When I look at all the photos of food I took on my trip, I start wondering how I’m going to get them sorted and put on my blog;  a) make a few photo collages and put them all in one post, b) categorise photos by theme or country and write in several posts, c) find photos that match with food I cook and weave stories around it each time, d) ….. (any other ideas?)

Well, I’d always thought ‘a’  would be the most efficient way to do it until the idea of having my holiday stories stretched out by savouring them over an extended period came along. Hopefully, I will be ready to go on my next adventure by the time I’ve gone over most of my holiday photos.

(Pizza + Wine) x 2 + Trevi Fountain =  Love
Pizza + Trevi Fountain x 2 = Sick

Yes, I had a lot of pizza and panini for sure. The quickest, easiest and cheapest meal of all time. What makes pizza in Italy so different from one you eat outside Italy? How can pizza go wrong? How do you define the good pizza? Some say it is dough and some the quality of mozzarella. What about the combination of flavours?

It might be true that anything you eat at a beautiful piazza would taste good because it is the view you pay for that makes it taste so good. Eating through your eyes!

The pizza in Florence was definitely better than Rome as was  everything else,  more generous and fresh toppings, and in large rectangular shape. Florentine cuisine seems to be simple and solid-  no frills like the people there?

Some say pizza in Naples is simply the best,  with its fame of being the birthplace of Pizza Margherita symbolising the Italian flag: red (tomato), white (mozzarella cheese), and green (basil), but I’m not sure if no cheese means the best, then it deserves it. Neapolitans are certainly not big cheese eaters. I regret not having tried many pizzerias in Naples, though, I was getting tired of pizza as I travelled down to the south from Venice. However, the point where I the excitement of finding good pizzerias went out the window was after my street snatch incident. Two young guys on a scooter shocked me by grabbing my bag while driving by, but I managed to hold onto it and saved everything I had including my precious camera. From then on, I got scared of walking around alone and I couldn’t risk getting into trouble again.

Two days later, however, I decided to give it another go and started off toward one of the most famous pizzeria, Da Michele, which serves only two types of pizzas, Margherita and Marinara. I always thought marinara sauce contained some kind of seafood, but the origin of marinara sauce is that it is the sauce that was made in Naples for the sailors when they returned from the sea. There seems to be a huge emphasis on how good pasta is defined by such simple sauce.

In my opinion, the secret of a good pizza lies in its crust; fresh, hand-tossed, thin but not crispy like biscuit (not Domino’s Thin n Crispy type), light and airy crust. Then a good combination of fresh ingredients comes next. My attempt to make the first pizza since my return crumbled when I found that the yeast I had kept in the fridge past its use-by date. Would it still usable? I wasn’t sure, so I quickly thought out an alternative dough recipe that didn’t require yeast, but self-rising flour, milk, olive oil and herbs. I used whole wheat flour, though.

As it turned out, it had more like a cross between tart and pizza, which was quite interesting, let alone quick and easy, yet tasty!

I threw in leftover Spanish ham, which my CS guest bought for me the day before, but it baked it for too long and came out way too crispy. *Disappointed*

Ham, Cherry Tomato, Rosemary Tart- like-Pizza

But the next one came out well and the smell was just mind-blowing. There is no need to mention about the taste…..:) It is absolutely a beautiful combination.

Caramelised Fennel&Onion, Spinach, Goat cheese Tart-like-Pizza