Carnevale has come and gone and the Lenten season is in full swing. In case you missed it, I told my Facebook fans about my plan, not to give something up for Lent, but to spend a little time each day doing something for someone else. So … if YOU need something, just shoot me a message and if possible-and legal!-I’ll happily oblige.

One of the traditions I’m not tweaking this year is the Catholic obligation to abstain from meat on Fridays. This doesn’t mean you are sentenced to six weeks of grilled cheese sandwiches and cheese pizza. Oh no, my friends, Italian food was created for vegetarians. With the rich array of cheese, vegetables and pasta, there is no limit to what you can do senza carne.

To help you get started, here are five of my favorite meatless Italian recipes.

1. Pasta Puttanesca

This salty concoction takes its name from the ladies of the night, but with black olives, capers and anchovies, it doesn’t matter what it is called, as long as it good. And trust me, it is good.

2. Shrimp and Asparagus Pasta

Crunchy asparagus and fresh shrimp are sauteed in butter and tossed with penne pasta. Does it get any better than this?

3. Gorgonzola and Grape Bruschetta

You might think bruschetta is just an appetizer, but if you eat enough of it-and believe, you’ll eat a lot of it-then it is a safe bet you won’t go to bed hungry. This bruschetta recipe calls for a bit of cream cheese, Gorgonzola cheese, sauteed onions and plump red grapes. Yum!

4. Cacio e Pepe

This is one of my favorite Roman recipes and it is ideal for a meatless Friday during Lent, a quick, easy pasta dish at the end of of a long day or a nice surprise for your vegetarian friends … and really, Italian cooking doesn’t get any easier than this.

5. Pasta e Ceci (Chickpea pasta)

This pasta dish is like chicken soup for the Calabrian soul. It is healthy, it is hearty and it is wholesome. Oh, and it is also delicious.

What is your favorite meatless Italian recipe to cook during Lent?

PS: Gina of Warm October is the winner of a bottle of Calabrian Olive Oil and Paula of Paula’s Talk won  a $50 gift certificate to Monica’s Fine Foods. Thank you to everyone who played along and auguri to our winners!

Did you know 25% of Italy’s olive oil comes from my favorite little region that is burrowed down deep at the toe of the boot? Well, it does.

It is also a staple in every Calabrian kitchen and is used in antipasto dishes, pasta plates, meat, fish and even desserts. In fact, it is a little joke around our house because most recipes don’t even list olive oil or garlic in their ingredients … because, you know, they are a given – you should know to use them.

Marcella Hazan, renowned Italian food writer and author of Marcella Cucina cookbook said, “The taste of a dish for which you need olive oil will be as good or as ordinary as the oil you use. A sublime one can lift even modest ingredients to eminent heights of flavor; a dreary oil will pull the best ingredients down to its own level. Partial clues to the quality of the olive oil you are buying are supplied by the label and the price, but ultimately, the only way to determine which one, among those available, is right for you is to taste and compare.”

And that’s where we come in.

Through the magical interwoven web of the Internet, I met Monica Kripalani, a new distributor of Calabrian olive oil whose recent trip to the mezziogiorno changed her life. After a brief tour through Calabria and into the hills of Lamezia Terme, Monica decided to open Monica’s Fine Foods to share her new-found love of Davoli Olive Oil with North America.

And that, my friends, means you.

Monica is giving away one 250ml bottle of Davoli Extra Virgin Olive Oil to one lucky Facebook Fan *and* a $50 gift certificate to a random blogger.

Interested, any?  Here are the details!

To be eligible to win the free 250ml bottle of Calabrian olive oil, all you need to do is become a Facebook fan of Monica’s Fine Foods before Friday, February 26 at 5:00 PM (Pacific Time). At that point, Monica will randomly select a winner from her Facebook Fans and the winner will be announced here on My Bella Vita on Monday, March 1.

Bloggers, this part is for you …

For your chance to win a $50 gift certificate to Monica’s Fine Foods, just  re-post this contest information in full on your website or blog by Friday, February 26 at 5:00 PM. Leave a comment here on My Bella Vita telling us about your post, and you will automatically be entered into the drawing.

Due to distribution restrictions, Monica can only ship items in the US and Canada, so if you have a US address … you are good to go!

In bocca al lupo!

What is your favorite way to use olive oil? I think a simple pasta with aglio, olio e peperonico (garlic, olive oil and red pepper) highlights good olive oil and brings out the flavors of spicy peppers. What about you?

