Boots in the Oven

Cairo, Day Two - It's the Pyramids!

Before I begin, here, lemme say HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDOG!  WOOOO!  And happy halloween!

Our second day in Cairo began early.  Well, early for me - we were in the lobby of our hotel just before 8, where we were handed a bag of bread, jam, and odd white cheez spread and bundled into a van for our trip to the Pyramids.

Our guide's name was Yasir ("Like Arafat, but not Arafat," he said to clarify) and he started off with what we had heard was the usual spiel for the tourists, telling us of a papyrus shop we absolutely had to visit if we wanted to understand the ancient Egyptian art of paper-making, and a perfume shop where the alabaster bottles were hand-crafted and the contents were precious.

"How about the Pyramids?" we asked.

Yasir obliged.  We drove for quite some time through the sprawl of Cairo, but eventually the city started to recede and we found ourselves by the banks of an irrigation canal.  Then, we turned a corner, and

Bam!, as Emeril would have it - we were there.  This shot is from not too far away, and gives you a feel for just how bad the pollution is in that area.  Yasir said this day, the smog was unusually fierce.

The Great Pyramid of Cheops is the one on the left; the middle is his son Chepren's, and the smallest one on the right belongs to Mycerinus.

Though I was perfectly content to admire the view from where we were, Husbear took off a little ways into the desert for another perspective.

Yup, tiny-man is him.  And what did he see, from his vantage point?

Snacking camels, arrayed like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos!

I think the one on the left caught him in the act.  Always get permission for a photo.

It was truly amazing to actually be there, looking at the Pyramids with my own eyes.  These guys have been here for 4500 years, a span of time completely incomprehensible to me. 

It was impossible to avoid getting trigger-happy with the camera.  We got a little silly.

Yasir gave us some time to wander around on our own - perfect, since I had my guidebook and Husbear his camera.  What more could we want?

Tourist police were thick on the ground, though hawkers were even more common.  Some were dressed traditionally, and would try to jump into pictures with you then ask for money.  Others were of the more directly enterprising type, with bags of cameras and batteries, head scarves (to protect from the boiling heat), postcards, carved rocks, et cetera.

Most of the tourists there seemed to be in large groups, being ushered quickly through the site.  Husbear and I were thankful to be able to have some time to ourselves.

Husbear was perhaps a little more adventerous than me.  I was feeling this need to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground (perhaps it was the copius "no climbing" signs!)

This picture is from along the side of the pyramid of Khefre.  It's rather difficult to express the scale with just a few small pictures on your screen...

Is your interest flagging?  Here, I'll throw in a funny picture to spice things up.

Ah, the famous lout flower.  Symbol of Egypt.

Anyhoo, moving along to the Great Pyramid, the first, belonging to Cheops - the paterfamilias.

The views were so evocative, especially given that most of the area was festooned with camels. 

This probably doesn't come as a shock, but Egyptians cover themselves.  Especially the women - long pants and long sleeves are de rigeur.  It was a bit of a suprise to me to see tourists at the Pyramids wearing short shorts and tank tops.

After a little while spent wandering happily amongst the Pyramids, we hopped back in our van for a look at the Sphinx.  It's in part of Chepren's well-preserved funerary complex, including parts of his temple.  I wonder what it would have looked like had Napoleon's troops not shot the nose off?  Dumbasses.

This was the moment during which I experienced my greatest level of "oh-wow-I-really-am-seeing-this" - probably because, though the Pyramids are impressive, when it comes right down to it a lot more actual craftsmanship went into the Sphinx.

Unfortunately, we soon had to leave.  One of the unfortunate aspects of being in Egypt during Ramadan was that many museums and sites close early, and we didn't want to miss Saqqara!

But first, we acquiesced to the idea of visiting a papyrus shop.  After all, we were curious.

Glimpses of Cairo while in transit:

We passed a street market.  I can't believe how easily these ladies can carry large things on their heads!

