Reggio di Calabria: Home of the Strait of Messina and the Junior World Cup of Archery

Reggio is a strange city. Like a slightly nicer Newark with a grungier Seaside Heights beach, three times the horn honking of Bergen County on a Friday at rush hour and a 5 star, insanely beautiful view. It's definitely a strange place to wind up - a sort of transit destination. You're either going to Sicily, coming from a beautiful beach town and flying out via the smallest area in the world (which I am flying out of tomorrow), or you live in the smaller towns in the region and have come here to shop on the main drag. There is a beautiful 2 mile promenade that goes right along the sea, but it's apparent that they are trying their hardest to build the area up to increase their tourism - its new, and in a strange architecture that doesn't fit the shabbiness of the city.
Last night I went back to the Pirate restaurant to try the involtini de pesce spada - swordfish, thinly sliced, stuffed with mollica (the squishy bread inside), capers, olives, parsley, cheese and pepper. Then grilled, and squeezed with lemon and served with arugula. It was absolutely amazing - and the waiter, Stanzo, told me using mollica in cooking is very traditionally Calabria - it stretched the protein when times were tough. Which explains so much about the meatballs I was raised eating and now make myself - everyone thinks it odd when I'm adding squishy bread insides, but it is what I learned. A culinary tradition passed down from when meat was a rarity in Calabrian food.
Reggio was quite a trip, literally. The standard crowded train, the standard graffiti covered station. But this meat and cheese plate makes up for it - though I now feel guilty about eating every bite. Well, pretty much just the lardo. There is nothing more decadent then eating pure fat, draped like milky silk over a piece of crusty bread (lardo - top left, then a grassy gorgonzola, anon. cheese - 3 types - one was spicy and grainy and wonderful, ham, salame, sopressata, 'ndjua, bottom right, mortadella, proscuitto).
That made me smile. As did the archery junior world championships going on overlooking the Strait of Messina and Sicily. I cheered for Mexico, Rocio.
Bellisima.