It’s mid August and my vegetable garden is rewarding my earlier summer efforts with copious amounts of cucumber, tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, green beans, eggplant, basil and parsley. I asked my neighbor down the hill how her garden was doing and she told me the Cinghiale got her garden! Cinghiale (pronounced: Chen-gall-aye) are wild boars that roam the forests using their snouts to forage for grubs in the soft soil, “The Cinghiale destroyed your garden?!” I gasp while asking increduolously. “The Cinghiale are around here?” “Si”, she responds with eyes wide open “A BIG one with nine babies!” “What?!?” I start thinking about my garden just up the hill from her, I imagine a enormous wild boar with big tusks rummaging through my garden followed by her nine babies. I ask her if the wild boar can be hunted because I also started to imagine a big bowl of steaming pasta in a rich Cinghiale Ragu. “No” she replies, the season for boar is closed but in the fall it will reopen.
House Hunters International
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.
Week 2 in the life of a Keto diet
Planning and prepping are key to a successful Keto Diet. Really, it is key to any good eating plan. It’s the biggest mistake to wait until your starving, standing with the refrigerator door open, begging it to miraculously provide something delicious and nutritious and only then to figure out what your going to eat. This usually ends up with cookie dough from the freezer and someone’s leftover pizza being stuffed into your face while you stand over the kitchen sink.
Cauliflower Pizza Crust
A few days after arriving back home in California, I told my mom “If you are going to make pizza, please let me know so I can plan on it for dinner!” She said “I didn’t think you would want to eat pizza since you have been living in Italy eating the “best” pizza!” I replied “I DO want to eat pizza, I want to eat YOUR homemade Pizza!” So with a little smile on her face she agreed to make me pizza.
Market Day In Central Italy
I love Market Day in Italy. Each town in Central Italy has their own market, here in Nettuno our market day is Thursdays. The market it just a few minutes walk from our house and just down the street from our bakery. So I usually start market day with a cappuccino and cornetto then stroll down the long street that has become the market.
Italian Cooking School
Today on my morning run I noticed a subtle change in the seasons. The streets of late August that had been teeming with beachgoers in bathing suits are now replaced by fully clothed individuals.