We arrived at the papyrus shop, and were treated to a brief demonstration.  This guy was very nice, and though the sales tactics were fairly high-pressure, we successfully walked out sans papyrus.  (Though they did have a lovely one of some ducks that I considered before seeing the price tag.)

Apparently a lot of the papyrus you can buy on the street is banana leaves?

First, you cut strips in the papyrus stalk, which when cut cross-wise is shaped like a pyramid.  Then, you roll them out and soak them.   The longer you soak the strips, the darker they get.  Papyrus is apparently very water- and crumple-resistant.  An interesting material.

After the demonstration, we got back in the van for the trip to Saqqara.

Well, really, how else are you going to transport your water buffaloes?

I've never seen so many palm trees... but it is the Nile, after all.

Eventually, we reached north Saqqara, an area filled with pyramids (including the famous step pyramid, the first one of the Pyramid Age).  We visited the tomb of Mere-Ruka, which was enormous - 32 rooms, according to my guidebook.

Unfortunately, photography was verboten inside.  The reliefs were really interesting, including a lot of scenes from everyday life - dancing, wine-making, bringing in the crops.  If I remember correctly, there was also a fascinating relief depicting the punishment of tax-shirkers.  They sit in jail.

We also descended a steep and narrow passageway under the Pyramid of Teti, doing our Indiana Jones impressions.  Mine wasn't that good.

We took a quick look from afar at the famous step pyramid of Zoser, built in the 27th century BCE.  (!!) At its time, this was the largest stone edifice ever built.  Unfortunately, it's closed, though we were a little disappointed not to be able to get nearer.

It was getting on a bit into the afternoon, so we unfortunately had to leave the site to return to our hotel.

I have to put a shot of our bus in here - it was probably... no, definitely the odd-man-out sitting amongst the gleaming tour buses.  Especially since, it being Ramadan (meaning many people stay up all night and sleep through the day, which I suppose makes the daytime fasting a little easier), our driver and tour guide passed out each time we left for some sightseeing.

Camel!

On our drive back to Cairo, our driver called over a young man begging by the side of the road and gave him a few Egyptian pounds.  It was nice to see.  Then, he suddenly pulled over next to a small vegetable stand just off the road.

I'm pretty sure he overpaid this guy, whose wife and children were sitting by the side of the road.  He purchased the largest cabbage I've ever seen, and an almost equally-impressive cauliflower.

From the "how the heck did they do that" files, a truck we saw while approaching Cairo:

I collapsed upon our return to the hotel and napped for a couple of hours.  Though Husbear found Egypt exciting and stimulating, I found it to be more enervating.

Soon enough, though, we were on our way out for dinner, trying to wipe our memories of the bad experience the previous night at Alfi Bey.

We made our way through the nighttime fruit and vegetable markets

and bought our first shwarma from a brightly lit diner.  Shwarma can be found all over Europe - it's a lot like gyros, really - but of course, these things are usually better in the land of their origin.  We split a tiny sammich, and it was good.  They used sweeter spices for seasoning the meat, perhaps cinnamon and coriander?  We weren't sure.

We also tried out one of the juice bars that can be found all over Cairo.  We had one with strawberry, banana and orange juice - the perfect restorative.

This sign, which I can only assume meant we were in a quiet zone, was laughably inadequate.  We were still taking our lives in our hands with every crossing of the street - I tried to glue myself to other street-crossers, but sometimes there was only space for one person to get by.

Our progressive dining continued with a stop at this fast-food place, where we had a very tasty pita stuffed with fuul (baked broad beans), eggplant, and taamiya (egyptian felafel).

The last stage of our meal came after a 20-minute walk towards the Nile.  Husbear had read about a place, El Tahrir Fatir and Pizza, and had been jonesing for a fatir.  It's like a phyllo pastry, stuffed with savory or sweet fillings.

