Pizzoccheri Night with my Fellow Fellows!

One of the greatest things about having such an internationally diverse group of scholars at the Herzog August Bibliothek is the internationally diverse types of food we get to enjoy!!  Last night, me and my fellow fellows of the library helped prepare a traditional Italian dish called Pizzoccheri in the community kitchen.  Pizzoccheri is a pasta dish from the Valtellina valley in the northern Italian Alps-- the noodles are made from buckwheat flour and are mixed with savoye cabbage, potatoes, cheese, and (of course) garlic-infused butter.  YUM!

Buckwheat noodles made by Alberto

Savoye cabbage is a strange vegetable...

Butter + Herbs + Garlic = YUMMMM

Pizzoccheri!

We enjoyed antipasta of garlic-stuffed olives, pesto olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and cheese with a super spicy mustard sauce.  And I insisted on listening to Pavarotti most of the evening.  Naturally, I suggest you enjoy some Pavarotti while scrolling through the rest of this post.

Here:

Alberto was the lead chef in our endeavor, and the rest of us helped however we could.  Katja provided a super dessert, peeled and cut potatoes, and helped Martin cube the cheese, Rieke and I cut the savoye cabbage into strips, Damaris prepared a salad, and Sophia and Jonathan supplied the appropriate wines.  Team work makes the dream work!

Martin oversees Katja's potato-peeling while Alberto rolls out the pasta dough

When you can't find the rolling pin, use a bottle of wine!

Slicing the noodles!

Katja and her cheese cubes

Damaris is a really super salad-maker!

Once the cabbage and potatoes had boiled a while, we started adding the pasta!

Pasta time!

Master Chef Alberto

Guess which fine wine I provided?

We set the table all sophisticated, and then enjoyed the fruits of our labor together!  It is always fun to share a table with this group because at any given moment, you hear conversations in English, German, or Italian!

Left to right: Katja, Martin, Alberto, Rieke, and Sophia

Jonathan and Damaris

Dinner was finished with a delicious dessert by Katja called Russischer zupfkuchen, which is basically a combination of chocolate cake and cheesecake.  It uses the magical German ingredient for the "cheesecake" part, quark, which I have previously discussed in another blog post.

I'm sure glad all my new friends here like to cook, because it means I don't have to!  And they happen to be great company during delicious meals!!

Katja, me, and Sophia getting goofy