*Pictures by Monica of Monica’s Fine Foods

A few weeks ago I asked where all of the good customer service guys had gone? I lamented the lack of a customer-service oriented mentality in south Italy and wondered how businesses could remain open with the attitude they have towards their customers.

Well today, I have that answer.

photo credit: Gudlyf

But before we get to that … I have a back story.

There is a steak house in Beaumont my family frequents as often as possible. They have great steaks, great sides and according to my cousin, Angelique, great fajitas-although I leave my Tex-Mex to the professionals.

One day seven or eight of my family members met there for lunch. Since my husband and I had a lunch date a few hours later with friends, we skipped the meal. We didn’t, however, skip the company and we joined them towards the end of their meal for a chat.

It was about that time my mother noticed a hair (eek!) in her plate. She didn’t complain, just pushed it back and continued talking. The ever-attentive server noticed, asked her about it and immediately apologized and offered to bring her a replacement dish.

She was finished anyway, she said, and insisted she wasn’t upset.

A few minutes later, the manager appeared.

“I’m so sorry, Ma’am (we are in Texas, remember!),” he said.

“Are you sure you don’t want a replacement?”

When she refused, he made another offer.

“We’d like to offer you all desserts-on the house!”

Well my family never met a dessert they didn’t like and they were thrilled with this customer service gesture.

“And what kind would you like?’ He asked, looking at my husband and me.

“Oh no. We didn’t even eat here,” I said apologetically. “We just came in to see them for a few minutes.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You are here now. What can I bring you?”

—

And that dining moment-at The Cattle Company restaurant in Beaumont, Texas-became the standard by which we measured all other customer service experiences.

And no one has ever matched them.

Until now.

Fast-forward three or four years and 6,000 miles to last Tuesday, November 17-the night of our 2nd anniversary.

We chose Carn & Vino in Catanzaro Lido-and if that name sounds familiar to you, it is because I’ve written of them before.

The restaurant has more elegance and class than any restaurant I’ve been to in southern Italy and the chef is among the most creative I’ve seen-anywhere.

But Tuesday night, I did not choose wisely.

Among the list of primi plates was a cocoa pasta dish, made with Gorgonzola cheese and topped with shredded black truffles.

Although I wasn’t sure if I liked truffles, with their strong, earthy scent and matching flavor, I thought I’d give it a try.

Now I know.

I don’t like truffles.

I picked at the plate and with the antipasto we’d shared and the quickly-diminishing bottle of wine, I was fine.

The owner stopped by the table.

“You didn’t like it?” He asked me.

My husband jumped in to help. “It was really just the truffles. They are too strong for her. She just didn’t choose well.”

Thanks, honey … .

The owner took my plate.

A few minutes later he returned.

“The chef is making you something else,” he told me.

“Oh no,” I insisted. “I’m ok. I’m not even hungry anymore.”

About that time, my husband asked him about the dessert options.

He chose homemade tiramisu. I chose panna cotta with frutti di bosco topping.

We finished our desserts and proceeded to the front of the restaurant.

“The desserts were compliments of the chef,” the owner told us.

We chatted briefly with the chef, thanked him profusely and left.

In the car my husband looked at the receipt and noticed that not only had the chef offered dessert, but the owner had removed my plate from the bill.

We were shocked.

We had finally found a restaurant whose customer service rivals our favorite steak house back home in Texas, and we found it in the most unusual place.

In another favorite steak house … in our new backyard.

Have you had any good customer service stories lately? Please share!

I have a confession to make. A confession that could, in theory, get my Expat-in-Italy status revoked and have citizens from my adopted country kicking my country music listen’, Mexican food eatin’ butt back to Beaumont.

You see, the first gazillion times I had lasagna in Calabria-with only one exception-I pretty much hated it.

Gulp.

It is ok. I am still here …

That exception-the one time I enjoyed lasagna-I ate it up and I was convinced that it was because the chef, my husband’s Zia Rosa, had omitted that thick white cream besciamella sauce that is normally poured into the middle of Italian lasagna.

The thick cream always assaulted my palate and, at least at home, I’d scrape it off and hand it over to the cat.

The truth was, Zia Rosa did put besciamella in her lasagna.

Only it was homemade.

It wasn’t thick.

It wasn’t offensive.

It was delicious.

After a few phone calls, she shared her recipe and now I’m sharing it with you.