We settled in and ordered two, one with egg and onion and the other with a feta-like cheese, olives, and tomatoes.  I preferred the sharp tastes of the latter, but the subtle sweetness of the former was nice as well.  The tastiest thing we ate in Cairo.

Finally, on to the Nile Hilton, for two reasons.  1) they have a great view of the Nile, and 2) it's a place where a woman can comfortably enjoy a shisha, which I wanted to do.  After all, when in Egypt...

They only had apple-flavored, which we enjoyed with a wine from Alexandria - Cru des Ptolomees.  Not bad.

The view was wonderful, as advertised.

Whew!  A long day.

Tomorrow in my chronology - Mohammed Ali's Citadel (the pasha, not the boxer), I have to put on a blanket to cover my shame, and we check out the hanging church.  Plus a possibly illegal, though very blurry, picture of the death mask of Tutankhamen.

'til then.

girlie

We actually made it to Cairo! (Day One)

No, we didn't forget about the blog.  We were in oh-my-gawd-Egypt for six days, including three in Cairo and three in Luxor - an awesome trip, in both senses of the word!

Turns out six days isn't really enough to see that much of Egypt.  We really would like to go back, already, although we will need some time to catch up on sleep and take a few showers.  Egypt, or at least the small part we visited, was definitely not a typically relaxing vacation... much too alien, at least for me.  Countlessly valuable, though.

I will say I've never been around friendlier people.

We arrived in Cairo last Saturday without much of a plan.  The great pyramids of Giza, of course, and the Egyptian museum, but beyond that we were open to anything.

Alitalia got us in to Cairo only about a half-hour late.  Not too shabby.  Too bad we weren't on the side of the plane with a view of the Pyramids.

Through our window, we could see the city (18 million, I hear, with a further 1 million commuters daily) spreading out into the distance, until it merged into the fog of pollution and dust hanging on the horizon.  And we thought LA was smoggy!

After landing, we made it into the passport control area.  I've been through these several times, though mostly in Europe, but the way the Egyptians handled this was entirely new to me.

I knew we needed to purchase visas for entry into Egypt, and I knew they would cost us $15 (US), but I had no idea how to get them.  After spotting a few people affixing newly-purchased lickable-back stamps into their passports, we figured out that you have to go to a line of banks along the side of the passport control area, hand over your money (only in dollars or euros!), and stick the stamps they give you into your passport.

The Egyptian entry stamp is definitely the coolest one in our passports, by the way.

After being enlightened as to the proper way to fill out an immigration form (oops) we made it to the luggage carousel, where our luggage was waiting along with a representative from Echo Travel, who was to drive us to our hotel.

Or maybe not.

He wheeled us over to this Echo Travel box, where he left us and our luggage for a few minutes.  I kept expecting a sales pitch, having heard that Egyptian tour groups are remarkably up-front with the sales techniques, but it never came. 

A guy about our age entered, introduced himself, and escorted us out to his waiting car, where we sped (no, really, SPED) into downtown Cairo.

Our first ride through Egyptian traffic was exhilirating.  They don't use lanes.  At all.  Traffic lights, for the most part, are distrusted (telling ME when to go?) and Cairenes cross major streets one car at a time, standing in the middle of the lane until they see an opportunity.  People say Naples is a symphony of traffic, but in the face of Cairo, I have to downgrade it to a frothy pop tune.  I mean, there are DONKEYS in this traffic.  And people hanging out of buses!

I was almost sad to pull up to our hotel, the New Palace.  We were paying $9 per night for a double room, so my expectations weren't that high.

Luckily, I had read about their elevator, so it didn't come as too much of a shock.

The hotel itself was really surprisingly atmospheric and cozy!  Towels, and soap, and guys who called themselves Jamaica and Metallica... I guess to make English-speakers feel more at home?  I dunno.

We checked in and got a little settled, then went upstairs to the rooftop garden to meet with Metallica.  (His name is Ahmed, and he said he got the nickname because he liked their music.)  He's moving to Australia next week, as his fiancee lives there, so good luck to him!  We found this interesting because our Egypt travel guide mentioned in a throwaway passage that all of the good travel operators and boat captains eventually marry Europeans orAustralians and move away...

