20. Dinner - Foodies only!

For Foodies only!  Tune out now if you don't like food.

This is tonight's dinner which we ate at about 8.00 pm.  In fact, we haven't had dessert and coffee yet and it is 9.45.  Come on, Paul!

This is what we had ... oh, I must clarify that ... we didn't both have everything ... some people ate more than others ...

For aperitif, with a glass of  wine: exquisite St Agure cheese (creamy blue), fresh anchovies, Abruzzo salami, and the best fresh bread anywhere in the world.

For entree, with a glass of wine: fresh tomatoes, fresh basil (picked off my own little basil bush) and fabulous buffalo mozzarella.  Again eaten with fresh, warm-from-the-oven bread - you can't let  those juices go to waste.

For mains, with a glass of wine: filled pasta, one with gorganzola and the other with porcini (mushrooms).

For dessert: fresh cherries and fresh strawberries.   The strawberries, like the tomatoes are a real blast from the past.  Both are soft, ripe, juicy, delicate and sweet.  None of the bland, acidic, half ripe stuff we get at home. I can't get enough of them and I'm the person who never normally eats fruit (but I'll eat vegetables 'till the cows come home).

I'm the only one having cake with my coffee because I saved half my cake from last night. That's it on the right, below the strawberries.  

We have each discovered a good wine from the local supermarket  - Paul's is a Sablet, made up of Grenache, Shiraz and Mouvedre grapes.  He says it reminds him of a Chateau-Neuf-du-Pape.  Mine is a Sancerre - made of very nice white grapes.  (That's all I need to know.)

The cost of all this?  In some cases less than at home (cheese, wine, bread, fruit and veg in season, coffee); in some cases more (meat, fish, cakes, delicatessan, cleaning products, personal products and everything at restaurants), and many about the same (yoghurt, milk, eggs, carrots, potatoes, onions).  

We have eaten out four times in 16 days; all at restaurants in our street or just around the corner.  The food at all of them was good quality, but not always sufficient.  Remember that I only eat once per day - so dinner for me needs to be substantial.  

The first was the cafe on the corner, where I had roasted bone-marrow to die for and Paul had a decent steak.  Then we tried the Japanese and ordered prawns and tempura; very nice but not enough.  Thirdly was a small, hole-in-the-wall place serving mainly pasta.  I had the only non-pasta dish and it was OK, but unremarkable.  I had to have a supper of bread and cheese when I got home - else I would have been awake all night - hungry.  

And finally we went back to cafe No. 1 for bone-marrow, only to find they had changed to their summer menu - no bone-marrow available.  What we had was nice, but forgettable.

So.... there you are.  We are eating well ... probably a bit too well for my liking.  It is the bread that is the killer.  And the cakes.  All those carbs ...... ooohhh!