La prima cena a Berkeley!!!

Our little house is getting more and more nicely organized and we decided we were ready to have some guests over for dinner! Last weekend in San Francisco I basically forbid our friends to order tiramisu as dessert because I said I was going to make it for them, so we invited them last night for an all-Italian all-vegetarian dinner.
This is a picture of us!
\(Left to right: Lucas, Giancarlo, Giovanna, Vardha, Rosha, Yosuke, Elif).
And this was the menu. Click on the links for the recipes:
Appetizers
These were served with my typical home-made bread. I was very happy to find out that our oven in this new home works as well as the old one :)
Formaggi sott'olio (Cheese under oil) (described as 'tomini al verde' in this old post)
Melanzane e zucchine grigliate (Grilled eggplant and zucchini)
Piatto di formaggi (Cheese tray) nicely brought by Giovanna - you can see it here:
From the top left: Fontina d'Aosta (tasty cheese from the mountains typical of Valle d'Aosta, the region North of Piemonte), Pecorino sardo (it's a sheep-milk cheese with pepper grains), Robiola (another tasty and very soft cheese), and in the middle, Burrata (a wonderful mozzarella-like cheese filled with cream typical of Puglia, the 'heel of the boot' region in Italy).
Main courses:
Ziti con pomodoro e pesto di ricotta (Ziti with tomato sauce and ricotta pesto)
Risotto con gorgonzola, provolone e noci (Gorgonzola, provolone and pecan risotto)
Dessert:
Of course, Tiramisu
I also made a small variation on the theme with the little cream and cookies that I had left:
Tropical tiramisu - I soaked the ladyfingers in guava juice instead of coffee and added apple slices on top.. just for fun.
To finish this post, just one picture of Giancarlo fighting with Lucas's 'Whimmy Diddle Stick'.. If you don't know what this toy is, look here. Lucas tells a funny story about it, which I'm not going to spoil just in case you're reading this page and are going to be invited to one of our dinners :) - and then everyone tries to make the whimmy diddle rotate right or left.. as you can see from the picture, it's not that easy!!!