As promised in my You Say Tomato post, a word–or several hundred–on Caprese sandwiches.
My first Caprese sandwich did not come easily. Our first two hours in Rome consisted of the following: getting our backpack stuck in the overly crowded subway doors; arriving too early to check-in to our hotel; Ed being bitten by a horse; and receiving a scolding from an Italian policeman–not the best way to start out a ten-day stay of my first trip abroad. Once we found out our hotel room wasn’t ready, we dragged our luggage to the first cafe we could find and grabbed a “Caprese” sandwich to-go. I wasn’t exactly sure what was on that sandwich; after the long flight and crazy subway ride from the airport, all we wanted to do was sit down and eat it. Apparently the horse we walked by thought Ed was offering it up and decided to go for a bite…he took a bite of Ed’s arm instead. Yep, that actually happened–fortunately, it did not break the skin, just bruised him pretty badly. After that we headed to the Spanish Steps, sat down and happily began to unwrap our sandwich–and then a policeman began yelling at us. Apparently, you are not allowed to eat on the Spanish Steps. O-kay… Starving, grumpy and a little disenchanted, we found a spot to sit and–legally-eat our food. We opened our sandwich to see what was inside. The sandwich was simple with only a few ingredients: mozzarella cheese, sliced tomato, and fresh basil on crusty bread. Finally getting to taste that sandwich negated all of the crazy things that had happened in the two hours prior. I thought that if the rest of the food on this trip was this good, our visit was going to be unforgettable–and it was.