...even though I'm not.

My current interest is Italian cooking. Why is this? Well the long story short is that while having my car serviced at the dealership, and leafing through their collection of magazines, I came across one titled Saveur. It was full of gorgeous photos and recipes, one of which was for my favorite dish to cook at home, French Onion Soup! And they included historic photos of French restaurants that are still in existence - places to visit on our next trip, and motivation to visit yet again.

Yes, I know French Onion Soup is not Italian. But the dealership was so kind as to make me a photocopy of the article and I took a subscription card home to subscribe immediately.

As part of my paid subscription, I received two small recipe booklets, Italian Classics I and Italian Classics II. Then, I received my first issue, which was full of Italian recipes.

In the last week, I've made two pizzas completely from scratch. I've made a double batch of Ragu alla Bolognese, and with half of that I will be making homemade spinach pasta with which I will assemble lasagne. We polished off a recipe of Spaghettia alla Carbonara over the last two days. Delicioso!

Oh, and since I am now Italian, we had to go to Jimmy's Food Store, in Dallas proper, which is a neighborhood Italian market. There, I bought Parmesan Reggiano, Pecorino Romano, canned Italian tomatoes, and pancetta. So what that it cost me $20 in gas to drive there (plus we were going down that way anyway for wine tasting).

Next, I'll be trying some of the Ethiopan recipes from the last issue. The spices sound wonderful and we love lentils.

Watch for my installment titled, "I love being Ethiopian".