"What's for dinner?" After asking or being asked about a zillion times I often start looking off the grid for unique restaurants. Does every family struggle to agree on dinner? Its like the million dollar question that no one can answer and actually appease the other party. On one of these days, I stumbled upon Taqueria Restaurant Simon in Mauldin, SC. I ordered enchiladas verdes and Jamaican Rose tea.
What better thing to do while in quarantine than to make your favorite cake, right? For me that's lemon italian creme cake, but not just any lemon italian creme cake. If you are ever in the Greenville, SC area, then you must head over to the Five Forks area of Woodruff Road to Napoli where you will find a hidden gem of a italian and greek fare. They have some of the best homemade sangria and chicken souvlaki, but most importantly they make an italian lemon creme cake that is divine. My family knows that I love it so much that last year for my birthday I ended up with two cakes. Well- maybe it was due to lack of communication because after eating one piece the taste buds and the sweet tooth are overloaded. Of course, I had to try to replicate it at home because I have some great ideas of how to even improve the mastered recipe to be a little more tangy and maybe even turn it into key lime for an ultimate activation of taste buds. I spent a tiny fortune at the store to purchase ingredients and scanned the internet for combinations of the so-called "best" recipes.
What better place to start my food travels than at home with a recipe that has been passed down from generation to generation. The family lasagna recipe started in Italy, traveled with the family to the orange orchards of Florida and has now made its way to Simpsonville, SC, USA. The recipe shows its age as well as its journey of love, laughter, heartaches, pain - the tattered paper now electronically preserved. As I looked over the old recipe turned yellow with age and with cross outs, retractions, and mixture of typed verses written edits- it is clear that each person has their own interpretation of the recipe. I tried to read through the edits to the original text and I sourced ingredients as close to the real Italian recipe as possible. It seems that time does more than change the written instructions but varieties of tomatoes, cheeses, and even types of heat play a role in extracting the flavors from the homeland. Unfortunately many recipes will be lost forever and the taste is left up to the chefs and the consumers' palette, but this one, this little lasagna continues to carry its comfort, laughter and love as it travels around the world.
