My suocera went out of town the same week her pear tree started spewing out buckets and buckets of pears. She spent the final hours before her vacation harvesting as many as she could to save them from the beaks of the merlino (who has decided it’s actually his tree). Then she stuffed every cold space in the house that she could find with as many pears as possible to try and get them to last until her return. She called from the autostrade to remind me to take some home with me.

Muwahahah (evil laugh).

Little did she know that I would descend with far more fury than my merlino nemesis.

That’s right. I’m not ashamed. I’m literally stealing the fruits of her labor. But it’s ok, she would want me to.

Remember, in Italy, food = love.

That’s a whole lotta love, right there.

Last week I gave you guys a quick little pear-rucola-pinoli salad recipe. And this past Sunday, I wowed even myself with the DELICIOUS pear, fontina, walnut, onion, honey, goodness focaccia (the official name of the recipe). But now we’re into seriously industrial quantities… one lonely pear per cute, little salad or pizza is not going to cut it. We need to move into recipes that use pears as the base ingredient.

So what you got?

I’m using this excuse to kick off my new MarriedToItaly Pinterest account, and here are the recipes I’ve nabbed from around the web so far (recipes include sweet, salty, AND alcoholic!!). Send me a pin if you find a good one – I’m going to make cuts this week and jump into the recipes this weekend: