Eating Local in Venice, Italy

One of the wonderful things about sailing aboard a private Ship with your own private apartment is having a real kitchen in each port visited. Our last day in Venice we walked a mile to the Rialto Bridge and its eponymous fresh food market.  We loaded up on fruits, vegetables, and seafood for dinner (for four, including our guests).  A supplemental visit to the local supermercato (supermarket) enabled us to stock up our pantry.

We enjoyed the walk back to the Ship, absorbing the local colors…

Over a bottle of sparking wine on the veranda as we prepared to sail away at 7:45 p.m., we began dinner with lightly pan-fried zucchini flowers stuffed with fresh ricotta cheese and herbs. This was followed by pan-seared fresh capesante (scallops) with its roe, served back in the shell.
Our next course was a fresh seafood salad, using some of the wonderful fresh gamberetti (shrimp) and vongole (baby clams) purchased at the Rialto Market.

We finished our sparking wine with a toast to Veneto as we sailed by Piazza di San Marco (St. Mark’s Square).

Your intrepid photographer neglected to capture the main course — pan-seared fresh Norwegian salmon and asparagus. But we do have the ending of the meal (before some excellent local grappa as a finish) — fresh figs and raspberries with a fabulous hot fudge sauce from Connie’s Chocolate Confections at the farmer’s market in Alexandria, VA – purchased a few weeks ago while visiting our family there.