Both of our flights were good and on time with the only bad part being the long layover in Chicago – by flying on a first class international flight, we had access to the Polaris Club where they was food, drinks, and comfortable chairs all complimentary. This made the seven-hour layover much more bearable.
I grew up eating and loving my mom’s potato salad, Bev learned how to make it, and I still prefer it over all others. It is simple with potatoes, hard boiled eggs, onion, celery, mayo, mustard, and celery seed (definitely no pickles) and eaten at room temperature after sitting for several hours for the flavors to marry. However, when I saw the recipe for Dill Pickle Potato Salad on the “Flavor Of The Moment” blog and knew I liked all of the ingredients, I decided to give it a try. With the dill, I thought it was somewhat Mediterranean to go with the Greek shrimp for supper. The trick to enjoying it was to not compare it to mom’s but think of it as an entirely different dish. Bev made it for us and doubled the recipe as shown below.
Bev and I were due to stay in Sorrento for another day but Wende had to leave on May 9 so rather than find transportation for her to the Rome airport and since we had nothing planned for another day, we just all left on Friday although our flight home wasn’t until Sunday.
For our last Sorrento meal, we opted to just go up the street a short way for our second visit to La Lanterna and we all wanted pizza. We began with our usual of sparkling water and a bottle of good prosecco which made for a pretty busy table.
We’ve had a Puttanesca Sauce several times on fish and chicken but never on pasta until our final tasting in Sorrento and we loved it so I just had to try making it. For the fish version, I had adapted recipes from two fellow bloggers and for the pasta version, I adapted that version plus one from “Simply Recipes” to get the one below. The major difference is that the pasta version has more tomatoes that are cooked down into a marinara-like sauce.
We have done a variety of tastings from being at the winemakers dining room table to a large winery but this was our first large group experience where we were bused from Sorrento to the farm – about 25 minutes all uphill, narrow and curvy.
When we arrived at the farm, we were greeted by the dad and two brothers who now run the business.
Why Connatserville you ask. We live in a place that was once all owned by the Connatser family and they, as our neighbors, still own the vast majority of the land, so Connatserville.
For many years, I’ve wanted to give Waygu beef a try but rather than just try it, you know, I just had to do a taste test.
After our stop in Cetara, we headed back west and stopped in the town of Minori for lunch at the Ristorante Giardiniello which was recommended by the tour company owner, Roberto and it has been in business since 1955. It was very pleasant sitting under the pergola.
Well, the big day has finally arrived – the major reason for coming to this area is to see the Amalfi Coast and we hired a private tour to do it so we could leave the driving to them and be able to take in the sites. Our driver, Fabio, picked us up in Sorrento at 8:30am and the journey east began.
During our Italian trip, we began most restaurant meals with Prosecco and decided we really liked it so now that we are home, we decided a taste test was in order.
Spumante is an Italian word meaning "sparkling" or "foaming," referring to sparkling wines and while in Italy we drank some very good Prosecco and decided it would be our go-to sparkling wine for the future. The primary white sparkling wines in Italy are Asti Spumante, Prosecco, and Franciacorta.
We had no planned event for today except taking in the main Sorrento area which for the girls meant doing a little shopping and for me it meant people watching and having a cold one at the restaurant that had just changed hands and names the previous day. It was Bar 22 Pizzeria when we ate there Sunday night and now it is Monnalisa Ristorante.
