firenze pt. 1

We've been enjoying our week in Florence - it's a small city without a lot of "cool" stuff to seek out and do, so we've really been relaxing. It's pretty much "here are the tourist-y things, here are the main parts of town" - and that's that. there might be a "cool kids" quadrant, but it hardly seems worth seeking out in a place this tiny. So restful has this time been, extended our time in the apartment until monday morning, at which point we will head to Rome for a week.

Down the street from our apartment is the Mercato Centrale. Downstairs houses butchers and cheese counters, upstairs has produce:


Ann's been buying amazing olives by the truckload (I've been casually converted into liking them ... casually). I've discovered dehydrated fruit, like these cherries:


I tend to eat far too many at once and then swear them off, only to return again hours later. it's a vicious, sugary cycle.

a major bonus of living as we have been - staying in "self-catering apartments" (that is, apartments with kitchens) and shopping at markets - is that we get to feast like royalty for comparably little money. Ann's cooking (it's an interest of hers. this isn't me going in some weird '50s husband direction - ann *likes* cooking. I like eating. it works out) is rapidly developing in light of our European dining. We eat out once or twice per town/week, and try to learn things from where/what we eat at those meals. Ann has been able to take that knowledge and then immediately apply it to, say, lunch the next day - cooked in our apartment, at little expense.


A great porcini mushroom and fresh parmigiano reggiano pasta, courtesy of Ann:


That said, she did spend a little extra this week ... on a hilariously ironic immersion blender (long story short: I once gave Ann an immersion blender as a present - she said she really wanted one! - and was *laughed at* for *months*. then she came to love it, eventually. and now, here we are in florence, italy and what does ann buy? an immersion blender! hahahahahahahaha!)


with said blender, Ann made this delicious cauliflower soup:



After which we, naturally, went out for gelato. since it was our third night in town, and the previous two nights we had gotten gelato at a place around the corner, we (via my desire) sought out a highly regarded (on the internet, anyway) gelato place 15 minutes walk from our apartment. it was a small place, praised for its relative lack of tourists and experimental flavors. lack tourists it did. serve amazing gelato it did not. oh well.


we've since returned to the corner place. ann favors chocolate and chocolate/vanilla combos. I've gone for chocolate, chocolate/after eight mint, and most recently something called "contessa" which involved chunks of wafer cookies, their chocolate filling and a fair deal of peanuts. *that* was amazing.

at some point early in the week, we headed to the other side of the Arno River and to the Boboli Gardens (home, Ann hoped, to the famed ready-made pizza dough manufacturers). the gardens are basically the fancy backyard to Florence's old ruling family's palace, dating back to the 1500s.








Ann made friends with some cats there.


I plan to use this shot in my portfolio when I apply to edit "Cat Fancy" magazine. Hot!


Ann has also taken to making/constantly talking about the focaccia-based sandwiches for which she gave the recipe in the prior post. Their excellence has caused Ann's focaccia-based ego to expand wildly, and any time we pass a focaccia sandwich-serving establishment, she quietly mock-shouts "Focaccia off!" I was at first perplexed by the meaning of this. Then Ann explained that it was her way of challenging the proprietors of these "inferior" focaccia sandwich makers to a culinary duel. Yep. Exactly.

Here's one of the better contenders:


Firenze pt. 2 tomorrow.