Come back to Sorrento

On Friday he said, that for our "date night" he wanted to stay home and make pasta together. It's not what I would have picked, but he said that making the pasta was something we could do together, we could reminisce about our time in Italy, and not spend any more money that we don't have.

I could see his point, and the idea was so sweet. Plus, it totally achieved my goal of spending time with him, holding hands, laughing and smiling (without him being diplomatic and pretending to be happy), like he was in Italy.

I got home first, and rushed to get the kitchen ready. Oh, I'd just happened to have made a luxurious chicken stock during the week. I hadn't strained it and divided it into freezable containers yet. So, and I was so excited about this idea, I strained the stock, put it in a new pot and added a whole fresh chicken that I simmered for an hour - while I got dishes put away, and both dishwashers going. (I've taken to gabbing the big bowls and pots and trudging down the stairs to the other kitchen. I mean, there's a dishwasher there too, right? Might as well use it.)

I was a little tuckered out by the time he got home - all that running up and down stairs, and scrubbing of kitchen counters. So, I made a cup of coffee and took a break when he got home, while he made the pasta dough, and we tried to recall Miya's name - she taught us to make pasta in a thousand year old cantina in the Tuscan Hills and Olive Groves outside of Florence.

I took the chicken out and let it rest, while the pasta dough was resting. And I added two cups of hot stock to a large onion I had caramelized in a sauce pan, plus two cloves of crushed garlic, two tablespoons of chopped fresh herbs from the garden (thyme, sage, rosemary), a half cup of white wine, and the juices from the bowl roasted red peppers - and I let it boil until reduced by half. Oh the kitchen was really smelling good.

While I did that, Rolf hung the pasta rack that Puck and Memae gave us for Christmas last year.

Then we made wide ribbons of pasta, let them dry, while we had a glass of wine and set the table. I deboned half the chicken, toasted a cup of pine nuts, while he grated the parmigiana regiano. I boiled the fresh pasta in the chicken stock, and finished it off in the chicken wine roasted pepper sauce, adding a cup of cheese, a cup of roasted pepper diamonds, and let it rest.

Sitting at the dining room table we toasted:

"Vive Italia"
"Here's to La Lanternadue"
And we laughed, remembering how we sat at the lovely table in the ally of the LaLanternadue restaurant, rolling the name around and trying to figure out what it meant. And laughing when remembered our third visit to the best restaurant in Sorrento, where we finally realized that LaLanternadue, was the The Lantern Restaurante #2.

Come Back To Sorrento

(Ernesto DeCurtis)

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Sunlight dances on the sea
Tender thoughts occur to me
I have often seen your eyes
In the nighttime when I dream

When I pass a garden fair
And the scent is in the air
In my mind a dream awakes
And my heart begins to break

But you said goodbye to me
Now all I can do is grieve
Can it be that you forgot?
Darling forget me not!

Please don't say farewell
And leave this heart that's broken
Come back to Sorrento
So I can mend