We met with Ahmed for an hour or so, and he put together a tour for us which would enable us to see not only a good chunk of Cairo, but also to get down to Luxor.  We hadn't thought we'd have time for this, so after a bit of discussion we decided to spring for the extremely reasonable tour package.  It would have been even more inexpensive if we hadn't insisted on getting a sleeper car for the night train to Luxor and back, since I hope our days of sleeping sitting up on overnight trains are behind us.

The evening call to prayer could then be heard blasting from loudspeakers all over the city.  It being Ramadan, this meant that the Muslims were allowed to eat, so Ahmed went to grab a bite.

After waiting an hour or so for the immediate post-sunset rush to calm a little at Cairo's restaurants, we walked over to Alfi Bey, a restaurant near our hotel that had been open since 1938.

It was sadly pretty disappointing.  I hated having to use an English menu, but since there was no way we could make sense of their Arabic one, I suppose it was good to have the option.

Their bread was just sad.  Bread in Arabic is 'aish, the same word for life - which shows its importance.  In light of this, the fact that Alfi Bey's was stale was even more of a travesty.

We ordered a pretty good sampling off of their menu, including stuffed pigeon (stuffed with barley, I think), rice topped with kidneys and liver (which were seriously overcooked), sauteed vegetables (passable, but bland), a yogurt dip (with a too-strong taste of something we couldn't place - herby), and a broken noodle and rice dish served in chicken broth (totally watery).

We did have a full meal for 56 LE (Egyptian pounds - about $10), so that was nice.  And we weren't hungry any more.

I have to say, though, that by and large the Egyptian food we tried was not very good.  We did have a few tasty meals, though they were from street carts.

Ah well.  The food was not really what brought us to Egypt! 

Since it was still pretty early, we went for a bit of a ramble through the streets of Cairo.

When I was talking earlier about Cairene traffic, I didn't mention this - they also don't like to turn their lights on at night.  They will flash their high beams every once in a while, but the preferred method of announcing their presence is long horn blasts.

Here, I think a couple of cars have their lights on because it's a large intersection.

We were trying to find a specific sheesha bar, a difficult task since during Ramadan the streets are choked with pedestrians at night - and even if they weren't, street signs are few and far between.  We did eventually find it, only to learn that it was closed for the entire month of Ramadan since they served alcohol along with their sheesha tobacco.

We did find McDonald's, though.

The streets, and many of the shops, were so packed with people it was difficult to move.  This store was selling some kind of sweet, probably for Ramadan break-the-fast, and was overflowing with people yelling and shaking money in raised fists, trying to get the attention of the harried cashiers.  It was like Christmas - I was reminded of the yearly video of housewives trampling each other for Cabbage Patch Kids, or Furbies, or Beanie Babies, or Tickle-Me Elmos.

Though people clogged every square foot of pavement, we couldn't travel more than a few feet without people greeting us.  I guess we stuck out, me without my headscarf and all.  "Welcome to Egypt!"  "Where are you from?" When we said "America" the response was almost always "America, number 1!  We love you!" with a thumbs-up.

I was like a small child.  Everywhere things to look at, everywhere people talking (some to me), everywhere new smells and lights and sounds.  It was all a bit much, after a while.

I also couldn't believe just how many different types of headscarves there were to see.  I wanted to ask a couple of women how they tied theirs.  Some were attached with beautiful dangling decorative pins, others just with straight pins; some covered the whole front and back to waist level, others just the head; some had two or three layers of different fabrics.  I caught myself staring more than once.

It was quite an introduction to Cairo.  After being out in it for only four or five hours, we went back to the hotel, where I fell over onto our strange little slat-beds, bushed.

