3 courses $28 Friday 3/1 Destination Dinner: Italy, Umbria & Piedmont

TO START

foccacia + toppings roasted grapes with capers & pistachios + whipped great hill blue cheese & olive oil + arugula & citrus olive oil + shaved parmesan

MAINS choose one

sicilian lamb meatballs + ravioli filled with potato + mint & tomato sauce with hints of greece Mercatale, Umbria, Italy 1998. Liz & Alessandro (a fiery Sicilian born sheepherder/chef /house on the hill caretaker with a Greek mother) cooked this dish together for 16 of our friends and family. A whole lamb on a spit in the fireplace, Ava’s baby footprints in the flour on the floor and Alessandro singing and dancing to Ciuri Cuiri .

pork milanese + saffron & mushroom risotto ... somewhere in the north, 1990, we are lost, looking for an Italian bike builder (a Steve thing). I'm hungry, tired, and pregnant with Ari. We walk into a little trattoria, and see a dozen construction workers bellied up to the bar, taking their afternoon shots of grappa. I feel uncomfortable, and we leave. The owner chased us down. We ate pork Milanese and laughed with the workers.

shrimp bolognese on tagliatelle

...and then maybe you get the kids settled in on the fast train to Venice, breath sigh of relief, look out the window and see actual fast train to Venezia fly by. So instead I ate seafood bolognese in Florence, we bought a treasured leather bag and saw some great art.

gnocchi with pork belly + carbonara

cream, parmesan, herbs & soft fried egg

Slow Food Show, Torino, 2012, by myself. I get on the train to Switzerland instead of to Milan (don’t let the “nice” guys help you get your luggage on the train) The ATM takes my card (you can't make more than 3 mistakes}. My airbnb guys don’t meet me at the bus station as planned (they finely showed up and I could do a Moth Radio segment). My hotel is having the whole facade taken off with jackhammers (special & "quiet" were the reviews). I walk miles up to a hill town for dinner, got lost and end up at a tiny little place at 10pm. I eat gnocchi with pancetta cream. All is good.

TO END choose one

chocolate hazelnut torte with whipped cream

3 italain cookies and 2 puddings