An American Barbeque In Italy

Saturday, August 22, 2009

An American Barbeque In Italy

4:23 PM |

Dana Kaplan, Stresa Sights |

We decided to have an American bbq. The kind you see on American TV shows let's say. We were doing this in a town called Druogno, in the Valle Vigezzo in the Italian Alps, where we were spending the weekend. We were a pretty international bunch, with me being the American, some Italians, and some South Africans. The weather on this July weekend was much cooler than in Stresa, the air was fresh, and the sky was crystal clear. Perfect barbeque weather.

Here's how it went: Colleague and I found some supplies at Ipercoop, the large supermarket in the area.

There was a section of American foods in the Ethnic Foods aisle. We found hamburger and hot dog buns with a cool American flag motif. We never did find hot dogs though...

We found hamburger patties at the local butcher shop. Not sure how often he makes them...

We found nacho chips and salsa, we even found a watermelon, but we couldn't find corn on the cob.

We made a cheesecake.

I know, I know, it should have been an apple pie, but a cheesecake called New York style seemed very American as well.

So how'd we do? Was it a truly American bbq? Well, we had our nachos, sprinkled with grated parmasan and served with focaccia and spinach tart...

We had our burgers and ribs, but we also had spicy salsiccia, which, it turns out, do not work well with hot dog buns.

While we did have some beer, we also had wine, prosecco, and grappa. The cheesecake was a big success, but we forgot about the watermelon, which we had put into the freezer for some reason.

Before long, the table looked like this...

Not very American looking at all, si? Oh well... I tried. And we had fun. Next time, I'm thinking to show them how to make s'mores... if I can find marshmallows that is...

Labels: food, just for fun

8 comments:

Emma said...: My that spinach tart looks good!!; August 23, 2009 at 11:44 AM
Stresa Sights said...: :-) best thing there Em...

And why did we put that watermelon into the freezer?; August 23, 2009 at 11:58 AM
Emma said...: Nothing beats the cheescake!

Was it because there wasn't any room in the fridge? It did eventually thaw however...still don't think anyone had any.; August 23, 2009 at 12:43 PM
Eleonora Ferrari said...: This sounds like the perfect American-Italian barbeque to me and such fun too! Your New York Style cheesecake looks really delicious. I tried to make a cheesecake there (the kind you refrigerate) but they didn’t have the jello that I use to make it set and it turned out like a strawberry mousse instead. :)

It might be a good idea to bring over marshmallows and graham crackers with you next time for those s’mores...I've never seen them there.; August 23, 2009 at 7:08 PM
Stresa Sights said...: Thank you for writing Eleonora... That cheesecake in the photo has a 100% made in the US of A Nabisco Graham Cracker crust. I had indeed brought them over for the occasion. We did discover, however, with some supermarket searching, that many honey-flavored biscotti have almost identical flavor and texture, and we used them for the next cheesecakes.

This is the recipe we use, should you want to try it:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/Cheesecake.html

We did not make the glaze topping, we served with fresh strawberries... Enjoy...; August 23, 2009 at 8:39 PM
Eleonora Ferrari said...: Thanks for the link to the joy of baking website Dana! I love to try new recipes and cheesecake is my favorite dessert.; August 24, 2009 at 8:23 AM
girasoli said...: Yum! The cheesecake looks soooo good!!

So what ended up happening to the watermelon?; September 7, 2009 at 11:51 PM
Stresa Sights said...: That poor watermelon! We had put him in the freezer, and then outside to thaw... Let's just say he didn't do very well...; September 8, 2009 at 5:40 AM

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