Mangia

The current title of this blog is "Better late than never," but in Italian because that makes it seem somewhat less depressing to me (and I'll certainly forget what the translation was a week from now anyway).

I apologize for not keeping this updated (as if this is something new).  While I was in Italy, I was too busy walking all over the place, taking pictures and spending quality time with my folks.  When I got back, I was overwhelmed with things to do, messes to clean up, bills to pay and a crazy work schedule.  I've been training people at work (new/transfer), which exhausts my brain.  However, I am happy with the two new people we have.  Both are smart and fun to work with, best of all - they're hard workers.  It would have been better to fully train them before they went off on their own, but as 50% of our unit is on medical leave, there's not a whole lot to be done about it.  As of today, we will be working 12-hour shifts, which sounds awful until you hear that we get 3 days off one week, 4 days off the next.  It's also better than working forced overtime on top of regularly scheduled shifts and not knowing if you'll really have any days off.  Before this new schedule was approved I only had one day off for this week and would be working 7 shifts in 6 days.  Not fun.  So this is much better.

On to Italy.  Here are some of the pictures I didn't get to before: 

I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but this was supposed to be the best pizza place in Genova.

The pizza crust was amazingly thin.

Each pizza was so big that it overflowed the plate.  These were individual servings.

Simple is often best when it comes to pizza.  Love the Margherita.

I really wish I knew the first thing about inserting pictures in a reasonable format on here...but I don't, so my apologies and carry on. 

The focaccia in the Ligurian region is outstanding.  The moment I got home I had to see if the Liguria Bakery in North Beach would compare.  I consider myself lucky - it's made the same way.  Now Jenn, Meg and Kath know what I'm missing, as well.  I'm going to have to make many early morning trips to North Beach to satisfy my focaccia craving until I can return.  I just wish I could have fresh focaccia morning, noon and night like I did in Genova.  I do wish I could get sage focaccia and focaccia secca (the latter is the cracker-type focaccia). 

One thing I miss that can't be replaced is my mother's cooking.  Some of her early dishes made Jason and I feel like we were test subjects, but now we know our suffering was worth it.  Mom is an excellent cook and she isn't afraid to try new things.  Her cooking knows no cultural bounds (nor her baking), but my favorite has always been her Italian cooking.  This dish, which only lasted two days because we couldn't stop snacking on it after the original dinner, was a potato pie with caramelized onions, chunks of salami (it may have been sausage - it tasted like salami), peas and cheese.  I need to learn how to make this.