Pizza a la Salvatore

13th September, 2011

This post is about food. Luckily in Long Island, I am living with Sal (short for Salvatore). He is Italian so really appreciates good food. He is always making little dressings and dishes that he makes up as he's going. A few days ago, we had, what he called, 'Potto de Pollo a la Salvatore'. He just came up with is as he was cooking and it was excellent. Tonight he made pizza (very good again). He has an obsession with lemons. He adds lemon to everything. Sometimes he does overdo it on the lemon, but mostly it does add a lot to salads and chicken dishes.

He also appreciates good coffee. We have had a number of conversations about how Americans don't know how to make good coffee. If you order an espresso, they will give you a double (but watered-down version) so it seems like you are getting your money's worth. Italian espresso only fill the cup half-way but it tastes amazing. A funny thing here is that they have MASSIVE mugs. They make huge quantities of coffee but the quality is not that great (though not as bad as our instant coffee). Luckily for me, Sal has two mocha kettles for making espresso. Most afternoons, I make myself a little espresso (a short).

I noticed that the shops are full of Italian ingredients here - bread, cheese, pasta, biscuits - the most popular versions of everything seem to be Italian. Every second restaurant is also Italian and they have a few Italian shops (such as the Italian pork shop down the road). The house here is full of Italian ingredients such as Italian bread, parmesan, mozzerella, oregano (and it is pronounced correctly by Americans according to Sal), rucola (rocket, which I also pronounced wrong when I was in Italy), olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lavazza coffee etc.

My favourite food is Italian food so this is great for me. A great thing about the US is that because there are so many different nationalities, there is also a huge selection of international produce to choose from in the stores. If you feel like German, French or Irish food, you will be able to get whatever you need usually.