Ernie (my husband) and I attended the monthly cooking class at our favorite local restaurant, Amici Miei, which is always great fun. This month, Chef Davide presented a butternut squash “cappuccino” for the first course, which was paired with a Pinot Grigio from Alto Adige. The soup looks like a cappuccino in that it is topped with a whipped cream/robiola cheese mixture, and then a dollop of fig jam and a sprinkling of almonds.

The primo was baked rigatoni filled with capocollo and buffalo mozzarella with spelt sauce - absolutely lovely and marvelously rich. This was paired with a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, which was a great combination with the pasta. The secondi was orange-marinated duck with baby artichokes, which was paired with a Chianti Classico Riserva. And then the finale was spicy chocolate mousse with hazelnuts - and the red pepper mixed into the mousse definitely made it spicy. I added a tawny Port to augment my dessert, which was perfect with the spicy chocolate. My husband helped with the cooking - to include stuffing the rigatoni with the capocollo/mozzarella mixture. We cannot wait to try all these recipes at home!