I have found that many women here are concerned about my cravings. It seems that there’s a belief that if a pregnant woman craves something in particular and does not satisfy that craving, then the baby will be born with a “voglia” - which is basically a birthmark in the shape of whatever it was she was craving.

Now, I really haven’t had any particular cravings, just a preference for salty foods and vinegar. But these women think that the minute I see some food I must be craving it. Let me tell you, this can be rather annoying due to the Italian penchant for force-feeding people. If I go to visit someone and they have food on the table, they insist I eat some. And I do mean insist. Often, in order to not offend someone I end up having to take small bites of this or that.

The other day we went to visit a couple on business and they happened to have their own fresh home-made sausage, salami and ventricina hanging in their kitchen. Being polite, I made a comment on the sausage and how good it looked. (It seems I’ll never learn.) Well, the lady of the house wanted to cook up some sausage for me right then and there. Fortunately, it was in the morning, so I used the excuse that it was too early to eat sausage. But, she then insisted that I take some sausage home, wrapping a loop of it up carefully and placing it in a plastic bag. (Needless to say, O was rather pleased with this turn of events.)

So, when life hands you sausage, what do you do? Make baked sausage and potatoes. Actually, sausage is best cooked over hot embers, but the makers warned us that the meat this year was very lean. Consequently, cooking it over hot embers would make it harden too much. Instead, it needed to be cooked slowly, which called for my second-best favorite way of making sausage - baking it with potatoes.

Now, this is incredibly simple and really doesn’t require a recipe. But, I’ve found that sometimes the simplest food is the tastiest.

Just spread a small amount of olive oil in the bottom of a baking pan, cut the potatoes up in cubes and place in the pan, then cut the sausage in two pieces (you can cut it up in smaller pieces once it’s cooked) and lay it on top. Pop it in an oven at 350 for about an hour and a half, stirring the potatoes about half-way through, and you’re done. Simple, easy and tasty. I don’t salt the potatoes until later because they’ll absorb the salt from the sausage and, if you don’t know how salty the sausage is, salting the potatoes ahead of time could lead to disaster.

This sausage was only slightly spicy, made with the typical crushed red pepper found in sausage made in the region along with salt and fennel seed.

As you can see from the photo, juices from the sausage drip down on the potatoes, making them nice and tasty.

So, although I wasn’t craving sausage, I ended up with a tasty meal anyway, thanks to a nice lady and her homemade sausage.

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