Kevin and Jeff

Kevin is cooking. A lover of omelets, he doubted that anyone could have much to teach him on the subject - and then he discovered The Frugal Gourmet, one of the two cookbooks I packed to bring to Rome.

Since then, it has been a voyage of discovery and new horizons have opened for the Keiser household. Thanks to this little manual, Kevin has mastered - and improved upon - the "Cheese and Tomato Omelet" (now known here as the Italian Omelet), the "French Potato and Garlic Omelet," and used Jeff Smith's principles to create the "Texas Omelet." This morning I got to have the potato and garlic omelet - two thumbs up. He's now looking forward to trying his hand at Mr. Frugal Gourmet's recipes for Cannelloni and for Pasta Carbonara. Who'd a thunk.

I have my own share of gratitude for Mr. Smith's book - last night I made his "Sole with Rosemary" (except our "sole" was cod . . . minor details), and it was the first fish I've ever had that involved no butter in the recipe and that I didn't want to add some to on my plate.

The recipe:

Sole with Rosemary

1 1/2 lbs. sole (er, cod) fillets
2 Tbls. olive oil
1 Tbl. lemon juice
2 Tbls. white wine
1 Tbl. fresh-chopped rosemary
1/2 Tbl. fresh whole rosemary or 1 tsp. dried (I used dried)
Salt and pepper to taste (I used 1/4 tsp. salt and not sure how much ground pepper)

Place the fish in a baking dish so that the fish fits snugly. Prepare a mixture of the olive oil, lemon juice, wine, parsley, and rosemary. Mix the above ingredients, and pour over the fish. Add salt and pepper, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the fish barely begins to flake.
(Serves 4-6. Or 1 Kevin and 1 Heidi with a little bit left over.)

One other note is that when Kevin translated the back of the fish bag for me, I learned the trick of putting a piece of foil or parchment paper over the fish in the pan as it bakes - instead of drying out, the fish steams/soaks more in its own juices.

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As for other adventures around here, yesterday evening Kevin and I made a run to IKEA - our last for a good long while, we hope, given that it involves the hour+ train into Rome, a long metro ride, and then a brief bus ride. Some walking in there, too. After getting (in record time) the sheets/towels/household miscellaneous we needed, we went next door to Euronics, the European version of Best Buy, to look for a printer.

We wanted a laser printer that would take us through two theses and assorted other papers - nothing fancy. Unfortunately for us, we arrived just before closing and seemed to only be able to find the fancy printers - plenty of scanner/printer/fax inkjets, plenty of photo inkjets - but a black-and-white laser printer? You silly person! Who wants to just print in just black-and-white!

Kevin finally asked a salesperson, and he pursed his lips and showed us two printers in the store's center-aisle box-stacks that he said were their two black-and-white laser printers. One was by Lexmark and one was by Epson. The Lexmark happened to be the same printer that Kevin and his roommates had bought there last year - only to find out that this Euronics, besides being a pain to get to - doesn't carry the refill cartridges (nor could they say where to get refills for it). We didn't want to repeat that scenario.

Before settling on the Epson, though, we decided to take a look at which refill cartridges they did stock - learning from experience - and, guess what - neither Lexmark nor Epson was represented. In fact, the only brand represented was Hewlett-Packard. The scavenger hunt began - the less expensive of the HP laser cartridges listed something like eight printers that it worked for, so we combed the printer boxes (figuring that at least one had to be in the store) until, lo and behold, there it was - for twenty Euro less than either the Lexmark or the Epson. Victory!