Cooking up a Storm...

Eleanor's 18th birthday party is on Saturday. Now, in the US, the 18th is great. In Italy, however, it is a big, fat, honking deal. One has a party for 60-70 of one's closest friends.

Most of you know that I'm not a big party person. In fact, they're a great time for me to be indisposed or otherwise engaged. Being the mother of the party girl, though, there's no escaping it. On the bright side, though, Eleanor wants American food ... meaning I'll be hiding in the kitchen!

We're trying to put together a variety of foods (which in the US would obviously not be served together!), including Southern sausage & biscuits, chili, salad with ranch dressing, etc. Of course, none of these things are available here, which means making everything from scratch. And most of it will have to be made the morning of...not an easy task with 3 burners (six, if you include Apto B) and a temperamental oven that blows the fuse if you're also running the washing machine. In other words, there will be no clothes cleaned on Saturday, and probably not Friday either.

Now, I said one has to make everything from scratch. What I have yet to point out, though, is that one also has to modify the recipes to suit available ingredients. Some of it's straightforward enough...no allspice, so mix cinnamon and nutmeg, for instance. However, a recipe for brownies made with unsweetened chocolate must be extensively modified for the dark chocolate that is available here. Oh, and the sugar texture is different, leading to a big difference in how the cookies respond.

Needless to say, we've been test driving recipes for a few weeks here. We have the brownies down pat. A few test runs on the spice cake and we're good to go. The choc chip cookies (which are a little ridiculous because they only have mini-chips here & Michael didn't bring back the "real thing" last time he came from the States) need more work, but I'm optimistic.

Today I made 3 kilos (that's over 6 pounds) of Southern sausage. My hands were about frozen by the time I was finished mixing all that cold meat by hand! Two hours later, I had a pile of cooked sausage, and this much fat in the pan:

I think Paola, the butcher, took me seriously when I told her I wanted lean meat! Oh...and she even delivered it to our door!

Love,

Alexandra

p.s. Eleanor also couldn't find the dress she wanted. Yes, I'm making it. It's nearly finished.