homemade pasta at a dinner party in the Sabina

…near Rieti in the Sabine hills north of Rome is the location of the country house that our artist friend Emiliano Maggi partly grew up in – and where his mother prepared a feast for about 20 Roman friends this evening – so up we headed to conduct interview #26 for Roma Mangia Roma with Marcella while she was serenely and lovingly preparing the approximately 15 or 20 dishes that would be served (handmade pastas of varying sorts, pasta fagioli, cicoria, maiale, coniglio, abbacchio arrosto, fresh figs from the garden, torts and roasts from the wood oven are those that immediately come to mind) and immediately followed – as apparently is common here, but unheard of in my more mild-mannered Minnesotan upbringing – by raucous music with impromptu a cappaella songs both solo and sing-along plus dancing that went on well after I retired upstairs to bed at midnight.