One of the things that's so great about living where we do is that we're within very easy walking distance of one of Florence's best food markets, the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio. Though the building, and the selection, are smaller than the Mercato Centrale, you also don't have to deal with the insanity that is the streets surrounding the Mercato Centrale - plus, since mostly locals shop there, the prices are cheaper.
One day I'll even take the camera and get a few pictures.
Yesterday, Husbear put together an early dinner with fresh pasta he picked up at the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio. He was really in the mood for spaghetti carbonara, also known as the Italian bacon and eggs. Since no fresh spaghetti was to be found, he settled for the larger pici. We also grabbed some pancetta tesa, eggs, and some awesome parmagiano-reggiano.
He was even able to make a frico, or little cheese basket, with our crappy little skillet! He used it for a little egg-nest.
It was a little richer than the original, which is based in cucina povera, or the type of cooking stemming from necessity and poverty. This had a little more cream, eggs, and pancetta - and it was richly delicious. Yum. Cucina rica, si?
To keep us from completely stuffing ourselves with eggs and cream, we also made a salad with celery, celery leaves, apples, and toasted almonds with a dijon honey vinaigrette. It's based on a recipe we've made before at home, but this time we were able to include beaucoup celery leaves since the celery for sale here actually retains its tops.
Everything was really good, so I ate too much - as usual. This time, at least I could justify my overindulgence by telling myself I'd walk it off on the way up to Forte Belvedere.
Yup - as I sorta alluded to in the last post, we actually did make it up to Firenze State '06 at Forte Belvedere last night! This is part of a city-wide festival which takes place in August, in an attempt to stem the tide of Florentines leaving for the beach. So, we made our overfed way back up the hill on the other side of the Arno.
When we got there, at about 9:30, the place was pretty quiet.
Forte Belvedere is a 16th century fort built both to protect the holdings of the Medici and to give them a retreat in case things got a little heated in the city below. Alls I know is, I wouldn't want to storm it by myself.
Husbear and I couldn't decide if the ruts in the stairs are from cars or carriages.
The price of admission was... free! so we were able to justify spending 5 euros apiece on crizappy prosecco. The bar was very nicely situated.
We took our prosecci and strolled around the ramparts, taking in the view of the city to the north.
And this is what we look like at night in Florence!
Coming into the festival, we saw signs that a rock band would be performing beginning at 10:30. Having never been to an Italian rock show of any kind, we just had to check these guys out.
Wow, was it worth it. They weren't just a rock band - they were a COVER band. Their repertoire included mostly songs from the 60s, with a good sprinkling of Elvis tunes and British invasion chart-toppers. Some of these were performed in Italian, including We Five's "You Were on My Mind", and several beach blanket bingo type songs we weren't fortunate enough to recognize, but which had the local crowd frantically doing the twist and the swim.
Then - the pièce de résistance. Midway through a rollicking rendition of Johnny B. Goode, the band suddenly stops and asks the audience to call out musical genres. They proceed to perform the song tango-, punk-, reggae-, samba-, salsa-, new wave-, oasis- AND:
oh my goodness-
you have to watch this-
and I hope you enjoy it at least as much as we did-
Yes. This was not to be topped. And I hope you enjoy the video, since it took almost an hour to upload to YouTube. We've learned our lesson - future videos will be much smaller.
You're very welcome.
girlie
