Fair Verona and Mini Mozzarella Penne with Rocket

There are some things in life, where cooking will not help. Situations come up and no matter how much chocolate you have, it will make no difference, the pain will not go away.
Anyway, I couldn't imagine, how chocolate or any other kind of edible thing would have made a difference here:

"Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend."

- Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, Act 1, Prologue

Well, the scene is set for tragedy. However, we shall not dwell on such thoughts for now.
Just coming back from the scene - fair Verona, Italy - what better could I do than having some pasta.

After all, one has to eat, no matter how you feel ... even if you don't want to at times, you will come back ...
Did I say something? Oh well, why not do some easy pasta. No shopping for the two past weeks, so I have to go with what is in the house. 
That leads us to Mini Mozzarella Penne with Rocket.
Having a pot ready with some olive oil marks the beginning. Finely slice three cloves of garlic and fry them gently in the oil until the fine odour of the garlic starts to rise up from the pot. To make things even more lovely as they start to unfold, we add a handful of freshly picked basil leaves to the pot.
Now we go on to pour in one 400 g tin of tomatoes and fill half the tin with water and put that in as well. Season with salt and pepper according to your taste and needs. Bring the contents of the pot to the boil and let it simmer.
After that we can focus our minds on the pasta. Use a sufficiently large pot to fill with water. Let the water have a lot of salt. Of course you can use a kettle to heat up the water before you put it to the pot.
Once the water is ready you only have to cook your 500g of pasta according to the instructions on the package (it took 12 minutes for me).
After that rinse the pasta whilst you catch up some of the cooking water. Mix this, your pasta, your sauce, and two handful of mini mozzarellas (or how much you like) together.
Plate it up and top with a handful of rocket leaves mixed with some basil leaves. Pour a bit of good olive oil over it and finish with some grated Parmesan.
I leave you now with this and some impressions of fair Verona.

Torre dei Lamberti

Arena di Verona

Romeo & Juliet in progress

Giardini Giusti

Lemon tree

Verona from above

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

THE END

For more Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet have a look here: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.