February - Piedmont

February - Piedmont

Boun appetito!

The first of our twenty regional dinners came as Sydney was enjoying the last throes of summer. Daisy was about to renew her teaching studies, Melissa had returned to Australia after amazing adventures abroad and Stephen was in his first few weeks of his doctoral studies in pure mathematics. As for me, I was just about to bid adieu to the College of Law - finally.

We selected as our first region Piedmont, home to the Shroud of Turin, Garibaldi and, as we found to our delight, some delicious cuisine.

We dipped our toe in the food of Piedmontese with Melissa's wonderful entree of capsicum served plump, succulent and lightly grilled in an enticing bruschetta style. Our main was a superbly cooked hunters chicken prepared by Daisy, which was a sensation of hearty tomatoey, oniony, chickeny goodness. Stephen and I offered a chocolate pear cake - a dense creation of slowly cooked pears and Italian cocoa, which emerged from its baking dish with a satisfying plop.

And thus began our adventure into the regional cooking of Italy.