This is love. It is a tarte tatin. It was made by my oldest friend in Ticino, Valeria, for Friday night dinner. It was the day after the death of her sister-in-law, the beloved, indomitable sister of her husband. Hospitalized since Monday for what seemed like a minor problem, she took a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse on Tuesday. Her husband came hurrying back to the hospital, calling out Mari, Mari, as he rounded the door frame to her room, in a rush of love and tenderness and anguish. She died Thursday night, the 11th of September. Three months to the day of the also unexpected death of her beloved son, another death which had all too recently wrapped the entire family in a shroud of sadness and sorrow. And now Valeria, after standing vigil for days in the hospital, was doing what she does best, providing succor and sustenance for the family by cooking dinner. I stood in her kitchen as she browned the rack of lamb, pausing only to gather the vegetables that she would roast with the lamb. It was a choreography in the kitchen, a practiced swinging from one task to the next. To the side of her, on the wall by the sink, hangs a board holding the quote by Michel Bourdin: Cucinare é un modo di dare, Cooking is a way of giving. And that is Valeria.
She was my first friend in Ticino. Her husband used to joke that it was something like love at first sight when we first met, some 30 years ago. An instant, non-verbal recognition that we would be friends, good friends. She reminded me of Faye Dunaway in 3 Days of the Condor. She strides through life, straight and strong, clear-eyed and purposeful. It was a good thing that she could speak English as I spoke not a word of Italian. 5 years later when we decided to make our vacation home our permanent residence, Valeria was my lifeline. When she gives, she gives with her whole heart, openly and honestly. So when I looked at that tarte tatin glistening on the countertop, what I saw was love.

Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard greeting the people

Vice-President Simonetta Sommaruga

President Didier Burkhalter

I could only think of the famous closing lines of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “…that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”  when I witnessed the entire Swiss Federal Government arrive for a visit in Lugano and quite literally step into the crowds of people.

I marveled to my husband, can you imagine President Obama, Vice-President Biden and the entire cabinet going out and mingling with this huge crowd of people. I was able to shake hands with our President, Didier Burkhalter, our Vice-President Simonetta Sommaruga, both of whom I admire enormously, as well as greet a few other ministers. Amazing!

But it does typify Swiss politics – I have never known a more participatory form of government. In fact, that’s why the whole Federal Government traipsed down to Ticino, because Ticino’s vote in February on the initiative to extend immigration quotas went against the Federal Government’s position by a whopping 68.2%. In fact, Ticino wasn’t the only canton to vote for it, as it very surprisingly passed by a hair-thin 50.3% . But that vote certainly clarified the view that Ticino needed to be knitted back into the fabric of a unified Switzerland. It doesn’t help that there has not been an Italian speaking (Ticinese) member of the Federal Government since 1999. So not only did the entire Federal Government show up, but at the same time the Swiss Embassy Conference also took place in Lugano, bringing 250 representatives of Switzerland throughout the world to this tiny town.

It was a significant show of support for Ticino, attempting to gather Ticino more firmly  in the Federal fold. Mark Twain wrote “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to Government, when it deserves it.” The Swiss government certainly is trying to deserve it.