that you would have to try really, really hard…to eat a bad meal in Italy.

To wit:  At my wit’s end just before New Year’s Eve, I knew I had to make a run to my local supermercato to buy something for my pantry, just in case.  I whipped a few items down from the shelves, up from their cases, in the market and wound up with some fresh fruit, some fresh veg, and these items.  Store brand.  I’ve found I can trust the Coop store brand in everything.

So, sure enough, on the first day of the new year, I wasn’t feeling so hot.  Not from too much partying (although I can’t say the same for the rest of my building: somebody thought the interior courtyard would make the perfect backdrop of a long and loud fireworks display followed by a game of drunken soccer) but from the cold and flu that I was lucky enough to meet up with just before Christmas.

So I heated up some of the creme of asparagus soup, pictured above, and for a brief moment I thought I must have reached Nirvana.  This lovely soup got me through several mealtimes in excellent shape (except for the coughing and sneezing and fever part).

And today I was actually feeling hungry, which has to be a good sign on the road to recovery, no?  I opened this gorgeous package of fresh tagliatelle pasta made with eggs:

And when it was cooked to absolute perfection in a matter of minutes, I doused it in this creamy truffle sauce made with butter, cream, shaved tartufo mushrooms (which comes ready made in the regular grocery store, not that special here in Italia, I swear to you!), added a little of the pasta cooking water (about 1/4 cup), fresh black pepper and shaved parmigiana Reginana:

And then I meant to take a picture of the pasta with the sauce, but first I had to taste it to see if it tasted as good as it smelled and then, poof, before I knew what had happened, I had inhaled the entire bowl full of some of the best pasta I have ever eaten in my life and that is saying something because I am a pasta eater from way back. Only not always with truffles.  But from now on, with truffles because my oh my say hello to heaven in a bowl!

Whew, just writing that and reliving it in the telling, is exhausting to me.  And p.s., it turns out that these devilish little store-bought Coop brand cookies are a mighty fine accompaniement to a slice of gelato or even a nice cup of joe or tea.

I may be buying stock in Coop very soon.