we have been going strong with our eating less and healthier regimen started on Dec 8.   Workdays are easy with the regimen of it all.  Weekends tend towards a little more challenge.  There are things to do, places to go, people to see, food to eat out, et al.  We have had two extra-caloric kind of dinners this weekend-last night fish n chips and tonight a dish we recently saw on tv by David Rocco.  He is a Canadian Italian who cooks in Florence in a sort of homecooking rustic hot Italian kind of way.   He really reminds me of my Italian friend Danny (Daniele) which totally freaks me out and pleases me.  Their mannerisms are so similar it’s eerie-I guess it’s an Italian thing.  Anyhow, we crave David Rocco’s pasta on a semi regular basis.  It’s really amazing.  So, tonight we tried pasta e patate.  A boiled not quite soup concoction with a soup base of carrots, onion, celery and prosciutto filled up with broken spaghetti and bites of potato and nubbins of pecorino romano.   It was warmly dense and packed with flavor.  We decided it didn’t really pass the guests for dinner test (we wouldn’t serve it to guests) due to a little bit of noodley tomatoey chin action but it was a great dinner at home.  I did manage to eat only a 6th of those 4-6 servings and reduced the oil to 1 1/2 T at the beginning which was just fine.  By the way, the eating healthier is beginning to pay off too!