Hospitality & Cucina Italiana

We've experienced wonderful hospitality from the congregation of Filadelfia church. The food has been incredible and the fellowship delightful.

Our first Saturday we had dinner with the Calderaros. Daniela cooked us a feast!
(Vittorio is an elder, and their two daughters, Erika and Martina)


Antipasti of meats, cheeses, veggies, and breads




Insalada di mari


salmon roll for secondo


and for dessert, fruit & espresso




and then, gelato!


You already saw photos of our Sunday fellowship meal.

We have enjoyed many dinners with the Ferrari's, although I've only taken photos of one. Here is a traditional summer feast which Christina allowed me to help prepare.

(I love this photo of Christina!)

Pastor and intern chat before dinner


Prosciutto crudo e melon


Caprese


This is one of Simone's favorite meals -- he is an enthusiastic eater.


then, formaggio (cheese!)


The following Friday we were invited for dinner at the Sr. Calderaros: Giuseppe and Crocifissa.
Vittorio's family joined us at his parents, as well as the Ferraris and we had a fabulous time at a traditional Italian meal. Endless food, delicious wine, and loud talking over each other all night! :-)



primi - pasta was SO good. (Here Vittorio is showing Eric to add more olive oil to the pasta0


secondo: meatballs with a hardboiled egg and ham inside!


also, a very delicious beef in gravy and some Italian potato salad

Ivanna (Pastor F's mom) passing the formaggio around


insalada comes after dinner


Crocifissa e Christina


fruit!


even though we couldn't understand a word he said, Giuseppe entertained us all night.


peanut cake by Christina


the group. I was laughing so hard, I didn't notice Eric got cut off in the picture. Erika jumped in front of Daniele, and half the people weren't looking!



And this past Saturday we were invited over to the Altobellis. Mimo is the other elder in the church and is a very funny guy.

see that crazy cheese with the colored toppings? It's made from sheep milk and is the consistency of cream cheese, but MUCH better. topped with black pepper, chives, olives and red pepper.


Mimo and his wife Rosanna made us Neapolitan (Naples-style) pizza which was AMAZING. They also overfed us.






Tiramisu and Rosanna's homemade creme de limoncello (YUM)




in between laughing, Eric and Mimo talked theology.


Thank you Altobelli's!



Nom, nom, nom. We [and our bellies] are loving Italy!

Pizza Night: Girl's Style

A couple of weeks ago, Carly, Dyan, Adrienne and I got together for our monthly-ish girls night. Typically we split up the food prep and drinks and enjoy them at Thomas and Adrienne's house.

This week we decided to try our hands at some homemade, gourmet pizza. Both Eric's dad and a bookclub member have fig trees, so we have an abundant supply this time of year. We picked a recipe that involved figs, and attempted to recreate an herb potato pizza I had at Leucadia Pizzeria in the spring.

I picked up two balls of pre-made pizza dough (wheat and regular) at a market.  

Carly and I tossed and stretched like pros and then set the pizzas on boards covered in cornmeal.

Adrienne started sauteing the potatoes and I carmelized a sliced red onion.


carly spread the oil and we topped



Dyan chopped all the herbs!






And the yummy result:


We ended the night with homemade salted caramel ice cream. delightful.


Here are the recipes we used:
Fig, Onion Goat Cheese
Sage Rosemary Potato

The Dutch Fest

Eric spent a good portion of the weekend finishing up a paper for school, so I was on my own a couple Saturdays ago.  It was the local Christian School's bi-annual dutch fest so I had to check it out!

For those of you Chicago Dutch who haven't had stroopwafels, I have to say it's the one big advantage of the California dutch!

Take a little ball of dough, put it in the cookie iron.

While still hot, immediately cut in half, spread with butter, corn syrup, brown sugar mixture, and put halves together. wipe the edges clean.

Leave with this:

They were selling packs of frozen stroopwafels and making fresh ones right in front of you.  Thankfully I got there early...check out the line just a few minutes later!

Then I stopped to grab a fresh olie bollen (or two)



The CA dutch put apples in them!  I like them much better without.



mmm, greasy, sugary, fried deliciousness

I broswed the shops and stopped by to check out the pies.  I've heard this pie is delicious, but I couldn't bring myself to buy a piece.  What do you think?




I wore blue and orange in honor of my heritage :-)

And that was my morning at the dutch fest.