Dinner With Friends

Sadly, absent friends. Tonight's dinner featured calamarata brought to us all the way from Italy by good friends who were fortunate enough to spend an extended time there this spring. As you may guess by the name, calamarata is a pasta named for squid, as in calamari. It's a tube about 2cm in diameter and the same in length and resembles the sliced pieces of a squid's mantle used in so many tasty dishes. We served ours with a quick tomato sauce courtesy of Food and Wine magazine with the addition of *drumroll please* squid pieces! My co-conspirator didn't want to eat any of the bits with tentacles so I scored big time. It was tasty and, more importantly, reminded us of our friends who weren't with us.

In addition to the pasta main course, we put together a salad with local, organic greens and vegetables topped with a dressing of hazelnut and olive oils whisked with gold Modena balsamic and champagne vinegars. The hazelnut oil and balsamic were gifts from another good friend we dearly miss.

And if that's not enough, the croutons on the salad were from yet another friend. They were made with leftover rolls from his graduation party. Tomorrow he's going on a backpacking adventure and we wish him a good trip and a great time.

Thank you, to all our friends that we share our food and time with. It wouldn't be dinner without you!!