Salad, Scampi and Stories

Mon, June 26
A friend of ours who had been teaching a film course in Firenze came by for a visit. It was a lovely, relaxing visit where we got to catch up on what’s been going on in our lives.  Its still hot here right now, so I thought lunch should be some cold salads.  I’ve been experimenting with using faro (or spelt) in different kinds of cold salads, and it’s a very clean, refreshing grain to work with.  Better than a cold rice salad in that it doesn’t get soggy or starchy in the mouth.
I even had some Fagioli Zolfini on hand. These lovely white beans come from the area around Anghiari in Tuscany and just are incredibly flavorful and aromatic.  I forgot to take a picture, so picture this: chopped sautéed red endive around the rim of the plate, surrounding the white beans, with little pink shrimp on top and some green parsley. A good combination of flavors and textures.
I also discovered that you can make very good dinner rolls with left over grissini (breadstick) dough. Who knew??
Dinner was a scampi fest. Just a big mound of spaghetti alla chitarra, served with lots of fresh herbs from the windowsill, sauteed scampi and lots of good stories. Amos is a great storyteller, and after a persuasive argument about sound being a stronger influence on emotion than images, he’s convinced me to watch The 6th Sense without sound. Desert was some leftover Compari-lemonade that I turned into a granita, much better as a granita, very refreshing.