Our agenda for the next day involved leaving at 8 for Giza and Saqqara.  Pyramids ho!

girlie

Apicius Update

Well, if all went according to plan, we are currently in Egypt!  Here's a post about Husbear's progress at Apicius, now that the midpoint of the semester has passed.

Hey it's me!  Thanks for the intro Girlie, now mind your own business. 

It's been a busy couple of months here at culinary school.  Lots of cooking (duh.) and lots of using strange Italian ingredients.

Ooh.  What's this I see?  My teacher told us that we were going to prepare "breast of cow" so I figured, you know, like the chest?  No, no, of course not.  We're talking full on udder here people.  Udder that I personally stuffed with cured pig fat rolled in cinnamon, cloves, and fennel.  And it's served on a orange sauce.

It was pretty good it you could get past all of the glandy, bumpy things.

This is Sole Poached in Pear Sauce.  It comes from a five hundred year old recipe that was originally prepared by, I believe, Maestro Martino.  I could be wrong, but it was pretty damn good.

Crepes with Wine Poached Fruit and Creme Anglais.  Need I say more?

These are fun little Parisian Gnocchi.  Basically just  a dense choux paste piped out onto a baking sheet. 

Here they are filled with a seriously delicious Pistachio Cream and topped with Bechamel.  I have feeling that they should have plumped more, but the woman who wrote the recipe was there and she seemed pretty happy.

These are Chocolate Coffee Cantuccini.  Basically what they call biscotti in the States.  They were good, but I'm not sure why we had to make so many of them - I think the school is involved in some sort of black market pastry trade.

Hey a pigeon!  This one wasn't fast enough though and ended up as a cute little feathered teaching tool.

We boned him (her?) out whole and stuffed sage and rosemary inside, then wrapped it all up in pancetta.  Quite yummy. It tasted a little like liver.

Boiled Veal Tongue.

Veal Tongue Bella Vista.  Sandwiched with ham and truffle butter and then coated in a veal stock gelatin.  Not very tasty.

And finally, Duck with Apples and Cabbage Puree in a Chocolate Sauce.  What's not to like?  This was some seriously good eating, and surprisingly easy to make.

Well, that about wraps up the retrospective for the first quarter at Apicius.  Check back soon and find out about all of the yummy stuff we found in Egypt (what the hell? Egypt?!)  It should be fun. 

I'm probably on a camel right now.

L. Pants

I Wasn't Using That Blood Anyway

This

Plus this

Equals this

plus this

So yesterday I went toe to toe (well more like neck to thumb) with a wine bottle and it kicked my ass. When we moved into our place in Florence, we inherited an extra crappy corkscrew. In the past couple of months it has chipped the tops of three different bottles, but for some reason we’ve kept it. And for some even stupider reason I continued to use it.

Last night I learned why that wasn’t a good idea. On the upside, though, it did give me a chance to get acquainted with an Italian version of an emergency room. There’s nothing quite like being at home alone, splaying open an inch and half gash in your hand, (pondering the nifty white bits, tendons, and is that a vein?), then realizing that you don’t speak the local language and you don’t know where a hospital is.

A few paper towels and some quick research later, I headed out for a brisk ten minute walk in the rain to the Ospedale Santa Maria Nuova. You know how Emergency Rooms are slow and disorganized? And you know how Italians are slow and disorganized? Well Italian Emergency Rooms are not a case of two wrongs making a right.

I arrived and there was no real reception area. I tracked down a nurse and luckily young- man-bleeding-down-arm is an international and self explanatory sign. Unfortunately, all it got me was a small stack of paperwork to fill out. When I finished, she took a peek at the damage I had wrought and traded in my paper towel for a piece of gauze. Finally, something medically related.

Three fun filled and not at all confusing or frustrating hours later, I finally got to see a doctor. He spoke very little English and kept insisting that I do some wild movements with my thumb; up-down, back and forth, open and close. And I kept insisting that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea as it didn’t seem to be attached too well and it seemed to be bleeding a lot andmygodwhyaremakingmedothisitreallyfrickinhurts!

