N and R are enjoying springtime

I've been afraid to say it for fear of jinxing us, but it's finally spring! There have been a few rainy days, but other than that the weather in florence has been incredible. We have started making it a regular part of our day to go to the Boboli gardens (giant Medici garden on a hill overlooking the city center) and sit. This became much more relaxing after I convinced a reluctant R that parks are best enjoyed by lounging in the grass. Now we take a blanket, and R reads and writes in her journal. I alternate between napping and trying to draw sketches for things to paint. Today there were alot of school groups at the gardens and while i was napping R watched some teenage drama where this boy and girl were arguing and eventually she got so worked up she took her shoe off and threw it at him. This is what we look like in spring:

N wouldn't quit his day job (if he had one)....

I finally did some painting, and quickly decided that I paint not because I'm good at it, or even that I am expecting to eventually be good at it, but instead because it's fun and relaxing. The other night I painted my first tuscan countryside. While I nailed the cypress tree, I cant say anything else really panned out. I did this over a beer while listening to music, which made for a very relaxing evening. If, however, I dont get better at this painting stuff soon, I might just buy some things off of the street guys and say i made it. For now, though, my tuscan countryside looks like this:

N and R took a day trip...

Yesterday we hopped on a train and took the hour long trip to Lucca, a small medievil tuscan town to the west, before eventually making it to Pisa where we stayed the night. Oddly enough I took almost no pictures, even of the leaning tower....which I guess is ok since everyone knows what it looks like. Lucca, though, was great...we really enjoyed it. Lucca is alot like the counterpart to florence, where you still have typical old tuscan buildings and tiny winding alleyways, but unlike florence it felt like a completely intact community, unaffected by tourism the way florence is. It was a very relaxing afternoon of window shopping and sitting in picturesque piazzas taking in some sun. The city is surrounded by giant medieval walls, and these walls are so wide that the top of the walls are lush with green grass and pedestrian walkways which crowded with people out for their pre-dinner stroll. It was really nice to walk along these massive walls looking out over the countryside on one side of the wall, and the towers rising above the city on the other.

Then we went to Pisa....and I'm not sure what more i can say about that....we saw the tower and i ate some good seafood. I thought it unfortunate that Pisa's baptistry and duomo, which are actually really nice, are completely overlooked by visitors who are only interested in the tower. The people of pisa seemed to be quite different than lucca and florence or siena....I'm going to guess that pisa is like tuscany's new jersey.

N has been a little under the weather...

There is a great afternoon tradition here in Florence, of going out on a nice day, sitting at an outdoor cafe and sipping negronis (vermouth+gin+campari+blood orange). While you sip your drink they will ferry out different snacks to you to enjoy with your drink. R and I went to the cafe of a famous italian fashion desginer (Roberto Cavalli-whom from now on I would boycott if i could afford anything he makes) and enjoyed negronis and various finger foods. It is a pretty upscale place with very fashionable clientele....so I was very surprised a short time later to realize that I had gotten food poisoning from designer ham sandwiches! That was a couple days ago, and after a little discomfort, alot of bananas and soup, and gatorade, I am finally back in good health. The gatorade made not have been necessary, but since here all oranges are blood oranges, I couldnt resist the opportunity to try blood orange gatorade, which looked like this:

Like I said, it was an uncomfortable couple days but I am fine now, feeling much better. Do not worry (moms). I'm not sure how after eating at some pretty suspicious places in college and after, I only get food poisoning when I go to an italian designer's florentine cafe.

Anyways, since I'm back in good health and have regained a hardy appetite (the worst part for sure of food poisoning, not wanting to eat in a country known for its food), R and I are going to make a short trip to Lucca and Pisa this weekend.

N drank this....

Recall from the Simpsons that Homer Simpson's favorite drink is Duff, the imaginary beer served at Moe's and everywhere else around Springfield? It turns out that the Simpsons are so popular here in italy (i think because the show makes fun of the US so much), that there actually is a Duff beer! It looks just like in the cartoon. I couldnt resist the opportunity to try it (sucker), and bought a bottle the other day. It tastes alot like Stella Artois. After some homework I learned this beer was originally made in belgium, but is now made in Mexico. Duff looked like this:

N and R enjoy another day, another dinner...

After several days of eating out for dinner (mostly pizza...which was very good), I went to market this morning and found these tiny eggplants that were no bigger than my pinky. Intruiged, I bought some and decided to resume cooking dinner at home. First we had papa al pomodoro, the tomato and bread soup i've mentioend before...R's favorite. It is made by: saute garlic and onion in olive oil, add peeled and mushed up tomatoes, rosemary, sage, and simmer. Eventually, add cubes of day old bread and basil.

