ok, so, we were in florence. we took a day trip to fiesole, the city on the hill above florence. there are some ancient ruins there.
ann got us good seats.
but it turns out were we something like 1500 years late for the show.
(zing!)
here's the tuscan countryside with our shadows overlooking from the bottom of the frame.
more ruins of the old baths
back to food news ... I discovered this soda-type thing called "Chino."
It's apparently a regional specialty that san pellegrino is now trying to market within tuscany
and beyond. derived from a sour citrus fruit, it contains no alcohol
and tastes like a slightly unpleasant coca cola. slightly unpleasant,
that is, until you learn to love it and drink a can a day for a week
and a half like I did.
halfway through our 10 days in florence, we were really craving mexican food ... so we went out for mexican. the offerings, like all of those found at european mexican restaurants that we have seen/read about, tended toward tex-mex rather than our preferred just "mex", but we were desperate and it was good enough.
since we didn't have reservations, we ate sitting up at the bar. there, ann started talking to a guy our age sitting next to her. turns out he was american (some hippie-ville, colorado), going to culinary school in the city. we went out for drinks with him after dinner.
there, ann and he fake-argued about politics.
then he agreed to cook dinner for us at his apartment a few nights later. more on that in a minute.
*****
we shopped for food at the central market several times during our stay in florence. here's me relishing dried fruits.
at some point, I got us these "cabbage flowers"
we lived on this street
you
will notice that at the end of the block there appears to be an odd
parade. it was actually - naturally - another strike/protest. it woke
us up one morning. we weren't sure what was going on, just heard
yelling and noises - so -naturally - we got dressed *and went toward them.*
the florentine communists have no regard for my weekend sleep-ins. they woke us up the following morning as well.
but that meant I was up early enough to make one of my (ha!) more complicated breakfasts: baked beans and toast:
voila
that night we went out for our fancy dinner of the week/city. based on some Chowhound recommendations, we headed to Osteria de Benci.
and
ordered, after a white bean-covered garlic bread appetizer and quite
good pasta dish, this ridiculous plate of Tuscan-specialty beef covered
in arugula (which Europe awesomely calls "rocket" - a much, much better
name) and shingles ofparmesaen - my new favorite cut-style for eating cheese of any sort.
There was a lot leftover. Enough that Ann made a great stew two nights later with the remainder.
After dinner, we went to this highly regarded gelatto place nearby called Bar Vivoli. It was pretty much worthy of the hype. This chocolate/strawberry double scoop went unrivaled in all of Italy.
Next night, we went to the colorado kid's apartment, where he made us dinner and we observed/helped out when we could.
here's
the stew he made us. the beef was quite nicely done and we learned a
couple of little tricks from him (i.e. prevalent use of large strainers
in making of stocks and sauces), but it wasn'tmindblowing.
I'll conclude florence with two observations:
1)
we stayed there for the longest of any place yet, mostly because it was
easy and relaxing - but the extra days there made a big difference. we
are now set to stay inathens for an extra week simply because it feels
more like relaxing/learning/having fun rather than an intense week of
running ourselves ragged.
2) europe has innovated with bottled water
caps. instead of the cap screwing all the way off and detaching from
the safety/freshness ring, it remains attached - by design - to a small
portion of the ring, forming a hinge. this means you no longer have to
worry about holding onto to the cap while you drink from the bottle.
and I know that worry was causing you great stress.
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