It's Saturday, Let's Do Lunch

It has become a tradition that we 'do' lunch at La Torretta in San Marco di Castellabate, just a few minutes down the road once we get to the foot of the mountain. We always used to eat out on a Saturday lunchtime in the UK but it wasn't until this year that we picked up the 'old routine' here in the Cilento. It does help us keep track of which day of the week it is, as it is all too easy for each day to blend into the next with no defining moment. As soon as we step foot inside the place, we are asked if we want our usual spremute, to which we always reply 'but of course'. Sometimes the oranges are the beautiful arancia rossa but today's were the normal sweet ones - no matter how sweet, I have adopted the Italian tradition of adding at least one sachet of sugar before even tasting the freshly squeezed juice.

Drinks ordered, we check out the menu board, matching what's on the board with what we can see displayed before us. Sometimes this is impossible to do, as they may have run out of a particular dish, cook will have substituted something else but the board hasn't been changed.

Me, if there are gamberi in any of the dishes, it's 'no contest'. Luckily today paccheri seppia e gamberi was on the menu so that was my mind made up; hubby soon followed suit, so it was 'due', with a side order of fagiolini. Hubby then went to pay at la cassa whilst I chose a table in the cool air conditioned dining area.....funny how I always seem to choose to sit opposite the cabinets with all the dolce on display

Spremute on the table, paccheri & fagiolini warmed through & brought across by hubby, we bid each other 'buon appetito' and tuck in... not once have we been disappointed with the dishes we've tried here, the freshness & quality of the ingredients always makes for a mouthwatering lunch....sometimes it can even be 'mouthgasmic'

Today La Torretta was unusually quiet - maybe the summer heat kept people on the beach to dine at one of the several Lido's, so we didn't have the 'in house' entertainment we can sometimes have from watching locals & Italian holidaymakers alike being the loud, gesticulating, indecisive characters they can be. The locals with their Cilentan dialect are still almost impossible for us to understand but we are slowly getting used to picking out the 'stranieri' from Naples or even further afield. Whether we will ever understand them completely remains to be seen, but we certainly have fun 'eavesdropping'.