Papa al pomodoro looked like this:

The next course, pasta, was fresh tagliatelli tossed with sautted eggplant and zucchini in olive oil and pepper and parmesan. I guess this dish would be called Zuchhini Melazanine Tagliatelli (ZMT). ZMT looked like this:

Grated parmesano reggiano has been a pretty important ingredient in our food. The hunk of parmaggiano reggiano we bought is so big it nearly dwarfs our cheese grater:

Third course, meat, was a truffle sausage i picked up at market cooked in white wine with olives tomatoes and onion. While i continue to make really great tasting sausage dishes, they keep looking....not that appetizing. Unfortunately, the delicious sausage dish looked like this:

Finally, fourth course was cantucci and vin santo. Cantucci is a regional variation on biscotti, made with almonds and a little softer than biscotti. Vin santo is a tuscan desert wine that is made from dried grapes aged/fermented in chestnut barrels. This typical tuscan desert involves dunking the cantucci in the vin santo. Cantucci and vinsanto looked like this:

N and R are celebrating Unification

This week italy celebrated it's 150th anniversairy, and unlike Carnevale, Florence decided it is not too cool to enjoy some festivities. On the first evening, the town was all lit up in the colors of the italian flag, red green and white. People crowded the streets and bars and restaurants drinking wine from plastic cups. It was kind of like an american holiday without any of the debauchery...public drinking, but not drunkenness, live music but classical, dancing, but ballet....

Also the Uffizi Gallery (the art museum) reopenned at midnight with free admissions.

The town looked like this:

Pallazo Vecchio (town hall and former home of the Medeci Family):

Piazza della Reupblica:

Loggia della Signoria:

Ponte Vecchio (the old bridge):

Via Calzaiuoli:

N and R are getting rained on

So the plus side to visiting Italy in the off season is pretty obvious...no crowds, no lines, cheaper rates. The downside is weather...it has been raining for two days now, and with only five channels of italian-only television (the simpsons is always on, but dubbed...they love it here), we've had to expand horizons to pass the time. R and I have been fighting over the kindle, she so she can read one of many bubble gum novels, and me so I can read the autobiography of one Benvenuto Cellini. Cellini was a renaissance artist who was born and lived here in florence about 500 years ago. His sculptures are all over the city and reading his autobiography is an interesting way to see what this city was like for people who lived here during the renaissance. Cellini spends alot of the autobiography lying, but luckily the translator jumps in often to explain that Cellini is in fact lying. Cellini's most famous work is the statue of Perseus holding the head of Medusa, in the Loggia della Signora, a few blocks from our apartment. The statue looks like this (not my picture):

Because R does not like to part with her kindle, I have also taken up a second hobby. We went today to an art supply store and I bought some water colors and painting supplies. There are people around every corner in this city set up to paint their favorite sights, and while I might aim to join them with my new purchases....I can't actually paint. In any case, its a fun way to pass the time, and hopefully by the time we leave florence I will have produced some paintings that are identifiable scenes from florence. This new hobby goes well with my old hobby, drinking craft beers. Tonight I had a northern italian beer (Peroni Grand Riserva) and played around with my new paint set. The kitchen table looked like this:

Finally, I've continued cooking italian dishes, which when coupled with cleaning up, is a pretty solid chunk of time. Tonight we had antipasto of tomato and buffalo mozzerella with bruschetta (bread grilled and topped with garlic, olive oil and salt topping), primi of mushroom stuffed ravioli in a sauce made from buffalo ricotta, milk, and sage, and a secondi (for me) of veal saltimbocca, a common dish in Roman cooking (veal cutlets wrapped in proscuitto and sage, cooked in a white wine and butter reduction sauce) . We were so hungry that we were already well into eating the pasta dish before i realized i hadnt taken any pictures. So dinner looks like this:

Isnt this creepy?

N and R ate this

A couple nights ago I made a dinner that was pretty representative of the type of food we have been eating, mostly traditional Tuscan cooking. I've been asked for recipes so I am trying to include summaries, since i don't really use or make recipes. Tuscan cooking is easy because you rely completely on the ingredients to do all the work...food is simple and flavors are all from the fresh vegetables and herbs.

