This had better be good

It was the warning my husband gave me before we set off to town, on our way to the new (for us) pizza restaurant. There was no 'or what will happen if it isn't', just a plain statement.

It didn't start well, they had lost my booking and they were full. Mid-week too! The girl (we later learnt was part of the ownership) was friendly and said she'd have a table free in about twenty minutes so we had a drink down the road and came back later, she was just clearing a table. The place is nice, warm, rustic charm.

They really do have a wood burner and the freshly cut logs are stored just through the door as you enter.

It isn't an Italian restaurant, it's an Italian 'pizza restaurant'. The menu has a huge range of pizzas and a few burgers, which you have to order in advance. But if you want anything else you'll be disappointed. As to the food we actually experienced, my husband gave it a thumbs-up. Not bad for an avowed non-pizza man. With a few caveats but nonetheless he was pretty impressed with the freshness and quality and in fact said the mozzarella was the best he's ever tasted and the tomato sauce second only to his own:) The pizzas are huge and neither of us could finish the crusty outsides, we shouldn't have had the garlic bread and olives to pick at. The 'house wine' (which was all they had in 3 shades red, white, rose) is superb, too expensive my husband thought until he tasted it, a Puglian primitivo which could easily sit on a posh menu at a much higher price.

The place had Italians eating, a good sign. We were amongst the last to finish and got chatting with the 'girl' who in fact runs it with her husband. She was nice and told us their history from Naples and how they wanted to keep it as close as possible to how they did things back home. Hubby, who we didn't meet, is chef and general jack of all trades, he even made the furniture for the restaurant all from chunky oak, you could tell they take pride in everything they do.

P was impressed. "So I don't get spanked then," I said on the way back to the car.

"Would it disappoint you if I said no?" P asked placing his hand on my backside, then added,

"I suppose it would depend on the type of spanking you had in mind."

"You know me I'll take any type," I only half joked.

Will we go again? I think so, it's on the list. P's only criticism, and it's general not specific, was that there isn't enough variety of flavour, no matter how good the flavours are, he likes more varied flavour and texture too. But that's not a bad criticism from my husband, not at all.

Did I get spanked? I'm afraid not but I did get a rather pleasant reward of another kind:) 

We're away for a couple of days. 

Have a good week.

Ronnie

xx

Wood-fired bottom

I replaced the word 'pizza' with bottom intentionally because it's a better headline but it's true that I did get my bottom fired by wood and it was all over a wood-fired pizza restaurant which has recently opened in town. So there's the link, tenuous as it may be it's true.

You see my husband doesn't do pizzas. Full stop. He has done in the past, just to fit in, give them a try and all that. He's tried them in Rome, London, local Italian, Domino's, Papa John's etc, he thinks he's given them a fair go over a number of years. He's also eaten them at home, which he made himself and which were the only ones he pronounced edible. He says stuff that comes to the front door in cardboard boxes after a car journey isn't his idea of food, the chains do a terrible painting-by-numbers job as usual and there is (or was) only one independent Italian eatery in our town (where P fell out with the owner ages ago) and his weren't much good although his pasta dishes made up for it.

So...in comes this new guy, well family, genuine Italians with even slight language problems from the proprietor apparently though not so much from his daughter. Reports have been really good, not a big menu, not a posh wine list, but truly scrumptious pizzas, best ever, all hand made, all traditional Italian ingredients, nothing frozen. Reviewers says it's like walking into a side street family eatery in Naples and getting the best pizza you never thought possible but here it is in the middle of the UK. I only know one person who's been so far and she said it was fantastic. So I phoned them and booked a table for one of the nights this coming week. I told P I'd done it and that was when the trouble started.

"What am I going to eat then?" He asked after viewing their online menu. "They don't do anything but bloody pizzas, I mean I can find an appetiser on there sure but no main, unless you count a burger and they want notice if you intend to order the burger, which I don't, but in any case who the hell would order a burger and what makes it so special?"

I could tell he wasn't happy, I told him about the reviews, said they must be doing something right and then dropped out that Jane had been there and said it was really great too.

"Well I wouldn't count Jane's opinion too highly, she's visited McDonalds and Pizzahut with the kids too many times to have a balanced view"

So we argued mildly a bit and then I said that I'd made my mind up I'd be going anyway, whether he did or not. It was at that point I told him they used a specially made Italian wood fired pizza oven which apparently made a huge difference to the cooking, aside from sourcing all their ingredients from Italy. P said he didn't care if they had a wood fired oven he didn't even care if they fired it on logs from the Pope's back garden, he wouldn't be going there he'd given up on pizzas long ago and that was that. "And neither will you," he added.

So after telling him I wouldn't cancel the booking and would most certainly be attending, if not with him then with a friend, he told me the only thing anywhere near wood-fired related he saw in my immediate stars was a sound paddling. And it was pine wood and it didn't come from Italy. In less than a minute I was upstairs across my husband's lap, knickers down, getting my backside seared by an evil wooden paddle which Bogey sent me years ago,

which I hate, protesting my right to do as I pleased and to stop it this instant, which of course he didn't.

It stopped only when I stopped struggling and went limp, increased the sniffles and just lay there. P asked me if I was OK, I sniffled that I was sorry I really wouldn't go with someone else, I just thought it might be a nice new place to try, for both of us, and I thought the reviews were genuine. I let my sniffling sound as much as I could like crying, well why not. Then I heard him grunt, that meant he was considering what I'd said. Then the paddle dropped. 

Then his hand rested in the small of my back, consoling.

"So you say it's a real Italian wood fired oven," he said.

"That's what they say, you can read the reviews yourself."

"Hmph. That won't be necessary, it either will or it won't be." His hand had move down to my bottom now. I twitched it to let him know I was still his friend.

"Right. OK then I'll come with you. Just this once. But it better be good."

Then he told me my bottom felt warm, well hot actually. I told him it was, in my smallest possible voice, then said it had made me feel hot, very hot and I jumped and exaggerated an Ouch when he squeezed it. "You'd better come with me to the bedroom then, " he said. It wasn't to cure the heat in my bottom.

I hope the pizzas are good I really do.

Have a good week.

Ronnie

xx