Category: dinner

‘Man, I’m drooling’ was noted on the slip of paper that my friend Danny gave me with the {recepy-his Italian mother tongue spelling} for pasta alla Norcina written on it.   I was always more than necessarily impressed with my friend Danny’s cooking.  He is Italian born of a native Italian mom and a New Jerseyian (?) dad.  He could and would cobble together fantastic pastas from ingredients that I really didn’t understand like salami and could make a meal out of the most random (to me) odds and ends.  Having grown up myself in a meat and two veg with a roll kind of household with a motley mixed background ranging from Danish to English to German to other things the main three’pasta’ dishes we ate where interestingly, chicken cacciatore, spaghetti and lasagna.  My mom is a great cook-solid in every way rarely making grave errors and rarely making things we didn’t like.  Weirdly I used to put american cheese slices on that chicken cacciatore that my mom cooked for hours.  I was happy to get to know Danny as a friend when he came to Denver to go to Seminary and attended the same church.  We had  great times hanging out, serving at church in our college & career group  and he was so good to share this recipe with me along with lots of fun memories too.  Pasta alla Norcina is the pasta dish of a small town in Umbria Italy called Norcia.  I have fished around the web for recipes and found lots of different versions.  This is a super easy version that makes a huge pot of delicious pasta taking only about 30 minutes.  Thanks Danny!

went to a small chain resto called Abuelos that we had never been to last weekend.  It is what I would call Tex-Mex, or not really authentic Mexican food that Americans wildly go for.  But, I’m not ashamed, we go for it now and then too.  We wanted some sort of cheesy semi-spicy with chips and salsa kind of dishes and it delivered that.  It was kind of funny in decor.  We were seated next to a big statue of a man in a bowler hat, either it was Abeulo himself or Cornelius Fudge.  There was a big scene of blue sky and clouds on the ceiling that Z remarked must have been dreamed up by some local imagineers but I later found to be a hallmark of theirs via the website.

We were seated pretty quickly though and a bowl of chips and three types of salsa were delivered to our table.  I would have liked them to tell me what they were but as far as we could figure there was a semi-spicy, a mild and one made of maybe tomatillo and pineapple.    I kind of enjoyed the pineapple one, it was a little bit sweet and more unique. We took our time going over the menu which is exhaustive.  I eventually ordered a chile relleno with a side of papas con chile and refried beans.  The relleno I chose was filled with cheese and smothered with a sort of chunky flavorful red sauce and I really enjoyed it.  The pepper itself had some heat and a medium nice amount of cheese inside.  The papas con chile were unique to Abuelos and are a red skinned potato mashed with cheese and a bit of jalapeno.  I really liked them in conjunction with the spicy relleno and mild beans.  I would definitely order this whole concoction again.  I often don’t order meaty dishes in restaurants.  I can’t really say why and I’m usually really pleased with what I get.  Z ordered some Santa Fe style flat enchiladas smothered in red and green sauce (Christmas style).  It was a pretty standard dish.  Tortilla, Cheese, Tortilla, Cheese, Smother.  He didn’t rave but he also didn’t really leave any behind.

Based on the comments on foursquare we ordered the flan.  They RAVED.  It was just ok.  I suppose you can’t always trust the crowd or maybe the baker had a bad day.  It seemed overdone and had separated a little.  I would probably try something else next time.  Z did manage to take an awesome phone shot of it.  The service overall was ok too.  We weren’t too high maintenence but we weren’t big spenders either so I didn’t think the service was outstanding but it was ok.   Now that I have just called things ‘ok’ multiple times I will say that we liked it.  It was good but not great but it was good-just not maybe first date good.