian specialty dishes for the lunchtime potluck. Lasagne, pasta salad, frutti di mare and desserts. I learned later, they always served watermelon

Lots of hugs and kissing on the cheek.

The day warmed up, as did the players and bystanders, who rooted for their favorite teams.

Lunchtime rolled around and there was a break in the action, family members and friends arrived to join in the festivities.

One player’s son, who was a goalie on an Italian lacrosse team, came with a team mate from Italy. The friend proceeded to entertain the gathering with an Italian opera.

Did I mention, the player attended the tournament with a talking and singing parrot on his shoulder?

Such a day, I will never forget…

Playing bocce was an entertaining event and as we perfected our skills and met other players, we were encouraged to form a team and play in the Southern California Bocce Association Tournaments, where teams from other Southern California clubs competed. The person that encouraged us the most was the club president. He said, “you should do it!, have an all women’s team!”

And so we did! Toni already a EBC club member and Nancy joined Linda and I and formed a team called “Bocce me Mucho”. My dad thought of the name. It was inspired by the song, “Besame Mucho”, translated to “kiss me a lot”,,written by Consuelo Velazquez in the 1940″s.

So our team, Bocce me Mucho, began playing tournaments in the Southern California Bocce association league games. Apparently, we were quite a sight when we arrived at different tournaments games. We heard lots of comments and felt lots of stares as we prepared to play. Did we live up to the status of tournament league players? No, not at all, but it was an amazing experience. We were thrilled to score a point I remember players from other teams saying “what are you so excited about”, we answered back, “we scored a point”! They looked at us very curiously.

It was true, women did not seem to be a big part of this bocce culture, but they did prepare the food and sit on the sidelines socializing and cheering on the men.

Our little team finally broke up, but I will remember our time together always.

My favorite recipe of the day was:

Frutti di Mare

Poaching Broth
4 cups water
1 cup white wine or chicken stock
2 teaspoons salt
2-3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 small onion, roughly chopped
Salad:
2 celery stalks
1 large yellow or orange bell pepper
1 pound tomatoes
1/2 cup chives
1 pound small cocktail shrimp
1 pound small clams in shell
1/2 pound bay scallops
1/2 pound calamari, cut into rings
1/4 cup high-quality extra virgin olive oil, or more to taste
Juice of 1-2 lemons
Salt and black pepper to taste

Method
Make poaching broth:
Put all the poaching broth ingredients together in a medium pot, cover and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat to let the flavors steep while you cut the veggies.

Prep salad vegetables:
While the poaching broth is steeping, dice the yellow pepper, seed and dice the tomatoes and slice the celery stalks very thin. Chop the chives. Juice the lemons and remove any seeds. Put the diced peppers, tomatoes and celery into very large bowl. Most cocktail shrimp are pre-cleaned and cooked, so you you can put them in the bowl, too.

Poach the clams:
Bring the poaching broth back to a boil and add all the clams. Boil 3-4 minutes, or until the clams all open up. As soon as you see each clam open, fish it out and set it aside. Remove the meat and put in the bowl with the veggies.

Poach the scallops:
Turn off the heat and put the scallops in the poaching water. Cover the pot and let stand for 3-4 minutes. Fish out the scallops and put into the bowl.

Poach the calamari rings:
Bring the broth to a boil once more. Add the calamari rings and boil 30 seconds to 1 minute, then pour the contents of the pot into a strainer set over a bowl. You can save the broth or discard it. Pick out all the calamari rings and add to the bowl.

Dress the salad:
To finish, add the olive oil and a little salt and half the lemon juice. Mix well and taste. Add more olive oil, lemon and salt until you get the flavors you want: The salad should be glistening with oil, briny and tart with lemon. Finally, mix in the chives and chill. This salad is better a few hours after it’s made.