Silvana and Vincenzo's animals

Angela and I were invited to Silvana and Vincenzo's house for lunch our last day in Abruzzo... before getting on a train to head to Verona. Christopher and Denis are their sons... and they have two cute dogs as well. The dogs truly eat pasta! (Now that's an "Only in Italia!" moment!)

They are also taking care of their neighbor's cat for the summer holiday...

They have a number of turtles:

Aaaaand the doggies   : )

Sexy Pasta

Well... this exists!

If you need yourself some sexy pasta... head to Sorrento, Italy!

cheese and truffles - Alba, Italy

I met up with my friend, Robert, for lunch in Alba... he had finished inside the tent for the truffle festival and I was just getting back from a walk. Robert has worked at ASM for about 10 years now! He is the one whose house I went to a few weeks back and there was a little jam session in the living room.   : )  Him and his wife also had me and a couple other new teachers over for dinner last weekend... and it was seriously one of my favorite meals since being here.

Robert and I went down a side street or two and came upon a little restaurant. It was really nice!

We shared a cheese plate and pasta with white truffle. Both were delicious!

After lunch and a bit more walking around, it was time to head back to the bus for the ride home to Milan. The trip each way was between 1.5 and 2 hours. Not bad! I finished my book during the ride.  : )

Some of the scenery during the ride:

my own pesto-tomato pasta!

I don't cook often... but sometimes will try something new. I made myself a yummy lunch yesterday... and am pretty proud that it came out tasting so good! (Often, that is not so much the case.)

It was an easy pasta dish... but even that, I don't often make the time to do...

It might not look very much like pesto... but there IS pesto inside... (I want to try making my own next time!) and then I also added some tomato paste (which I found in CoOp, shown below), some basil-tomato pasta sauce (which is why the red color took over), and then a dash of sugar, salt, pepper, oregano, diced garlic, fresh tomatoes, and some grated cheese on top. Mmmmmhmmmm... it was delicious. I made enough to have extra for Sunday or school lunches I figured - but ate it for dinner too!

Oh! and the pasta that I used is 25% vegetables! There were a few kinds and I want to try others... this one was made with zucchini and spinach.