Scenes From an Italian Restaurant

The Good News Girlz 2012 Italy officially began this morning. We met at the Milan airport, boarded our Renault Trafic 9 passenger van and headed south to Alba. We made great time to the Hotel Langhe at Strada Profonda, 21, our home in the Piedmont region. Nico and his staff welcomed us and got us squared away. Some of the rooms had to be reconfigured into twin beds for our group. Nico said it's because his girls are in love that they made all the beds double.

The weather had improved so much that we sat outside for a lovely meal at Bar Brasilera, Via Roma, 2 on the square in Alba. We all took advantage of our free afternoon. Some of us shopped, some napped, some did laundry, and others walked. It was a great opportunity to do nothing.

The highlight of the day was dinner at the Osteria Italia, a little place in San Rocco Seno d'Elvio run by a charming husband and wife team. Rocco cooks and Marina runs the front of the house. The food tonight was delicious and plentiful. We started with homemade salumi and a local sparkling wine called Alta Langhe.

Next came a Borgogno Barbera d'Alba with a duck salad that was so good, some of us would come back to Italy just to eat it again. Veal sliced very thin and run through a tuna sauce and a colorful vegetable salad with potatoes, carrots and peas came next. Asparagus with Hollandaise and spinach soufflé followed that. By now, we're getting really full, but the food did not stop coming. Marina brought a bottle of Teo Costa, a Nebbiolo d'Alba and a rice dish with meat sauce. Non-gluten eaters took a break while the others got gnocchetti with nettle sauce. We moved on to a Castello Di Nieve Barbaresco Santo Stefano and veal with carrots and snow peas. Uncle, Uncle! But we couldn't leave without a little dessert: panna cotta, hazelnut cake with chocolate sauce, a tasty little thing that might have been a kumquat drenched in chocolate, and meringue with chocolate sauce. Then, we had to have a wine with dessert so Marina brought out the Moscato d'Asti, a sweet, slightly sparkling white.

Some of us believed Marina when she told us that another drink would aid digestion and we tried some Barolo Chinato Borgogno. It's been a local remedy for flu and stomachaches since 1800. We think it may work. As usual with these dinners, we were the first people in to dinner and the last to leave. It was almost midnight when we left-very full and very happy, but we may never eat again.

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