Day 53

For lunch after class today, I went to Pizza Casa (via delle Belle Arti, 6). This place really is the best deal in town. You get a personal size, very filling maragita pizza for Euro 2.50. You can pay that much for a single slice of mediocre pizza in this city. And this is really, really good pizza. Cooked in a wood burning oven with thin, crispy crust, and flavorful toppings including really good tomato sauce, this pizza is great. No wonder its probably the single most popular place among all of us here. Thanks Pizza Casa!


For dinner, I made Penne al Pino. I originally had this dish with my family when we came to Italy in 2006. It was at a small, family run restaurant in a tiny Tuscan hill-side town. It was the only business of any type in the whole town. And it was absolutely delicious. As far as I know, Penne al Pino is not a common dish, as no Google search or look through a cookbook has revealed anything. It was probably named after someone at the restaurant. Ever since I ate it four years ago, I have tried to recreate it in the U.S. The basic ingredients are pancetta, cream, saffron and parmigiano. While it's come very close to the original in the U.S., the best I've ever made it was here - in Bologna. I think the difference had to do with the fact that I used Panna, a boxed cream commonly used in Italy for pasta, instead of just heavy cream. It was pretty delicious.


We also ate a great tomato and mozzarella salad topped with a pesto-like sauce of basil, parsley, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.