Jeff and I recently reunited with what is, in my mind, ‘Home Sweet Home.’ No, we didn’t get back to Chicago to visit our friends or even to Pittsburgh or Detroit for a stop in our hometowns. Instead, we went back to The Motherland – Italy.
Italy is without a doubt my favorite place in the entire world, solar system, universe. As I continue to check off destinations on my, ‘Places to See Before I Die’ list, I have yet to find any place that has even come close to ousting Italy from the top of my list. I realize this is not an uncommon feeling as who visits Italy and doesn’t love it? But my love for Italy borderlines on an obsession. My friend Kat summed up my obsession perfectly when she wrote this about me and her Italian husband Mike: ‘(They) genuinely believe that they sweat olive oil and bleed marinara sauce.’ Couldn’t have said it better myself!
So you can imagine how excited I was to find out last year that my dear college girlfriend, Ali, decided that she was going to marry her beau, Zach, on the Italian Riviera in Portofino. Upon receiving the Save the Date last fall, Jeff and I eagerly booked our flights from Chicago to Milan. A transcontinental move to Singapore put a little snafoo in our travel plans, but with a few changes to the itinerary and a 24-hour travel day we arrived in Portofino ready to experience a destination wedding that proved to be like none other.
We arrived on a Friday afternoon and sat by the pool for a few hours enjoying one of those 360-degree views that is so breathtaking you want to reach out just to make sure it’s not a fake backdrop. We followed up our pool time with a lovely reunion dinner with my troop of college girlfriends and their plus ones. Post dinner, Jeff and I were in a state of total jet-lagged delirium that we called it an early night so we’d be fully prepared to take on the main event the next day.
Before we knew it, it was time for the next meal! Of course I had done my Chowhound.com research and had a shortlist of restaurants in town in mind for our pranzo per due. We opted for Osteria No. 7 – a quaint hole-in-the-wall joint not unlike so many other to-die-for restaurants in Italy.
Osteria No. 7
Via Ruffini 36
16038 Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy
0185281703
The saying, ‘when in Rome’ can aptly be applied here as when in Liguria – as we were – one must eat pesto! Showing up on menus from Quiznos to Subway, pesto has become an almost nauseatingly ubiquitous ingredient in The States. But in Northern Italy, where pesto found its origins, you can get the real deal. So, of course our meal included a big bowl of it slathered over homemade pasta ‘sticks’ a.k.a. trofie al pesto. The spinach and ricotta stuffed homemade ravioli with a lovely red sauce also didn’t disappoint. We rounded the meal off with a large plate of perfectly and lightly fried calamari that was so greaseless I could almost pretend that I was eating something healthy.
Oh, and while I have been slaving away in the world of advertising, it seems my long-lost Italian cousins are busy living a grueling life of vinegar making. Seriously, why did my grandparents ever emigrate?
Stay tune for Italy part due and tre soon to follow. You won’t want to miss the wedding of the century post!
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