The Great Italian Adventure: BBQ Party Kansas-Italian Style

This was the last big party before Johnnie leaves for the summer, and also the chance for me to invite my Italian friends. Three weeks ago we had the Boeing party which was primarily expats, so this was my time to welcome my Italian friends and neighbors.

The Night Before
Rosa and Gennaro helped us get ready for the party the night before. We tried to cook as much ahead as possible and get the house organized. Things went pretty smoothly and when we were finished, they prepared Lupini and pasta for us for dinner. Lupini are like small clams, very tasty and tender. Gennaro bought the lupini and soaked them in sea salt for an hour or so, then rinsed them. Then he put them in a deep skillet with olive oil and sautéed them, shells and all. He added some fresh parsley and a couple whole cloves of garlic. While they were cooking (maybe 10 minutes or so with the lid on), Rosa made spaghetti. At the end they tossed the drained spaghetti into the skillet with the lupini, added a little more fresh parsley and that was it. It was quite delicious!

Enjoying lupini Friday night

Lupini

Menu
Johnnie grilled hamburgers and chicken on his new grill. It took a while to find what we wanted but he likes his new grill and I will be able to use it while he is gone this summer.

Porch and the new grill

I made potato salad, deviled eggs, and baked beans. We purchased antipasti that included potato chips, olives, seafood salad (Italian style Insalata di Mare), pretzels, marinated mushrooms, celery and ranch dressing, and assorted other munchies. Our guests brought lots of desserts that were amazing: incredible cakes, pies and other frozen delights. We had some prosecco, limonata, tea, and coca cola for beverages.

Buffet

Desserts

At first the Italians were leary of the deviled eggs as that is not anything they normally eat. But when I explained what is in them, they started trying it and they were all gone by the end of the evening. The baked beans were popular also. The potato salad was not as popular. I had a lot of it leftover. The chicken and hamburgers were gone too, and we could have cooked more hamburgers but Johnnie was tired of grilling so we just let it be.

Rosa and Giuliana

I was so happy for Johnnie to meet some of the people from the office that he hears me talk about. The Italians I work with are mostly engineers at Alenia, and then a few of the Boeing people who were not able to make the last party. We also had our neighbors Emmanuele and Giuliana, our estate agents Sabina and Mario, and surprise guests included Father Phil from the Navy base and two new expats to Italy, Jorge and Carlo who work for a pharmaceutical company. Jorge just moved to an apartment and Carlo is still in a hotel . Then Mo brought a couple friends with him that are friends he made playing sports. They are from Brazil and spoke Italian with a strange accent that I had a difficult time understanding. I think in all we had about 30 people including quite a few children that played in the yard and buddied up together.