There hasn't been much news coming from us lately, as we've finally had the chance to start... just settling in. Our sofa and chair arrived this week, we mounted the mirror, but the famed guest bed is not here yet as they could not get it up the stairs. Hopefully, it will arrive in about 8 days. Our twisty-turny stairs are a bit difficult to navigate. Sometimes I think this house looks like the basic structure was built ages and ages ago, and then modifications were just made here and there and on top of each other (at one point, coming up the stairs, you see what seem once to have been doors into the neighboring house, but only the bottom third...?).

Without much exciting to report, let's talk about food. I hate pizza, as everyone who knows me knows. I HATE pizza. It is my most-hated food almost of all time. I do not like it. It's gross! There's too much cheese, too much sauce, and too much useless fat. (Fat exists to add to flavor, not to pool uselessly on top of the far-too-much cheese.) Of course, there are exceptions. When my family used to go to Rome when I was 12-14 years old, there was a pizza place near the Pantheon that sold the most amazing artichoke pizza, which basically consisted of flatbread topped with artichokes and oregano. That was it. And it was good! We'd fight over it in the train! Normally, though, ugh!

On the other hand, I LOVE my own homemade pizza. Yeah, I consider myself a decent cook, but nothing fantastic. My own pizzas, though? Amazing! On Thursday, I was wondering what to make for lunch. We had pretty much nothing in the house other than potatoes, and I was HUNGRY. So, pizza it is. You cut the potatoes super-thin (those big holes on the side of the grater are pretty good for this), cook them until tender over high heat with little oil in a non-stick pan, cut lots of garlic into thin slices and combine with crushed dried chiles, sage, rosemary, and (bear with me) a tiny bit of lavender. Sprinkle over the pizza dough, top with potatoes, add a little salt, some goat cheese, and a sprinkling of parmesan, cook in the super-hot oven for about 7 minutes, and bingo! Pizza. Even better is the version we tried last night: with thin eggplant slices (cooked in a hot oven), spread with a layer of non-fat quark, and dotted (thickly!) with homemade parsley pesto from a mortar. WOW!

I've always made pesto in a food processor (and yes, I know, PESTO is really only made with basil, pine or walnuts, and a mixture of parmesan and pecorino, but whatever!) and am addicted to every version I've ever tried. But one of the best ever is parsley pesto, made of course with flat-leaf parsley (the other kind has no flavor). In the food processor, it takes about 90 seconds to make and comes out really good. Here, I have no food processor, but I do have a mortar and pestle (the heavy marble kind). I tried making basil pesto the other day, but it came out a little stringy (probably because the basil wasn't quite at its peak). So I decided to go for some parsley pesto. I rough-chopped the parsley into the mortar with scissors, added some salt, and started pounding. Soon I was greeted with the most intoxicating of aromas. Throw in a clove or two of garlic, keep pounding, then rough-crush the walnuts and start tossing them in (I think walnuts have more body and stand up better to the earthiness of parsley pesto). Finish with a good drizzle of olive or walnut oil (bought at the regional market last weekend, so I know it came from local trees--cool!). Then stir in a little grated parmesan or pecorino. Amazing, in any form, but perhaps most especially with runny eggs in the morning.

Hey, primitive living has its compensations, right?