Buona Pasqua ~ Happy Easter

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. It holds so much less of the materialism of Christmas with all the joy of gathering together to celebrate the joy that is the risen Christ. I was feeling the pangs of homesickness thinking of my family celebrating, but being with Anna and her family was wonderful as well. Her daughter hosted us and 20 others. It was a wonderful occasion with lots of young people, and of course lots and lots of food. I was thrilled to see blown and painted Easter eggs on the table along with these wonderful hollow chocolate eggs. It's one of my favorite Easter traditions.

We also had a variety of delicious food, I won't go into too much detail but here are some of the highlights.

 

This Easter meal was a grazing meal. We started with various raw vegetables and crostini topped with eggplant, homemade olive oil, rabbit pate or cheese. There were artichokes two ways, one way is pictured on top and they were delicious. The bottom two pictures were cheeses that Anna and I had made yesterday. 

We had Italian sausages and the slices in the first picture are pancetta. Uncuted pancetta is just like a giant piece of bacon, but it's eat similarly to a pork chop and is absolute delicious  and decadent. We also had Angelo- lamb- and it was wonderful, but of course I am partial to the lamb I had in Salento that i watched live and die. 

This was delicious and I have no idea what it was called. It was goat meat, spinach  and ricotta wrapped in a floury puff pastry shell with hard boiled eggs. It was delicious and such an interesting and unusual side dish. Italians seem to put ricotta in all kinds of unusual places and it just works. Definitely a tip for the future. 

We also had this wonderful goat meat broth. It was unbelievably light and full of flavor. It had turnips, dill, carrots  and celery. Almost like a chicken soul but done with goat. Wonderful.

Of course there were the requisite dolci at the end of the meal. Both of these were hand made and beautiful. I want to show you a recipe that I got for the following cake that I gleaned from a guest that only spoke Italian who made it. I gathered this entirely in my horrible broken Italian, but truly I'm very proud I was able to understand anything at all.

6 eggs

4 big spoons of farina

4 big spoons of semolina

700 grams of ricotta

2 spoons of sugar for each egg

200 grams of cream

200 grams of melted butter

Raisins 

Chocolate chips

Grand marnier or other liquor if desired

Whip egg whites until they are mounted (aka meringues), add sugar one spoon at a time. Add the yellows of the eggs, add cream a little at a time. Then add the farina and semolina alternating. Add the liquid butter once combined. vanilla and/or liquor can be added at this time. Add raisins. Butter and flour a 10" baking dish and pour mixture in, it will be quite liquidy. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top if desired. Bake at 180 degrees celcius for 45 minutes.

I have no idea how this could come out or if I transcribed/translated the oral instructions I was given correctly. I hope I did and I'll sure try and make it when I come back. I think if I had one wish right now, or one thing I would so differently, was to learn Italian because I feel like I miss out on so much information and learning because I am not able to communicate clearly with people around me. Italians love to talk about food. Just yesterday Anna got into a discussion at the meat counter with the butcher, and two customers about the sweetness of prosciutto. I knew that they were discussing salt and age, but the nuances of the conversation were lost because I wasn't able to catch the details. The learning happens in the details  and although I'm learning so much as it is, I wish I could catch all the things I feel like I'm missing.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. I miss you all  and wish you all the best.