Whenever I have company that spends the night and I want to make a special breakfast that is not too labor intensive, I turn to Dutch Baby Pancakes. With summer coming to Italy we are starting to have more house guests, so I’ve been whipping them up lately! Dutch Babies are an American invention by Manca’s Cafe in Seattle.
Jeff’s Parents came to spend a month with us and we decided to take a little road trip up to the Tuscan and Umbria borders of our region of Lazio. We have chosen Montefiascone for our home base. It is an exhausting exercise to try and decide where to spend your time anywhere in Italy because there are so many choices.
I’ve been hearing about the Garden of Ninfa since I arrived in this part of Italy. It is a beautiful garden that thrives and blossoms on the ancient crumbling ruins of Ninfa, a settlement with a temple dedicated to Nymphs. Nymphs are mythological maidens said to inhabit beautiful mountain regions and lakes.
We live in Nettuno, a beach town one hour south of Rome. The only thing Italians love as much as sun tanning on the beach is sauntering up from their sun beds into the Borgo for a steaming plate of mussels and pasta.
I currently live in Italy and this recipe for Tiramisu has become my new “go to” recipe for making a dessert for company. It is prepared the day in advance, it’s easy and always a hit! Whenever we have guests arriving from the US we always make this dessert and it woos them everytime, but even my Italian friends love my recipe and rave about how authentic it is, high praise indeed!
I love living in Italy and trying ALL the delicious food that is available here. However, you can take the girl out of California but you can’t take the California out of the girl. I am used to a multi-cultural cuisine and I still get a serious craving for food that is NOT Italian. Tonight I am craving Vietnamese Lemongrass Beef Salad!
I’m still trying to catch on to the true “Italian Style” of cooking and it often eludes me. I especially have been baffled on what to make as a “Secondi Piatti” or Second Course when I have people over for dinner. This Saturday morning I walked to my local grocery store around the corner and was amazed at the spectacular choices available and it dawned on me that I have been shopping at the wrong time! Saturday lunch is traditionally the biggest family meal of the week.
Italy has started to whisper her secrets to me, I am starting to peel back the layers of the onion and learn what it means to cook the Italian way. “Sto imparando, piano, piano” (I am learning, slowly, slowly)
So our three months in Italy has come to end much too soon. We have felt the temperatures drop as late summer became autumn and now autumn is turning to winter. The summer clothes have been safely stowed away until once again we are imagining ourselves frolicking on the beaches and strolling through town in flip flops. We have replaced those days with sweaters and boots and hats and scarfs. We are learning how to dry clothes without a dryer when they no longer dry on the line. Now we hang them on the wall heaters and heated towel racks and hope for the best.
A local friend that has origins in Napoli asked if we wanted to go on a Food tour of Napoli you know the answer was a resounding “yes!” So we took the 6:58 am train from Nettuno heading to Napoli. We met our friends in route and two and a half hours later we were disembarking at the Naples train station.
