Zia came over for pranzo (lunch) today. I cooked a sauce (no
meat) from scratch with farm fresh pomodorini (small tomatoes), onions and
basil. I threw in a little olive oil and sea salt, cooked until saucy, and then
passed it to get rid of seeds and skins. For the second course, I roasted
sausage with pepperoni rosso (red peppers), cipolla (onions), patate (potatoes)
and basil. Again, the potatoes were a small, but important addition to the dish
as they soaked up the flavor of the sausage and the peppers. There is even enough
leftover to have over some pasta another day this week.  |
| Pizza rustica |
After resting and hosting two families of cousins, we headed
into Centro, the center of town. There we had dinner at Lo Spuntino, a pizza a
taglio (pizza by the slice) restaurant. Their selection is normally diverse and
tonight we had one slice stuffed with sauce, cheese and prosciutto cotto (also
known as sandwich ham), and another slice of rustica. The latter was a flaky
crust with cheese, prosciutto cotto, and broccoli rabe. We ended the night with
gelato from Shangri-La. Tonight they had a special fig gelato with chunks of
fig running through it.
