It’s almost embarrassing just how much I ate during our recent trip to Europe. With any vacation, I feel like what Julian and I do most is eat and drink. In our defense, though, there is a lot of walking involved whenever we travel, so the eating and the drinking is very much well-deserved and justified. Although we ate so much and tried so many different dishes at various restaurants, I can with certainty tell you that the best meal (as a whole) we had was in London, at Ceviche. The restaurant has a cookbook of the same name, which I never even knew and I own a copy of the book and I love it because of the tiled cover and I just never had a clue. It’s Peruvian food turned up, and it’s delicious. They have a grilled octopus dish that I went crazy for, so much so that I made us order it twice. One right after the other. I’ve never done that before at any restaurant.
I had a favorite dish in every city we visited, mainly because I can’t help but pick favorites in everything that goes on in my life. My favorite sweater, my favorite pair of shoes, my favorite post on the blog (which changes all the time), my favorite movie, and so on and so on. So I didn’t waste any time in picking favorites throughout our trip. My favorite dish in London, was hands down that grilled octopus dish I just mentioned. My favorite in Paris was a tomato and avocado tartine. In Venice it was an arancini (fried rice balls). In Florence, we had a warm seafood salad that was to die for. And in Rome, I had two favorites. The first was a Potato and Sausage Pizza Bianca, which I shared earlier in the week. My second favorite dish, was this Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe. Which is a black peppery cheesy spaghetti dish. It’s the easiest thing to make with like five ingredients that you probably already have on hand, and yet it was the most delicious pasta I’ve ever eaten. How can something so simple and basic taste to great?!
I wanted to recreate it for the blog so that we can all try it and eat it together, if you haven’t already. If you have tried it, then you know what I’m talking about. I’m a huge fan of black pepper, I’ll add it to anything and never look back. So I’m all for a dish who’s star of the show is black pepper. I felt like during this trip, mainly in Italy, it was hard for me to get vegetables in. Everywhere you looked it was bread, cheese, pasta and more bread. I longed for veggies, or even a piece of lettuce as a garnish, just so I can have something healthy. Most of the time, I’d look at a menu and pick out a vegetable and order it just so that I can assure my body that I was still eating veggies. Most of the time I would make us order broccolini, because it’s my favorite vegetable, and it was always served simply, sautéed with garlic and lemon. I feel like this dish goes so well with sautéed broccolini on the side, so I thought why not share it? Let’s Cheers to the Weekend with a simple meal that the whole family will love.
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