My dinner with Manuela

Eight years ago, I met this wonderful Roman woman, she will tell you she is not Italian but Roman because she is of Etruscan heritage at a pottery class I was taking. We have been fast friends ever since, and whenever I get to Italy, I have to swing by Rome to say hello.
Because of the holiday weekend, we were not able to get together until my last night in Rome, in fact I extended my stay for an extra day to be able to see her.

She took me to her favorite restaurant in her neighborhood, a Sicilian place called La Norma. Oh, we showed up at 8pm, and we were the first customers. They were just opening their dors. I'd forgotten how late everone eats in Roma, very late. Other diners did not even start showing up until after 20:30.

 This was my dinner, fresh pasta with a light tomato sauce and lots of vegetables.

Manuela's was a more traditional plate of a vegetable spaghetti.

This was the local sicilian wine I drank. It was all mine as Manuela was not drinking.

It was just the kind of evening I had hope for, two old friends catching up on the gossip of our lives since we had last seen each other, about 5 years.

It was a great way to be able to say Arrivadiercci, Roma.