Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Simple Italian Pleasure

When we are in Italy we have a favorite lunch which is very simple to cook; tortellini, aspargus and a salad made of rucola, cherry tomatos and mozzarella. In Terracina I love to visit the pasta baker to watch him make the different types of pastas, and I have been lucky to find wild aspargus when hiking. And we have taken part in a buffalo mozzarella festival. In Venice we have our special shop where we buy the pasta and in lack of the language use our fingers when we explain how much pasts we want. And there are alot of street markets where we can buy the aspargus, the tomatos and the rucola.
We do find all the right ingredients here at the grocery store nearest to The Blue Café, but of course not with the same charm as in Italy. I do visit Terri's blog though to see how she makes the real tortellini and ravioli, and I have The Blue Garden where I grow my own tomatos and rucola.

Yesterday we had the Italian Pleasure on the meny, and Marta's friend was thrilled when she was invited to eat with us. Her dream is to go to Italy some day.


2 comments:

Darla said...

Your meal looks delicious. The salad makes me so anxious for our home grown tomatoes to be ready. The plants are in but I know it will be quite awhile yet before I'm able to pick any.

Darla

Terri said...

Hey - Wait a minute - those tortellinis are NAKED! THEY NEED SOME SAUCE! They are also great in Soup.