So... What Do We Want To Make For Dinner Tonight?

We love to cook. So we have a habit of asking one another this question each and every day. And I’m sure you think it’s kinda a stupid question to ask. I mean how hard is it to choose what you want for dinner, especially if you love to cook?

We live by an excellent grocery store, Di Per Di, and an excellent outdoor fresh market. Di Per Di carries everything an Italian family could want. Produce, cheese, yogurt, borlotti and cannellini beans, fresh and dried pasta in shapes only this region (Lazio) will eat, fresh and packaged bread, a huge salumi selection, meat, espresso and wine. Sounds adequate. Except, the supply of these items may run out at any given time and you never quite know when. The shelves on Sunday are as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard!

Italian’s have very precise dietary requirements. And they do not like to vary from their-oh-so historical, regional path. They will take the various seasonal ingredients listed above and serve the same dishes their grandmothers have been making for years and they are perfectly content.

They don’t care about the latest deconstructed dish, accompanying foam or choose-the-cuisine inspired sauce. They could care less about purple carrots, Asian pears or heirloom tomatoes – different varieties of fruits and vegetables are unheard of. They certainly don’t care what anyone else is eating. And they don’t even care what the other regions in Italy are eating. All they care about is eating their food.

I’d venture to say American’s eat as internationally as they choose. Our country is so large, it’s cost prohibitive to ship some items inland. However, the east and west coasts are blessed with having every ingredient at hand. And since we’re American’s, we demand to have every ingredient at hand. We’re very fortunate to have the desire and the ingredients to create dishes from all over the globe.

However, here in Rome, we no longer have that option. There are so many staples, fruits and vegetables we simply won’t see in Italy, that in America, we are accustomed to in our weekly trip to the Farmer’s Market or trip to the store. We wonder what it will be like in the winter.

Adding to our dinner dilemma, is the fact that many common ingredients are not available on a daily basis. If we see a cut of meat we like, we snatch it up, because it may not be available tomorrow, or the next day. If there is some fresh sage, we buy it, because we have no idea when we’ll see it again. And it’s no different at the farmer’s markets. A farmer may show up with the sweetest tomatoes one day, but not the next.

We’ve become accustomed to going to the market every day. After we began cooking, we served similar dinner courses as our fellow Romani. After a couple of weeks, it became tiresome. We don’t serve various cuts of salumi as a first course, as Italians do, ever. And as much as we love bread and pasta – we simply don’t want to eat it every day – or even every other day.

For our kids comfort and our own, we’re trying to cook our family favorites, but it’s hard. Some nights, we just come as close to a recipe for cashew stir fry as we can. Other nights, we’re serving salumi as a first course and following with a pasta. Thankfully, tomorrow is a new day. Then we’re sure to ask one another, “What do we want to make for dinner tonight?”