Elena's Birthday Dinner

Last night we had a delightful home catered dinner at our farmhouse prepared by Monica, a local woman who has a catering business. She arrived promptly around 5:30pm and we all introduced ourselves. She has very little English and our collective Italian wasn't much better however, she had google translate that helped quite a bit. One fun fact is that she is going to visit NYC next year with a friend for her first visit to the U.S. Here are a couple photos of Monica as she began her work!

Our menu began with an apperitivi of foccacia (2 kinds), pecorino, two types of local salami, stuffed eggplant, tomato, and artichokes, and a platter of bruscetta with her home grown tomatoes! Forgot to take a photo of the vegetables, but here is the cheese and salami platter:

The primi was homemade ravioli in a marinara sauce that we each ate about half of to save room for the rest of the meal!

Secondi was a insalata mista (which I forgot to photograph) and rabbit cacciatore. Here is a photo of Monica plating the cacciatore and then our plated dish.

Our dulce was semifreddo that made a nice ending for an amazing home cooked birthday dinner:

Of course, there was much wine flowing freely so here are a few photos of the dinner party enjoying themselves dining outside on the patio as the sun went down,