An American Breakfast

(See photos under Portfolio)

One Saturday evening a group of us were having aperitivo when someone mentioned breakfast which lead to eggs, which then lead to someone asking me if Americans ate eggs every morning for breakfast? (As mentioned before, Italians usually only have caffe and toast or a pastry for breakfast.) Someone mentioned we should get together for breakfast sometime, and that was my que. So on 30 March we invited about 12 friends for An American Breakfast at our house. By party day we ended up with 8 friends: Cinzia, Gina, Lucia, Mariella, Laura, Alice, Serafino and Gianni.

My party-giving style has now relaxed to look more like it did at home in San Diego, thanks to Laura who said she wanted to help make the recipes. Everyone was assigned an ingredient to bring and those interested helped in the kitchen. I pre-cooked the bacon, sausage and home fried potatoes and made a fruit salad. Cinzia brought 24 just-collected eggs and others brought tomatoes, cheese, juice and prosecco. Our new friend, Jo, made Rice Krispy Treats for dessert – how American is that – but at the last minute was unable to attend to enjoy them. Only Jo, when not able to find marshmallows, would make her own and then melt them into the recipe. They were awesome. Lucia brought some beautiful pastries.  Together we made lemon-ricotta pancakes with fresh strawberries and scrambled eggs with herbs and parmesan cheese. Knowing this would take a while I had made up plates to tide folks over of green apples and celery with peanut butter (common in the U.S. but rare here) and Ina’s herb dip with veggies and toasts and put them on on the two tables. Even though I pointed out the snacks when everyone arrived, no one touched them until we sat down to eat because that’s the way they do it here. Duh, I forgot.

Unfortunately Sasy was out of town but her husband, Gianni, was tasked to map out a walk around town for us post-breakfast. People here never cease to fascinate me. Gianni took us on a tour of the many entrance doors in Ascoli with ancient Latin sayings etched in the stone above them. For his own enjoyment, he is currently noting these locations and translating the Latin – really!  Thank you, Gianni.  It was a beautiful spring day and we all had a great time together – as we always do.