Ferruzzano Superiore, Calabria

The alley is narrow, shaded by the late sun. Stone houses lean close, silent and empty.

By one doorway, an old wood-fired oven rests, cracked and worn. Every family once had one. Bread was life. You baked, and you shared.

I think of my mother, a girl from a nearby coastal town. She used to say, “We were poor, but we never went without bread.”

Sometimes she traded with fishermen: a warm loaf for a plate of sardines, salt still glistening on the skin. Somehow, there was always fish.

Even now, as I write, I can smell her bread—warm, heavy, persistent.