Piemontese Food

I’ve been in the US this week–and what a quick week it was! I came home for Sarah’s wedding and got to catch up with family and friends a little too. Heading back to Italy and the Sinio gang this afternoon.

Before I left Italy (actually, a long time before I left), Gigi and his family took me out to dinner at a great little restaurant where we had spaghetti with fruits of the sea. Anna isn’t a big fan of fish, so she had pizza instead, and Gigi introduced me to a great new digestivo called San Simone afterwards. Yummers!

Cristiana and Luciano (Chanin in dialect–pictured above) also invited me to eat with them. This time at their house for a wonderful and traditional Piemontese dinner. Cristiana’s gradmother (left) and Carmela, Walter, Bea, and Guiseppe joined us as well. We started with cocktails and then moved into the kitchen for the real feast: focaccia (Chanin used to be a bread maker!), torta salata (like quiche with lots more veggies), vitello tonato (boiled veal, sliced thin and served with a homemade tuna and anchovie mayonnaise), asparagus with fonduta, two types of lasagna (pasta al forno), roasted bell peppers with garlic, that had been slow-cooked in oil for two hours, the cheese course, bunet (a traditional custard dessert made with amaretti cookies and cocoa–everyone has their own secret recipe for bunet), and strawberries (diced and macerated in their own juices)! You can imagine how full we were afterwards–but everything was soooooooo good!!