Pasta making on a rainy day; And guess what? I found out that we (la famiglia Scudere) cook Abruzzi style LOL.

We started the morning going to the local farmer’s market to buy the ingredients for the days lunch which we were going to create at Fabrizio’s cousin, Rosa’s home along with Fabrizio’s mother Anna Marie.

The exterior of the facility was decorated with ceramic tiles, the artwork of which was done by local school children. Santa Chiara (St. Chiara) was a nun who was a friend of St. Francis of Assisi.

The market which is only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays offers fresh meats, breads, cheeses and produce. Because of the late night prior, due to the Patron Saint celebration, the green grocer had not yet made it in but, no worries, the cheesemonger covered for him LOL.

So each of the group got a chance to order from a vendor in Italian. Fabrizio had created a cheat sheet for those whose skills were lacking. Luckily, I was able to practice my meager linguistic abilities with Francisco the butcher.

After our trip to the market we went to the working farm of Fabrizio’s cousin, Rosa and her husband Angelo. Fabrizio’s mother Anna Maria joined us as well to help Rosa so it was truly a family affair.

Today the weather called for rain and the menu called for Sunday sauce. Similar to the Sunday roasts in other households, the Sunday sauce in an Italian household was a heartier version of the traditional red sauce that most folks in the states call spaghetti sauce. The difference is that there is significantly more meat in a Sunday sauce including sausage, meatballs, and in today’s sauce, braciole which are slices of beefsteak rolled jelly roll style and stuffed with a mixture of herbs, bread crumbs, and cheese, typically parmesan or pecorino romano. (BTW romano and pecorino romano are, in my humble opinion two completely different kinds of cheese in that pecorino romano is made from sheep’s milk while romano is not…two different flavor profiles and roman is a poor substitute when one needs pecorino romano…ok, I’ll get off my soapbox now 🙂 ) today while Rosa and mamma made the sauce base and the braciole it was our intrepid little group’s responsibility to make the polpette (meatballs) and the chitarra pasta.

The reason that it is called “Sunday” sauce is that the lady of the house would put the sauce on before going to Mass so that when everyone returned from church all that was left was to make and cook the pasta and Sunday dinner was ready.

The device I am using in the photo on the lower right is a “Chitarra” which is also Italian for guitar. It is called such because the wires that cut the pasta are similar to guitar strings and the device actually has keys that on uses to adjust the strings so that the tension cuts the pasta cleanly. It was about this time when I began to realize that our (Scudere) style of cooking is heavily Abruzzi influenced. This makes sense because my mom learned from her mother-in-law, my grandmother (of Calabrese origins), who cooked for her husband and father-in-law (my great grandmother passed young) who were Abruzzi, my great grandfather having been born in the nearby Abruzzi city of Sulmona, but more on that in a later post.

BTW all of the above are Photos in the previous two galleries are courtesy Fabrizio, Italia Sweet Italia

While I am sure that many of the techniques are probably fairly universal across Italy, the salad with tomatoes and bell peppers was exactly the same salad that my mom used to make in the summer when gardens were in full production, so it was truly a taste of home LOL. Also, I want to note that rarely is sauce served at the table in an Italian home. Traditionally the sauce is “married” to the pasta in a warm bowl and the pasta is allowed to infuse with the sauce and finish cooking as shown in the photo above. Honestly, this technique is something that I have just recently begun to do as we always served our red sauce at the table, though my mom would always add a ladle of sauce to the cooked pasta before bringing the pasta and sauce to the table. I find that I prefer using the marriage technique in that I believe that the residual starch from the damp pasta adds a little body to the sauce mixture. The difference is subtle but noticeable.

The above photos are courtesy Fabrizio Italia Sweet Italia

As with the winery this was a working farm with olive groves and vineyards so the wine (homemade and delicious) flowed and we finished our lunch with cookies we had made earlier filled with a mixture of chocolate and grape jam and homemade limoncello. It was interesting that, at least in this part of Italy they grow what are known as “four season” lemons such that they have fresh lemons available virtually all year long. Thus, limoncello is always available as an after dinner digestive.

We had the afternoon/evening free and I took a walk into town that evening but it was rather anticlimactic after the buzz of the patron saint festival. Also, since we had been fed over the last several days as if we would never see food again, I decided to make it an early night. Tomorrow, which I mentioned at the end of my post yesterday for today, we will go the the Olive oil mill and art tourismo and stroll along the Adriatic. Ciao for now.