50 Shades of Delicious: 2 Chewsy for the Catwalk

This past week was Thanksgiving and we hosted the first annual Friendsgiving.  It was Ro's first ever year as a hostess.  As the plans started being made for the event and the work of shopping, prepping and cleaning began she doubted the logic of why hosting was fun.  Gone were her days of sleeping in on the holiday until 10 a.m., going to the store (day of) to buy some crackers and cheese and then driving to someone else's house. We had a total of ten friends and family gathered around our table this year.  Ages spanning from seventy to teenager.  Oh and there were two dogs (a Husky and Australian Shepard doodle, who actually did bark in an Australian accent).  Both of the four legged guests mostly enjoyed hanging out in the kitchen waiting for any morsel to fall. FloJo is a recovering perfectionist and enjoys preparing a menu full of traditional classics as well as new dishes never tried before.  The challenge for next year has already ...

Cecilia-- the real deal! One of the highlights of our stay in Umbria was a night of cooking school with our hostess/instructor Cecilia. We (the group of fourteen women who had traveled from the United States to spend a week in an Umbrian villa on the grounds of Le Velette winery) all gathered around the kitchen table to absorb her cooking wisdom and try to learn how to make an authentic Italian dinner from scratch.  The first dish we learned about roughly translates to turkey meatloaf.  This wasn't your school lunch meatloaf.   We would later confirm after eating the fruits of our cooking endeavors, this was the best meatloaf any of us had ever had. Polpettone (Turkey Meatloaf) The recipe was taught using grams and ratios. To quote Cecilia, our cooking instructor, "It's a more or less thing." Ingredients: Betsy and Gabi 2/3 turkey or 500 grams (approx 2 pounds) 1/3 ricotta cheese or 300 grams (approx 1 pound) 3 TBS of nutmeg or to taste (Cecilia wa...