Antipasto: Artichokes alla Romana. These are artichokes that have been peeled, the tops have been cut off to remove the thorns and tough parts, and then they are sauteed in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. If you actually get this in Rome, it is not sauteed but deep fried in olive oil, and then they crush them so the artichokes open up like a flower. Artichokes looked like this:

Primi: Papardelle Ricotta e Spinachio. This is the pasta course, and we've been experimenting with various vegetables and so far each one has tasted great. We've also been trying pasta from all different pasta makers, and we've found that all are good, even the grocery store brand that costs 50 cents. For this dinner, I chopped garlic, sauted it in a pan with a little bit of butter, then added spinach, wilted it, then added buffalo ricotta, milk, and a sprig of sage. This was cooked over low heat to thicken and then fresh papardelle was boiled (1 minute is all it takes to cook the fresh pasta here), drained, then added directly to the sauce. Papardelle looked like this:

Secondi: Salsicca e fagioli. This is a popular tuscan sausage stew. In pot, saute garlic and onion in olive oil, then add tomato and sausage. Toss, then add canelini beans, sage, rosemary, and basil. add some water. after a while take the herbs out so they dont over power the dish. Simmer until it is done.

Cooking three courses in a tiny kitchen with a tiny stove is pretty tough. It can get pretty crowded, and looks like this:

Happy women's day (i think)

Yesterday was not only Carnevale/Mardi Gras, but also Women's appreciation day. or women's day. or soemthing to that effect. At first I thought it was just an italian combination of mother's day and valentine's day and all other womany days. But it is apparently a world wide event raising awareness about gender inequality. Here in florence, it was a big deal, much more so than carnevale (which was more like halloween, where little kids dressed up as princesses and spiderman and so on, but that was it- florentine's may think they are too cool for actually having fun and celebrating things).

Yesterday morning while i was out i saw that everyone had these bright yellow little puff ball flowers, and decided to buy some for R. When i arrived at the apartment i gave them to her, yelling "HAPPY CARNEVALE!" The flowers are called mimosas, and after googling mimosas i amended my proclomation to "HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!" These flowers were all over town yesterday for women's day. I'm not sure what the connection is. The flowers looked like this:

N and R are living kind of like Italians

We've been in Florence for nearly two weeks now. We wanted to stay in one place long enough to see what things are like if you live here, and arent just sight seeing. I'm not sure 2 weeks is enough to know, but we're doing our best to live kind of like italians.

This means that laundry is quite an ordeal, as no one here uses dryers, just washing machines and hanging. Our approach is slightly less postcard worthy than the typical image of clotheslines hanging fromm windows across narrow tuscan alleyways. Laundry looks like this:

We've also adopted the typical italian eating habits. Breakfast is always bread smeared with nutella, and lunch is usualy very light, a sandwich made from hardy bread, a slice of cheese, tomatoe, and in my case a couple slices of proscuitto. Lunch sometimes looks like this:

By american standards this would hardly be considered a snack, but it is the small breakfasts and lunches that allow italians to eat GIANT dinners. I've been pretty good about cooking dinner at home. It is usually 3 courses, and I try to make food that is typical of this part of italy. Normally after lunch I will go to the farmer's markets to buy fresh pasta, cheese, and vegetables. The butchers in these markets are rather intimidating, and i'm afraid what i might end up buying by mistake since they dont really speak much english.

One of the markets I go to is Mercato Centrale, a large indoor farmers market not unlike reading terminal in philly. It is next to San Lorenzo Cathedral. San Lorenzo is famous for its leather market, which is always very busy with tourists. I think it is a sham, since most of the stalls are run by middle eastern and indian men, and the bags are probably made in china. The prices are also high since it is "italian" leather products. The market and cathedral looks like this:

N and R are in Florence

Roughly a week ago, we drove north from Siena through the Chinati region to Florence, where we returned the rental car and took up in our 1 bedroom apartment for the month. We are staying in a building attached to an old palace. While that may sound quite fancy, our building is actually the former stables for the palace. Nonetheless, its a nice place and its been nice having a kitchen and washing machine and so on.

I will post more later, but it is time for passageita (window shopping your way across town on a long walk before a big dinner). Tonight I am cooking a hearty tuscan tomato and bread soup - papa al pomodoro, along with fresh pasta with artichokes and olives, and for secondi (this is traditionally the meat course, by which point rishita has moved on to dessert), garlic and rosemary seasoned porkchop. Cooking here is alot of fun, because the produce is so fresh and flavorful, it is hard to make anything that tastes bad. I'm guessing eventually I will tire of cooking three course meals everynight....but for now i'm enjoying it quite a bit.

Florence has its place in history as the center of the Renaissance. You can look just about anywhere within the city and see signs of this. It's a very pretty place. Florence looks like this: