The Stage

Today was another flat stage, winding north into Basilicata (the region) and ending in Matera (a town). Matera has a really rich and complicated history that I really recommend you read more about here. I love watching and learning about all the different regions and historical sites that appear in each stage, but Matera is really unique. It has been continuously populated since the Paleolithic era, and was ruled by several major civilizations. It was definitely a very notable place to end today’s stage.

The course was comparatively short (151 km), but featured a brief yet steep categorized climb in the final 30 km. The sprint finish was also slightly uphill — lending itself to versatile sprinters and making Mads Pedersen a clear favorite. And he continued to dominate, winning today’s stage and also gaining points in the intermediate sprints. Altogether, he did everything he needed to do today to further his lead in the sprint classification. In addition to winning the day’s stage he also announced a lifetime contract with his team, Lidl-Trek. Pretty good day for Mads Pedersen.

The Dish

Today, I chose a dish much easier than pasta: almond biscotti! They are originally from Tuscany, but there are several regional recipes, and this one is from Basilicata. Biscotti means “twice-baked,” but the name for this version translates to “tooth-breakers.”

Reflections

My biscotti came out tasty but underbaked. I would guess that I underbaked them by about 5-8 minutes in the first bake. And, after cutting it the second bake wasn’t fully able to compensate the appearance of them. (In my defense, the book only gave a temperature and no cook times for either the first or second bake.) Overall, it was an easy recipe that just required a bit more patience than I had today.

I was also a bit pressed for time because I was also prepping my dish for tomorrow, when I’ll be making (drumroll) Neapolitan pizza! Tomorrow’s stage of the Giro will be finishing in Napoli, so I really had no choice — it’s literally named for the town. Since the dough needs to rise for 24 hours, I started it tonight.

Thanks for reading, until tomorrow!