One of the best things about Italy, if not the best thing, is the food.  Obviously.  After spending two weeks indulging in fresh truffles, prosciutto, burata, gelato, pasta, wine, etc, we needed a little pause from Italian food when we returned home.  While satisfying our cravings for all the other foods we hadn’t eaten in Italy, we ended up taking a month-long break from pasta and pizza (though we couldn’t resist charcuterie).  Not because we didn’t crave it after a couple weeks, but because the authentic tastes were still fresh in our minds, if not our mouths.  And while we are lucky to have the world’s best food here in SF, the one thing I really missed was fresh truffles!  We ate them everywhere, on beef tartare, on pasta, on steak, on fresh mozzarella…

And all the other food wasn’t so bad either…

I even miss the food we cooked ourselves in Tuscany.  The store-bought prosciutto-filled tortellini was so good.  A small refrigerated package made so much, I decided to fix them two ways … with fresh pomodoro and basil, and cheese and butter.

So after our hiatus, when we were ready to make pasta again, I wanted a classic Roman dish — cacio e pepe (as shown in featured photo, taken in Rome).  After some research, I decided to try this recipe from Tales of Ambrosia. Cacio e pepe requires only two ingredients (besides salt and pepper) — spaghetti and pecorino romano cheese — so quality products really make a difference.  This was the perfect opportunity to use the spaghetti we got from the Martelli Family Pasta Factory in the tiny town of Lari.  (On later tries, we used thick spaghetti that is a little easier to find.)  Be sure to follow the instructions to a tee, it is really important to heat the serving dish and save that pasta water.  Super simple ingredients and when done right, delicioso!

All photos original to RevolvingDecor.com.  

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