I was inspired by our trip to Zermatt Switzerland to try my hand at Swiss Fondue. Every where I looked I saw buses advertising Gruyere cheese and fondue pots in every kitchen store. Every menu I opened and every restaurant seemed to beacon me to try the cheesy swiss inspired dip.
This year I have many friends visiting Europe during a series of International Conventions being held in various countries in Europe. As a side tour many will be making a detour to Italy. Most will be visiting Rome and I know they will love a visit to this ancient city. Among the basic itinerary of the Trevi fountain, gelato and pizza they will be visiting the Roman Forum and the Coliseum. In this blog I have compiled a few of my favorite things to see and points that helped me put these iconic ruins into perspective.
So after a particularly long service day I was sitting in front of a steaming bowl of saffron risotto and sipping a glass of white wine when Jeff abruptly shows me an email that’s all in Italian but references my Italian Citizenship. What?!? I was immediately ripped from my risotto induced food coma and jolted into reality! I had kept my nervous anticipation of Italian Citizenship on the back burner in my mind for years now.
It seems strange that a California would take up surfing in Italy but life is strange that way. My husband and I are both native Californians, born and raised. However neither of us are from the coast. We were both born and raised inland so although we both love to visit the California Coast multiple times a year we have never taken up surfing there.
We have been back in Italy for two weeks and hit the ground running with renewing our visas and making sure my citizenship documents were still in the approval process. Next on the agenda was finding a new place to live. We had decided to move further south after living a year and a half in Nettuno.
We are finally back “home” in Italy after two days of traveling and three days of jet lag. It’s been a whirlwind of getting our cell phones running, updating our Permesso di Sorggiono (Permission to stay in Italy filed at the local commune) and checking on my Citizenship documents. We have eaten the pizza, sipped the cappuccino’s, devoured the Cornetto (breakfast pastries) and slurped the gelatos. We reunited with friends over apperetivo and pasta.
The last night before flying back to Italy after our three month stay in California we enjoyed a family dinner with Jeff’s parents. Family dinners are a favorite pastime on both sides of the family, both mine and Jeff’s. We love gathering around the table over a delicious meal and talking the evening away. My father in law came up with a new recipe to try and us girls got busy in the kitchen to bring it to life.
I mentioned Huevos Rancheros in a previous post when I made Posole and I was describing all the wonderful things you could make with Enchilada sauce. I decided that I should write a post on how to make Huevos Rancheros since it is one of my favorite breakfast or brunch recipes.
Many of us in America have never heard of Pavlova, but it is almost the National Dessert of Australia and New Zealand. It has been hotly debated which country invented this dessert but we do know that it was concocted for the ballet dancer Anna Povlova during her tour of Australia and New Zealand. The dessert is a light base of meringue topped with fresh fruit and whipped cream. It is as ethereal as the dancer herself.
Bagna Cauda is one of our treasured Italian family traditions. It means “Hot Dip” and is from the Piedmont Region of Italy. My family are Northern Italians from Asti, Italy and Asti is smack in the middle of the Piedmont Region. Sitting on the border of France and Switzerland you can see how this unique Italian specialty came to be influenced by its fondue loving neighbors. The northern Italian gave their own spin to the beloved fondue by making it with butter, garlic and anchovies.
