Off to Italy!

It's finally summer!

For me, summer doesn't start when school ends, but when I touch down on Italian soil.  Every year of my life I have gone to Catania, Sicily for the summer, and this year I am switching it up and stopping in Pisa for two months before heading down to Sicily.

The secret to good Italian food is simplicity.

It’s all about the quality of the ingredients, because most Italian recipes call for little alteration of the starting material.  These past four days I have been staying at my uncle’s house in Livorno, a city near Pisa, and I have really come to realize the huge difference high quality ingredients have on the flavor of the food.  At his house I ate very simple things: pasta with pesto or tomato sauce, raw scampi marinated in a little lemon juice and fruity olive oil, and boiled green beans with potatoes, all accompanied by the classic salt-less bread unique to Tuscany.  My mom wasn’t fond of the bland bread (being from Sicily she tends to think everything is better in Sicily), but I thought it really allowed the flavors of the food it accompanied to shine, and also highlighted the nutty flavor of the wheat itself in the bread.

He also had the most wonderful balsamic vinegar I have ever had, the kind that comes in a tiny bottle and has been aged for years, leaving it with an almost honey-like consistency and flavor.  Anything you put it on becomes instantly awesome.

Even the pasta itself was the best quality, Garagnano brand, much better than Barilla. 

There's no recipe this time, but you should just find the best ingredients and whip up something delicious!