Our Italian Adventure

La Nostra Avventura Italiana

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Stop me before I eat again!

We started out famished in Florence, having traveled for so many hours and then run for trains. I assure you we've more than made up for it since.  The supermarket, the central market, the bakeries, the bars (those are cafes, not just drinking establishments, but of course one can get wine there, too), the gelaterias, and the restaurants all have been too difficult to pass up. Normally when we travel we consult guidebooks or the internet to get restaurant recommendations. We've done that here, but invariably when we have headed for a specific place we've veered into a different one that looked enticing.  And we have yet to regret it.  Well, except around the waistline - dio mio - we have some work to do when we get home!

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We've become like all Italians, even the horses.

Italians love to eat. We had heard it, we had read it, we had learned it over and over in Italian class. Yet we are still amazed every time we go out to eat at the big groups of Italians at the tables - extended families and groups of friends, and bottles and bottles of wine on every table. Dinner is ordered in courses, everything is "a la carte", if you'll excuse the French, and we've only ordered one "secondo" so far (the main course).  We split a salad, each order a pasta or pizza for "primo", and then marvel that anyone could eat beef or chicken or any other main course at that point.

We eat gelato (ice cream) every day, and there have been a couple days in which we've eaten it twice. I confess to having become a gelato snob. There is an artisanal gelateria on our block, and those silver tins contain nectar from the gods. The silver tins normally indicate the gelato was made on-site; the plastic buckets in most shops are shipped in. Not that there's anything wrong with that - I haven't tasted a single bad one! But the artisanal gelato is hand made and the perfect temperature to melt on contact with your mouth.  In Siena I found the darkest and most delicious chocolate I've ever tasted, a very high bar - ask anyone who knows me.

It seems that the restaurant and trattoria owners enjoy feeding their customers as much as the patrons enjoy eating. One night we happened into a wonderful place with an owner who visited each table and chatted; with us he stayed awhile. I don't know if it's because we kept trying to speak Italian with him or he English with us, but he was a joy. He then gave us two glasses of wine, then two shots each of limoncello when we were done. Last night we enjoyed another friendly proprietor who spoke no English but liked us enough to also offer us limoncello on our way out.  This year of Italian class is paying off in alcohol, if nothing else.

I will stop this entry now, I think it's time to head out for an exercise hike up into the hills, where we'll surely find a pasticceria and a gelateria . . . .

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Gelato and other good food

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Mercato Centrale, to supply the kitchen