A culinary adventure!

On our first night in Bari, as we wandered through the little streets and even littler alleys, of old town, we found ourselves in a little square filled with no one but local peoplesocializing, drinking beer, and eating pizza from the Pizzaria di Cosimothat looked really good.

The next day, for lunch, we set off to walk to a fish restaurant in the new city which Karl had identified and which was said to be very nice. It was a few kilometers away. About half way there, Leslie Ruth, always the practical one, asked “do we know this place is open?” Karl checked, and, sure enough, it only served dinner! We headed back the way we had come.

Along the way, getting pretty hungry and very hot, we remembered the pizza at Pizzaria di Cosimo. We decided to try and find it so we plunged into old town. Finding the pizzaria was a challenge; the winding streets and alleys were very confusing and GPS was ineffective with all the stone and concrete walls. We’d stop to look at a map on our phones and the cursor would wander around and around and around. It was as lost as we were!

However, we persevered, and finally found the Pizzaria di Cosimo locked up tight!The square was almost deserted except for one tiny reataurant.We knew their pasta was home made as we’d seen them drying it on screens the night before.All of the cooking was done out of doors.It was brutally hot, so we thought we’d leave, but the proprietor beckoned and invited us into their basement where they had a one table dining room set up.It was cool, so we decided to have our lunch there, joining four other people.

The proprietor asked if we wanted “il menu” and we agreed, figuring there wasn’t much food in that part of Italy we didn’t like. And what a great meal it was!

First, after bringing a liter of sparking water and a carafe of wine, she brought us fried polenta with some sort of fried dumplings and a bruschetta.Next, we had eggplant, sort of like what we call eggplant parmesan back home.Then, a mussel, potato and rice dish.And finally, “little ears” pasta and bracciole.Bracciole can mean different things in different parts of Italy. Usually, it is some sort of chop. This was what we’ve had in the US at Italian American home cooked meals: a thin slice of meat wrapped around a cheese filling, tied up or closed with string or a toothpick, and tossed into the tomato sauce to cook and become tender.

What an unexpected surprise this feast was!