Cassoeula

Well it was the annual cassoeula feed at the Wilhelms house. And it was GOOD!

all thai'd up

holber and greta had gone to brescia and went to the international store, so they called up to ask if we wanted to do dinner together. they brought over his new wok and all the ingredients and fixed us a thai dinner. oliver is getting so good at cooking he can now do it with one hand thai'd behind his back....haha!

that's hot!

oops she did it again, the newest greta-ism. well, greta as usual has added one more to her her repertoire...here is the picture:

this is the greta comment: wow sophia looks bigger than the other kid.
retort: thats cuz she's closer to the camera!

for those who dont remember that gets added to: how long is shark week? and (at mariposa park in yosemite) are the fallen trees (imagine hundreds of big trees horizontal to the ground-ALL around)? what would we do without greta?

***justly noted by holber... tonight i made a cake that was fit to be thai'd up in a bag and thrown away! i often go to foodnetwork.com to look for recipes. they have loads of recipes and a rating system that's usually pretty trustworthy. usually is the keyword here! this time it was NOT trustworthy at all! DO NOT try emerile's hot water sponge cake, or as oliver likes to call it the fritata dolce (the sweet omelet). it flattened after it came out of the oven and tasted like sugary scrambled eggs and weighed a ton. it was total fear factor food! i only did half the recipe, thank goodness otherwise the garbage men would have to come back with a larger truck in order to throw that away. yuck! and yet somehow holber and max ate their first piece and holber then went back for seconds. greta and i only took a bite. holber we will see you on the next edition of fear factor!

pietro house

from the time she woke up this morning sophia has been shouting ' pietro house, pietro house.' she even sang a song in the car about 'pietro house.' the kids are getting so good playing with each other, especially since pietro is soooo good about sharing is toys with sophia! and of course we ate loads and loads again. fra and paolo made brasato, which is like a pot roast cooked in veggies and wine and eaten with polenta. OMG it was sooo good. and there was also an artichoke torta and some fresh olives (soaked in parlsey, garlic and peperoncino), gorgonzola, then fresh fruit and pastry cream, i made a chocolate cake and there was an apple cake too. i must weigh a ton now! i cant go back to their house until after the class reunion or else i will be as big as a house! max and i are like 2 old people, we just cheered a glass of alkaseltzer...plop plop fizz fizzzzzzz!

raclette trois...

it was actually criss, ilaria, gre e ol who gave max the raclette/pirrade set for his birthday, so finally we had the group over to use it. it was a dinner that had been rescheduled so many times this year due to various versions of the stomach flu for various people on various days. finally we are all healthy! the set is always great fun because there is not much preparation, no returning back and fourth to the kitchen for various courses, and food cooks slowly so you can take your time and eat, drink and chit chat. i usually dont over eat because its a slow causal thing, but due to the numerous times we rescheduled i had a big hankering for the grilled meats and bagnetto verde and i totally over did it this time. whats bagnetto verde you ask? well its a green sauce that is made of OO, parsley, boiled egg, anchovies, bread crumbs and garlic cut into tiny tiny pieces by hand (no food processing), it takes forever to make - but its friggin good! the first time i heard of it, it didnt sound so great - but it is. it's typical a piemontese sauce for boiled meats, but its awesome on just about anything. we did a pretty good job and didnt have loads left! thank o/g for taking home the leftover cake!

Thai

Nonna Gweta being 'useful' and Holiber cookin the chicken, and Max's booty.

Hey! Buona ApeTHAIto!

Diggin In.


Greta and a round of Wii golf

Whew just got back from picking up Sophia from the Nonni's then Gweta and Holber came over for dinner...only they did most of the cooking. We were supposed to do thai for new years eve, but since we are going to mauro and khatia's we did it tonight. I have no idea exactly what they made, it was chicken with a curry coconut milk sauce, but it was damn good! i pitched in with the steamed rice and some pad thai and max as usual did his part by eating. after that was a little wii. We did the agility test afterwards...max and i both did horribly, he got 78 and i got 80 years old, yikes!

Christmas Lunch

Make a postcard - it's easy!

Today was the annual Christmas Lunch at ML and F's digs. This year thing ML and F changed things up a bit, and everyone brought 1 dish, which was great because it meant less work for the host, but more to eat for everyone! The first round was, sliced cold cuts (prociutto crudo, coppa, salame, etc and cheeses (dont know all the names) with pepper jelly or honey and warmed toasted bread. I was already full. The next round was lasagne with peas, which Sophia just loved! Third round was a veal roast with a walnut cream sauce (made by pino and her peanut gallery nanu) and mushrooms stuffed with couscous with a parlsey creamed cheese sauce (massimona) that followed by finocchio (fennell) smothered in a carrot cream nutmeg sauce (sabri and jonathan) and our oven baked eggplant parmigiana. dessert was a past sfoglia crust, pear, chocolate and walnut torta (sabri and jonathan). all accompanied by wine the whole time. ps note to self, next year dont sit next to nanni, he doesnt like to pass the wine and food! good thing i dont mind the boarding house reach as my mom calls it!

Sant'Ambrose Dinner/Happy Bday ML

For his birthday, O, G, I and C gave Max a raclette set (think fondue, but melting cheese underneath to be eaten with potatoes and chilled sliced prociutto, salami, speck ecc and grilling meats and veggies on top of a stone- that you can eat with diff sauces). Which is exactly what Max is explaining in the picture on the right. We finally got to break
in the raclette set today! We also missed ML's birthday last week, so it was also an excuse to celebrate that with her. It was really fun. I cant believe how much we ate, we had at least a 1/2kg of cold cuts, 2 kg of potatoes, 1 kg of cheese, 1/2 kg of zucch, and 1 1/2 kg of meats. We ate all the cheese, and there was very little of the rest left over. That's 5 1/2 kilos of food! Plus bread, and 4 bottles of wine, and 1 champagne and Pino made a chocolate cake (of which remained just 1 slice!). Whew!

G, O and M grilling it up! N and P making the 'antipasto face'

Me, Pino and her cake!
Fabbbio loosens the cork
Auguri ML! (Unlike Nanni's family, we actually open the bottle, not just take pictures of it!)

Dinner at the Cicciarello's

We were treated to a fantastic dinner at Fabbio and Maria Luisa's house tonight! Everything was amazing!

Casa Wilhelm

Went to Paolo, Francesca and Pietro's house for dinner. Food was great as usual! Paolo made Gremolada and Risotto allo Zafferano,




which was really good...So good Max and Francesca sang a song about it....




The kids had a really good time playing with each other all night, they are much more interactive now, which is nice because then we actually got to chat together for the first time!!!



And Franci made Dulce de Leche, which was really amazing.

All in all it was a really fun night! Sophia was exhausted from all the fun by the time we got home.

Valeria's

We made Max a big birthday breakfast today...bacon, eggs, home fries and pancakes. Then Leo and Alexandra came over after lunch. Went to Valeria's to celebrate Max's birthday. It was small and intimate and lots of fun. The girls really had us cracking up!

The Return of Fajita-Boy

Tonight was Fajita Night. We owed Oliver (aka fajita boy, cuz he eats so many)a dinner since he took care of our plants for 3 weeks while we were in Cali. Used a new recipe off of foodnetwork.com - i think i like them better for find recipes than allrecipes because i agree with fn.c's ratings more than i do ar.c's. Used more than a kilo and a half of flour to make the tortillas...we ate almost all of them. And the n Ilaria and Criss played 20 questions. All in all it was a fun night - but late!