Paola (cute short lady) offered to teach us how to make Italian Lasagna, Susan (shorter, younger lady), offered her kitchen, and we watched the best lasagna ever being made.  Would you believe the top layer was a white sauce topped with cheese?  News to me, but definitely great eating.

It was quite a process and time consuming ,but the most important thing to Italians is the quality of the ingredients.  Kris (center) drove Paola for two days buying ingredients at different stores to get the best ingredients possible. Paola is an amazing Italian lady that grew up in Australia when her parents left Italy during WWII to escape the Nazi's.  She is the oldest of 11 children. We are the same age, so she loves that we are both grandmothers, and she enjoys practicing English, we get to practice Italian.  She had us over for Italian coffee and hot chocolate one morning.  I was surprised to see the Italian version of hot chocolate is just like hot pudding, served in a little cup, barely drinkable it is so thick and hot.

We have also had some fun trips to Nove to shop for ceramics.  There are the most beautiful pieces, sold by among others Lennox and Williams & Sonoma.  I love the truly Italian hand painted pieces, but am bringing home some samples, so we'll see what you all think. Shipping is the real problem.  Hopefully before we leave Italy we will get down to Tuscany to see some of the scenery depicted on these vases.  Yes, our Northern area looks a lot like this, but it is very flat or mountainous here, with mostly farmlands so you don't see these large vistas.
Both Susan and Paola are Catholic, but beginning to think about religious questions that we love to answer.

Most Italians don't ever think about religion, just accepting the Catholic church as the only answer to religion.

Let me end this with a picture of one of our seasonal favorite treats, Crostoli, these crispy little cookies that
only can be found during Carnevale.  Crispy little bites of divine fun for sure!