Dinner with Friends

There is a chocolate shop within walking distance of us that we love to go to. They sell chocolates from Belgium, and in October we went to a chocolate tasting organized by the owners. We learned all kinds of interesting things, and spent the evening discussing the flavor palette of various grades of dark chocolate. It was divine.

The owners are a married Italian couple not much older than us, and very fun together. We enjoy chatting with them, and they invited us to a pasta dinner on Saturday! We were so excited to find friends within walking distance of us (plus they have a pretty cool job/history to talk about, right?)

I insisted that I ought to bring something, and they agreed I could make a chicken dish to eat after the pasta. Feeling slightly intimidated by their offering: handmade whole wheat pasta, we picked a recipe and bought all the ingredients at Whole Foods. Weren't they beautiful? There are purple carrots ya'll!


We fought a little putting the meal together- we always fight when we do something stressful in the kitchen because neither of us feels like we're as good at cooking as we want to be- but it all turned out good in the end.


That's chicken with carrots, red onions, and prunes. Pretty yum! I was shocked at the difference having organic chicken made; so juicy! I am a total convert for special meals!


The fact that I cut myself while trying to debone the chicken breasts (we discovered that you need a meat cleaver- which we don't have- to cut chicken breast bone after having left the store) was somewhat mollified by the presence of the storm trooper spatula M's mom sent as an early birthday present.


The dinner itself went great. Linda and Roberto were amazing hosts: Linda's guacamole was amazing, and their pasta was so tender. We all lingered over the second bottle of wine (and sips of chocolate port!) to discuss opinions on the deeper topics. I've really missed those experiences since college. Friends made! I can't wait to have them over to our apartment, too!