Dinner out

The very last day of our very hottest heat wave, Paola, my friend, neighbor and walking partner, gave a dinner on her terrace. While we were eating the heat broke and went away, and was replaced with fresh breezes that felt frigid to our acclimated bodies. Here is how we ate, or most of it.

That is just the antipasto. WE wew expected to eat this and then eat an entire Italian meal as well! Everything is homemade or hopme grown, too. On that plate is a wedge of homegrown melon and a slice of prosciutto crudo; three crostini of which one is homemade patè, one a spread made of zucchine, and one a smooth tomato conserve; a fresh fig, and a pice of cheese made on the mountain behind us by one of our neighbors.

This is our first course, or primo. The taglerini are homemade and like silk in the mouth. The “sauce” is smoked salmon and zucchine, which recipe I will get from Paola and publish here later on. She is only last night returned from a driving vacation in Holland. This pasta was just delicious. Check back in a couple of days for the recipe. You won’t regret it.

There was a meat course of steak and pork cooked over a fire in an ancient villa that they own, but I had eaten too much and only ate the green beans and tomatoes that were served with them. And I’m sorry, but I forgot to photograph them, but it was too dark, anyway. Excuses. I blame it on my GPS.

Here, however, is a flash photo of the company.

You see Marcello’s back, then Amelia and last Paola. The other guests are invisible. It’s hard to say if any more nights will be warm enough to dine out, although last night I dined in a tiny piazza in the middle of the city with friends. It’s as always about 6 degrees warmer in town than it is out here in Barzotti.