Ambitious dinner

It rained this morning, so once again I didn't ride my bike to my Italian class. But it was a lovely walk home through the Villa Borghese. There is an area, along the southwestern road of the park, where you can see all of Rome. It is really a very happy place for me. After the rain, the park smelled fresh and the scenery was fantastic.

Once home, I ate a late lunch and began preparations for dinner. We were to have three shifts tonight. First Olivia would have a little something before going to her Halloween party at school at 5pm (more on that later). Then Charlotte and Avery would eat before Charlotte had to leave for swim practice at 6pm, then Josh and I would eat with Olivia when they returned from AquAniene at 7:30pm.

The menu I had planned was a breast of Turkey and risotto con funghi. I don't think I'd ever made risotto (except for the frozen Trader Joe's variety which is actually quite good) but I needed to find something to go with the delectable mushrooms. The tricky part, of course, was preparing it so that it would taste good in three separate seatings. After all, I don't have restaurant training.

One good thing about taking Italian, is that I can just barely make out the Italian instructions on the box of "riso arborio." Still, I had to use the dictionary to supplement. Then there were a lot of preparations. Slice the mushrooms, grate the cheese, peel the garlic, make the vegetable broth, chop the onion, season the meat, etc. Finally, I was ready to cook. The instructions on the box said "una decina di minuti" like around 10 minutes. Come on! Everyone knows you can't make risotto in 10 minutes. Truly, you need to stand and stir for at least half an hour.

But it's worth it. Charlotte said "this is the best Italian thing you've made." That was in second shift. Josh, too, liked the risotto a lot -- in the third shift -- and had a second helping. He suggested I make it for my parents when they visit. I'm so pleased to know that I can pull it off!

One thing we weren't expecting in Italy was Halloween. We thought it was largely an American invention. Furthermore, we knew the kids were on break from school during October 31st and that we'd be on vacation somewhere. We were wrong. The spirit of Halloween lives in Rome. So that the kids don't miss out, classes at RIS are having celebrations today and tomorrow before the break. Not only do you get to dress up, you get to do it on October 22nd (Olivia) and 23rd (Avery). We left so many wonderful costumes at home, so now we'd have to be creative. I wanted to make Olivia a ghost (that's about the limit for my creativity), but she decided she wanted to be a cat. OK. We got something together with black and orange and whiskers and pig tails that was close enough. Grades 2 through 6 were invited to a Halloween "disco" at the school gym this evening. There were all kinds of games and treats and Olivia had a great time. Tomorrow will be Avery's class party and Halloween parade. He wants to be cat too. What would he be like without his big sisters?