Pasta Nostra

We just returned to via Boccaccio HQ after a quick holiday visit home. It was great to see friends and family and reacquaint ourselves with things like eggnog, chips and salsa, wide sidewalks, eggnog, gigantic breakfasts, peanut butter, and... eggnog. 

Despite the busy travel season, ours went smoothly, except that when we arrived at the airport to catch our flight back to Italy, we discovered that we had apparently overdone it with the eggnog or something, because we had missed our flight by a full 24 hours. That is, somehow we both thought our flight was a day later than it actually was. The airline staff merely laughed at us for a while and then booked us on the next flight with no charge, possibly because they were so amused by our sheer stupidity.

I'm excited to say that after just a day back here I already have a new and exciting pasta anecdote to share. I found this new-to-me brand of pasta on the shelves of the local Coop: 

You've heard of gluten-free pasta? This pasta is MAFIA-free. It is produced by a cooperative that cultivates land confiscated from the mafia in Sicilian locales such as-- wait for it-- Corleone. Apparently the group, Libera Terra, has been around since 2001 and now produces organic wine, pasta, tomatoes, and beans. I would love to know what they turned up when they first plowed those fields...