Then the new guy came in. I think it was his first week on the job. He was thirty-something and very sweaty and flushed. He looked more nervous than me. Together they cleaned out the wound and then the doctor started to put in the first stitch.

I screamed loudly and arched my back in subtle inquiry as to if they had ever heard of anesthetic. They took the hint and put something topical on that worked for the next stitch. Then, however, Doctor guy turned the needle and thread over to Sweaty guy for a little practice. While I would agree that he definitely needed some, I’m not sure I wanted to be the test case.

Since I didn’t know how to say “stick wrapped in leather and a shot of whisky” in Italian, I spent the next several minutes chewing on various parts of my arm and knuckles.

In the end, I left feeling pretty good. I acquired seven new stitches and a crazy metal thumb restraint for my troubles and they even threw in some bulky bandages as an added bonus. At least it will make for some good pictures in Egypt. We’re off to Cairo in the morning so wish us luck!

A Dopo.

L. Pants

From Boccaccio's Hometown to You!

It's chestnut season!  And polenta season, and porcini season, and wine season.  This Tuscan bounty translates, this time of year, into copious festivals taking place all over Italy - if you know where to look.

Luckily, a couple of weeks ago, I arrived in my Italian class to find several copies of an English-language freebie called the Florentine.  Near the back was the festival listing, a nearly insurmountable tiny-print rundown of town parties happening in and around Florence over the next few weeks.

The Florentine also did a special article on a larger do taking place in the hometown of Boccaccio, Certaldo.  (Well, possible hometown - certainly deathtown.)  It's called the Boccaccesca, and it's a festa for all things fall and local to Certaldo, including chestnuts, wine, pork, and onions. 

We arrived in the town of Certaldo just after mid-day on Saturday.  Certaldo Alto, the town we were aiming towards, has a documented history going back to the 11th century.  Certaldo, itself no slouch in the history department, dates to the 13th, and surrounds the hilltop of Certaldo Alto at valley-level.

We took a teeny funicular up to Certaldo Alto.  (It was the first funicular we've ridden in Italy not claiming to be the progenitor of the "funiculee, funiculaa" song.)

Certaldo Alto is just beautiful.  There are only 15,000 or so inhabitants spread between the two Certaldos, so the upper one is quite small, with little typically Tuscan lanes and old brick.

Since the festival on Saturday didn't get going until after 3, we decided to take a quick look around the town.

The main road, Via Boccaccio, leads directly to the Palazzo Pretorio, the 14th-century home of the ruling Florentine governors.  Their standards, done both in earth and in the glazed della Robbia terra-cotta style so popular around here, cover the building inside and out.

This closeup is one of the glazed, which are much more showy by far.

Inside the palazzo was a courtyard, around which were a succession of rooms filled with wine for the festival.  You could wander into the old prisons, even!  I kept thinking someone was going to ask us for a ticket, but they didn't. 

After exploring the rooms around the courtyard, we took the stairs up to see the rest of the building.  There was a fairty-tale themed modern art exhibition going on, and the juxtaposition of 500-year old frescoes with strange silkscreens and sculptures was actually pretty interesting.

After being duly impressed with this display (which I have to admit was way better than the one in Bologna!) we left to see a bit more of the town before the festa.

I was more than a little impressed to read on a plaque that this building dates from the 12th century.  And it isn't the only one - there's one across the street approximately that old as well!

Rounding a corner, we came across a beautiful view of Certaldo Alto and decided to pose with it.  (The original of both of these photos is in our photostream as well - thanks, FlickrToys!)

OK, well, just because that didn't work correctly doesn't mean you shouldn't play with Flickr Toys!  Here are the originals, just for you.

At this point, we hadn't had lunch, so we decided to walk back down towards the funicular station to a little enoteca we had seen earlier, Enoteca Boccaccio.  We each ordered a glass of wine (me, my new favorite Morellino di Scansano, and Husbear a glass of Chianti Classico) and a crostino.

