Friday, May 13, 2011

Italian Adventure




I've just returned home from 2 weeks in Italy, having eaten pasta at almost every dinner. Of course it was freshly made and cooked perfectly.

Our first stop was Venice and after arriving overnight from the U.S. we we're looking for much dinner, but wanted to reset our internal time clocks so a light meal seemed in order.

After walking along the calles and canals, we stopped at a Venician osteria or wine bar. Because it was a sunny and warm day we decided to eat canal side. Venetian wine bars serve wine by the glass and small appetizers called cichetti. Our plastic glasses of house wines were 2 Euros each (less than $ 3.) Cicchetti were 1 Euro each.

We selected cicchetti by pointing to what we wanted in a bakery case. Our favorite was the smoked salmon with horseradish cream and fresh dill. We also tried a baccala puree (salt cod), sily gorgonzola with a walnut garnish, a slice of cheese and liver pate. All of the choices were served on crostini. We set our plate on the wall along the canal and sipped our wine watching the busy osteria and finding in hard to believe we were in Venice.

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