Zia Rosa’s Homemade Besciamella Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:
>> 1/4 cup, flour
>> 2 ounces, butter
>> 2 cups, milk
>> dash, salt
>> dash, nutmeg

Directions:

1. Melt the butter over a low flame.

2. Add the flour and mix continuously until it becomes a cream and is very light tan.

3. Add the milk and continue to stir over a low flame.

4. Continue stirring until the mixture becomes creamy.

5. Add the salt and nutmeg and remove from the flame.

6. Continue stirring the mixture off of the flame for about a minute.

* If you prefer a thicker besciamella sauce, use more flour at the beginning.

While I’d love to say Buon Appetito here, you can’t eat besciamella alone. Stay tuned for more recipes that feature my new favorite cream sauce and feel free to use this homemade besciamella in your next lasagna!

 
See those leaves up there?
 
Well, technically they are in our backyard year-round. What is not there year-round are those plump, light green balls of figlish deliciousness you see buried among them.
 
You know, figs are the summertime fruit here in bella Calabria … in fact, they are so popular, people have been known to beg, steal or borrow them from our their neighbor’s yard. But no. I’m no, I’m not bitter.
 
Lucky for me, we have plenty to go around.
 
Unluckily for me, it took me a couple of summers of seeing ‘em before I tried them. Back in the states, the closest I had gotten to a fig was the newton and well, justice was not done.
 
Last summer, I gave in and can I just tell you, it was a loooong 11 months before they came back.
 
My favorite way to eat figs, besides after lunch, dinner or as a snack, is as part of a healthy breakfast. And since a typical Italian breakfast normally consists of coffee and a pastry, this summertime treat is a welcome change for my ever-widening backside.
 
Here is what you do.
 
1. Go in your backyard, or your neighbor’s backyard, or the market, or the grocery store and gather up some of the best figs you can find.
 

 
2. Peel them, slice them and place them on a plate with a couple of slices of fresh Italian bread.
 

 
3. Enjoy!
 
Do you like figs? What is your favorite way to eat them?
 

 
Stop the Presses!
 
Call your loved ones …
 
A new, all-natural replacement for Pfizer’s power-pill has been discovered.
 
Where?
 
Well, in Calabria, of course.
 
Remember that McFunky place I told you about in Villaggio Mancuso in La Sila?
 
Not only do they sell great wine, homemade jelly and assorted Silan meat and cheese, but they also sell the good stuff.
 
Yep … natural Viagra!
 

 
These chilies are all smiles because inside their containers are some of the most potent peppers you will find in Calabria. Hey. You’d be happy, too if it was you.
 

 
If you are into Calabrian dialect and have good vision, here is the science, more or less.
 

 
It basically says that Calabrian chili peppers are a natural aphrodisiac and that by eating these peppers every day people will notice you are happier and more warmhearted (wink wink) like the people in Calabria.
 
It goes on to tell you how to eat the peppers to achieve various, uhm … responses.
 
I’ve never actually tried the peppers to achieve said results, but I did read it and now so have you. And who says you can’t believe everything you read online?
 
Various Viagra substitutes are found throughout Calabria, such as pepper-flavored chocolate and pepper-flavored liquor. What are some of the Viagra knock-offs you have seen? And tell us … have you tried ‘em?

 
Today is the final installment of Sila Fridays …
 
Wait. Wait.
 
Don’t be sad.
 
Today is the final installment of Sila Fridays until I get back up there and tour a different area.
 
By now you know about getting to La Sila, you know of quaint Villaggio Mancuso, you know where to eat and sleep and today, you will learn where to shop!
 

Nope. You didn’t misread that sign.

It really says McN’duja.

As you enter the main street in Villaggio Mancuso, you will be greeted by Ronald’s nemesis, McN’duja … but don’t be fooled – the real name of the shop is Sglobalizzatevi.

I have no idea what that means.

But it is a charming shop.

A pellet fireplace sits in the corner of the wine section, warming the entire store.

Fresh Silan meats and cheeses are offered as aperitivi and homemade jams and liquors can be taste-tested before buying.

You can even pick up some McN’duja to take home.

Across the path is Sglobalizziatevi’s sister store, A Putica, owned by the same young couple – Davide and Francesca – who grew up down the road from my husband in Catanzaro.

This is the ’shroom store.

Every kind of mushroom you could want is waiting inside.

See?

We spent almost an hour at the two stores, visiting with the owners and stocking up on homemade black cherry jelly and hard-to-find wine.

Davide and Francesca can also help you with personalized tours of Il Parco Nazionale della Sila.

