Italienischer Abend

Since I so much enjoy reading Kristy and Tara's blogs, I decided to try and make my own life a bit more transparent. I don't have too many super exciting projects running, like kids or breaking ground on a new house, but we do some interesting stuff too. I am also trying to convince Jeawilli to get on the blogging thing, so I figured I should set an example :)

So, I'll start with last night. Jan had an "Italian Night" planned. When he says Italian Night, he doesn't mean movies or fashion or music or opera, he of course means: food and wine. A friend of ours was dating an Italian girl (or at least of Italian heritage, she I think was born here. There are a lot of Italians in Germany because they came here after the war for work, which is great for us, tons of great restaurants and ice creams joints!) So...as in speech, I digress. A friend of ours was dating an Italian girl and Jan wanted to squeeze Italian food secrets out of her, so he planned an Italian night where he could cook with her. He wanted to make the time old tradition: pizza. This friend of ours is quite the player (for lack of a more sophisticated word) and I jokingly said, hopefully they're still together on March 8th. I think I might have a future in fortune telling, because Wednesday night he called and cancelled since the Italian girl didn't exist anymore. Told ya.

Jan was not to be discouraged by this untimely news. He restructured his plan and created this menu for the evening:

Spring Minestrone with homemade pesto
Homemade Tortellini with walnut farce
Tiramisu

We also had quite a bit of wine, but since I am not drinking alcohol during Lent, I didn't pay much attention to what was going on there. The food was great, but Jan - being the pickiest self-critic ever - was unsatisfied with the thickness of the noodles, but seriously it is hard to roll the dough out paper thin. He just wants me to buy him a noodle roller machine for his birthday.


What would an Italian evening be without people to share it? Jen and Martin, Jörg, and a friend of mine from work, Kathy, joined us for this culinary event. To top off the evening we played a few dozen rounds of Uno. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I won the Uno tournament - but only by a hair, Jen came in a glorified second (which I'm only mentioning, because I'll be forwarding her this link as well :) )

You might ask what I did to contribute to the evening? Let's see...I vacuumed (but I guess I had to do that anyway), I was DJ (Andrea Bocelli), I washed the asparagus, and the most important task: I taste-tested!! Good thing Jan has me around!

PS: sorry no pics from the evening, the blog was a last minute idea, but I'll be prepared next time!