Italian Feast

Robert and Darryl had surprised us with a pound of Benton’s Hickory Smoked Bacon. It is very difficult to obtain and extremely Smokey. Sort of like a single-malt Bacon.

We decided to make Pasta All 'Amatriciana, from a recipe in The Zuni Café Cookbook. It is our favorite version of the pasta. We planned to invite Robert and Darryl over in thanks for them bringing us the bacon which we used to make the pasta sauce. You can find the recipe in our blog of Nov. 21, 2007. Click the date to get the recipe. This is not a difficult recipe and it is FABULOUS!

When we called them they said they were making fish soup. The Fish Soup was in the style of an Italian Cippiono, served with Garlic Aoli Croutons. We jointly decided to combine the dinner and have courses with the pasta first followed by the soup. Robert has been on a fish soup bender and this was a delicious version. Of course the fish was from McCall’s Meat and Fish. We love it when guests bring a course!

I baked a Bread, varying the recipe a tad, adding a little more yeast and a little less salt. It improved the bread, rising a little higher. It was raining very heavily and I wondered if the humidity would affect the bread, but it didn’t. We once again had Mt Tam Cheese, I really like its sour taste.

Robert and Darryl also surprised us bringing home made very dark, very rich Chocolate Ice Cream. They said they bought the chocolate from The Spice Station of Silverlake. I didn’t know they sold chocolate. With the ice cream we served Almond Cookies from Mozza2Go.

Delicious dinner as good or better than any Italian Restaurant in LA!