Somewhere Beyond Sea

Well, it wasn't Southwest Airlines!

Not that there's anything wrong with Southwest. But really! What do you think of when you think of airline food?
Don't you think of fasting? Or boarding with your pockets stuffed with your own snacks?
So it was our pleasant surprise to have a good meal.
Yes. On an airline.
And that airline was Alitalia.

But, let me teach you a phrase before I tell you about the meal.

"Ho fame". Go ahead, try and say it. You pronounce it O-Fa-may. It means "I am hungry". I was surprised how hungry I got from doing little more than resting on my backside for almost 13 hours.
Sitting really works up quite an appetite.

                                                                                                           

Here was our menu:
Antipasto: ‘Pasto’ means meal. So then, antipasto means "before the meal", or what we call the appetizer. In this case it was prosciutto, formaggio (cheese) and olives. Primo: The first course. Today we had gnocchi. Gnocchi is a small dumpling type of food. Gnocchi in Italian actually means "lump". Most often made with potatoes, it can also be made from flour which I think ours was. It came in a tomato sauce. Very yum.

Secondo: The entree. Our choices were beef or "pesce". Fish. We took the fish. Tender. Tasty. And with vegetables. Add to this a tasty dinner roll. Not the standard tasteless, air bread you'd expect. How do you say "stuffed in Italian"?

Dolce: The dessert. We had fresh seasonal fruit.
And to drink? Italian beer or chianti wine. I asked the flight attendant, "How much?" He said, "It's free, my friend. Drink up!"
I turned to my wife and said, "It's free!"
She is my voice of reason and stated, "It's included in the price of our ticket."
I hope that Alitalia doesn't decide to charge me by the pound to fly me back California. At the rate I'm eating that could cost me an extra euro.
How do you say "chubby" in Italian?

Next stop: Rome. And this was our first meal in the Eternal City.
Ciao!