Chapter 14
GenoaThe Genovese know their food. In a land such as Italy, where even peasants enjoyed an almost unfair portion of great meals, the Genovese believed they stood out.
And so it was that Rita and Stefano had such a following. Their restaurant on Via del Mare offered a broad range of dishes from the Ligurian region, but generously included specialties from up and down the Italian peninsula. Seafood dominated, but they also included Florentine sauces, Umbrian beef, Calabrian shellfish, myriad seafood delicacies from the Adriatic, and borderline-Austrian/German accents from the Tyrolean border on the north.
They shared cooking responsibilities and, while Stefano was the workhorse in the kitchen, Rita was the genius behind their menu. She could taste a dish and pick out all the in
