Well, I finally got a decent steak, thanks in part to Paolo's good cooking, and thanks in other part to the Carrefour supermarket in Termoli, where I purchased some girello from the butcher's case yesterday. Girello is more or less what we'd call a round steak in the US, I think. A fairly lean cut, so Paolo marinated it this afternoon before cooking it up with some wine, mushrooms, and onions.
When I was ordering it from the butcher case, I asked the woman behind the counter for mezzo chilo - a one-half kilogram cut. She took it over to the meat slicer and proceeded to make a very thin cut, as if she were preparing it for making cheesesteaks! This is how they seem to sell a lot of beef around here. She showed me the thin slice she'd made, and I quickly indicated that that was not what I had in mind. I wasn't sure how to communicate to her that I wanted one thick slice rather than a pile of lunchmeat, so I just tried to show her with my hands. Fortunately, this seemed to get the message across (I might be struggling with the Italian language, but I've always been pretty good with the hand gestures). She just shrugged, and got out a huge knife to hack off a chunk of flesh. She must be very good at her job, because what she cut off was very close to 1/2 kilo (just over a pound) - it was close enough for us, anyway.
OK, so it was no filet mignon, but it was still tasty. Paolo made us some baked potatoes, too. So we had an American-style dinner tonight:
I honestly don't know what they do with those thin slices of beef here; I'll have to research that. Most of the prepackaged "steaks" you see in the grocery stores are actually pork, not beef. They have cuts of pork that look just like beef steaks I'd buy in the US - they're even named like them: sirloin, tenderloin, and so on. The only difference (in appearance, anyway) is that they're labeled suine, or some variation of that word.
The reason we went to the grocery store in Termoli in the first place was because we'd missed the Saturday Market Day, as we both slept in; and the mercati here in the comune of course close down in the middle of the day - but it was just as well as we had a pretty big order this week. This time, we stopped by the "International Aisle" - although it isn't in fact a whole aisle; rather, it's just a few shelves within an aisle:
If you look closely, you can see that there are two kinds of maple syrup, and two kinds of peanut butter (neither of which we bought this time around). Also, there are zero cans of baby corn, water chestnuts, or bamboo shoots, sadly - c'mon, what's the point of having the Asian food section without baby corn?! We did, however, pick up a pack of the "tortillas" and a jar allegedly containing salsa, to see if we can re-create one of our favorite chicken fajita wrap recipes here. Come to think of it, a tuna wrap would be good, too.
Not that we aren't enjoying Italian food - we definitely are! For example, Paolo made artichoke-stuffed ravioli topped with seafood last night (my idea, his execution):
Food-related: We were walking down the street heading towards the bakery, and one of our new friends here in town (he once told us he wants to come to America and get a “young wife” like Paolo has 😉) stopped us to give us these:
Mostaccioli are a regional cookie; they make several varieties at the bakery here in the comune (although the ones at our local bakery are more diamond-shaped, not square). These were from a bakery about an hour or so from here, but I can attest to the fact that both these and the ones from our local bakery are delightful. They're a soft, mildly spicy chocolate cookie covered in chocolate. I think I'd like to try making these.
Today, being Sunday, was a pretty low-key day; we were admittedly rather lazy. The weather continues to be cold, blustery, and damp/rainy, sigh. But at least it's not snow, so there's that to be thankful for. Nothing much exciting planned for the upcoming week, other than perhaps picking up my ID card if it's ready on Friday. But you never know what adventures (or friends with cookies) might pop up!