For more information, you can contact them at info (at) aputica (dot) it or visit them in person at

A Putica / Sglobalizzatevi

Villaggio Mancuso

88055 Taverna (Catanzaro) Italy

Did all this food talk get you hungry? If so, head over to Michelle’s where she baked up some chocolate chip cookies for this week’s La Buona Cucina Americana!

 
Morzello is a traditional Catanzaresi dish that is served in many local restaurants throughout the area but the best, I’ve heard, is when it is homemade.
 
According to legend, Morzello, or morzeddhu in dialect, was created when an impoverished mother, widowed and alone, was forced to accept odd jobs to support her hungry children. On Christmas Eve, she was asked to clean a slaughterhouse and dispose of the wastes in the nearby Fiumarella.
 
Worried about what she would serve her hungry children for Christmas dinner the following day, she saved the disposed meat, cleaned it and prepared a meat soup. And morzello was born …
 
The Internet is desperately lacking for an English-language recipe for Catanzaro’s most famous dish. So without further fanfare, I present to you …
 
Morzeddhu alla Catanzarisi
 
Ingredients:
>> 1 pound tripe
>> 1 pound (total) spleen, lung and esophagus
>> 4 cups tomato sauce
>> 1 cup water
>> 1/2 sliced red onion
>> 2-3 fresh peppers
>> 2 tablespoons beef bouillon
>> 3 bay leaves
>> Dash of salt and oregano
>> Olive oil
>> 1 glass of red wine
 
Directions:
 
1. Wash and slice the tripe and cube the meat.
 
2. Boil the meat (spleen, lung, esophagus).
 
3. After 15 minutes add the tripe and cook for an additional 30 minutes.
 
4. Add olive oil, onion, bay leaves, oregano and one fresh pepper.
 
5. Cook and let the water evaporate.
 
6. Add tomato sauce, bouillon cubes and just enough hot water to cover the meat.
 
7. Cook for one hour then add more fresh pepper and wine.
 
8. Continue adding hot water as needed, for 30 minutes.
 
9. At the end add salt, oregano, a dash of olive oil and more pepper.
 
10. Serve with pita bread.
 

 
Calabrians are known throughout Italy as good ‘ole southern folks … a tad paesani, maybe but generous people who produce some of the best food in Italy.
 
Mushrooms … eggplant … sausage … ahhh, Calabria.
 
However, La Cucina Calabrese is actually pretty simple. According to many of the chefs here, the more simple the dish – the better it will be.
 
There are a few staple ingredients used in almost all of the recipes we reproduce.
 
>> Olive Oil
>> Garlic
>> Peppers
 

 
In fact, I’m trying to think of a recipe that doesn’t include at least one red – or green - bumba. This one and this one do, for sure.
 
We had a semi-crisis at casa mia last year when we ran out of fresh peppers but luckily the stores stock ‘em, too. This year we planted four plants and man are these suckers spicy. In fact, I learned a new expression after we added them to our homemade pizza earlier this year.
 

 
Focu meu!!!
 
Focu meu is Calabrese dialect and it literally means “my fire” but actually translates more as “This F*!!#@ bomb is exploding inside my mouth – somebody save meeeee!!!” … or something like that.
 
Do you like hot peppers? Where did you find the hottest pepper you’ve ever had? What are you favorite spicy dishes?
 

 
My husband is convinced he is the Italianized version of Chef Gordon Ramsey and prides himself on identifying flavors and duplicating restaurant-style dishes.
 
And he is pretty good. Sometimes he even yells in the kitchen …
 
So today I present to you
 
Peppe’s Triple P Pasta or rather, Pancetta and Porcini Pappardelle
 

 
This Calabrese specialty is easily prepared in 30 minutes and is a refreshing change from a traditional tomato-based pasta dish.
 
Ingredients:
 
>> Pancetta (125 grams)
>> Porcini Mushrooms (250 grams)
>> Tomato Sauce (one large can)
>> Fresh Pepper (1/2 pepper)
>> Olive Oil
>> Garlic
>>Fresh Basil (4-5 leaves)
>> Mushroom Flavored Bouillon Cube (3/4 cube)
>> Fresh Pappardelle Pasta (400 grams)
>> Fresh Parmesan Cheese (grated on top)
 
Directions:
 
1. Boil salted water for pasta.
 
2. Brown garlic and pancetta in olive oil.
 
3. Add porcini, pepper and bouillon cube and cook until water evaporates.
 
4. Stir in tomato sauce and cook 10-15 minutes.
 
5. Add fresh basil and cook no more than 2 minutes.
 
6. Toss in fresh Pappardelle pasta.
 
7. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top and serve.
 
Enjoy!