We ordered a combination I've been wanting to try for a while, cured anchovies and butter.  YES.  This works, to me, because the butter and saltless Tuscan bread helped to balance the salty salty anchovies. 

Our other snacky was a crostino with pecorino and onion jam.  Red onions, as we came to find out, are a specialty of the area, and this onion  jam was made in house.  This combination was also extremely delicious - gently salty, very sweetly oniony.

While we were chowing down on our delicious toasts, a eety-beety Ape truck full of the Certaldo red onions rolled by.  I ran over, wanting to take a picture, and the proud driver said "Ci sono le famose cipolle di Certaldo!"  (these are the famous onions of Certaldo.)  I mustered all of my Italian and, very stupidly, said "Si, cipolle locale!"  (Yes, local onions!)  He looked at me like I was crazy (he had, after all, just said they were local onions) but let me take a picture anyway.

They seemed awfully sprouty to me, but what do I know?  That onion jam was really good, after all.

Our stomachs were being a little less rumbly, but I was insistent that it was time to get some chestnuts.  We bought our festa tickets at the little stand next to the Enoteca Boccaccesca, along with wine glasses held in little neck pouches, and walked back up towards the Palazzo Pretorio.  There was a group of older townsguys under the palazzo's protico roasting chestnuts and calling out their wares:  "Caldarrosti!  Vini Caldarrosti!"  (Hot Roasted!  Wine!)

We ended up running a tiny gauntlet of people on stilts, including this lady who was telling everyone to touch her stick for good luck.  Eh, why not?

After touching her stick, we placed our order for two paper cones of chestnuts.  I was reminded strongly of county fairs at home, when people who aren't normally in the service industry run little food stands.  The two sweet women behind the counter couldn't figure out how much to charge me, but we eventually worked it out.

You dump your roasted chestnuts out into a terracotta vessel, on each table for that purpose, and start shelling.  They were so good, straight off the fire.  This is only my second roasted chestnut experience, and I think now I know what the fuss is all about.

There was a group of folks scoring the chestnuts prior to roasting, which I guess keeps them from exploding and makes them easier to peel.

It appeared to be one guy's unenviable job to keep the chestnuts moving in their roasting pan.  He had a very large glove, a very big paddle, and a very sweaty brow.

We were very much enjoying shelling and eating our little brain-shaped chestnut buddies.  How could we not, with this kind of a view?

After sitting for quite some time, enjoying our chestnuts and the beautiful fall day, we decided to walk back into the palazzo for wine and cheese tastings.  While there, we sat in on some sort of student "Iron-Chef" competition, wherein all the food was vegan.  This was hilarious to hear in Italian, where the vast majority of the population still doesn't get the vegetarian thing ("but surely you eat chicken!"), much less going fully vegan.  Hearing the announcer attempt to explain veganism to a roomful of Italians was a definite highlight.

"When you are vegan, you do not eat animal products.  Not meat, not milk, not egg, not cheese.  No cheese!"

With this newfound knowledge under our belt, we wandered back out to the chestnut area to buy ourselves an enormous plate of pig.

For five euros, we got a plate to make Mario Batali swoon - the bottom is lardo, then going around clockwise we have porchetta, or roast pork, crema di lardo with truffles spread on bread, and finocchiona, or fennel sausage.  The hawkers said this came from the Cinta Senese pig, which is a very popular and rare breed farmed in Tuscany.

All I know is that that lardo tasted like pig marshmallows.  And that is much much better than it sounds.

While we sat, one of the stiltwalkers from earlier came by to light the town's torches.  I don't know if the torchlighting is done this way every night, but I certainly hope so (though I do feel bad for the guy's knees.)

With just a few hours left in Certaldo Alto, it was time to head back down Via Boccaccio to check out a few more booths with local products.

Perhaps my favorite stand we saw all night, and certainly one of the most obscure, was this prosciutto guy and his twenty varieties of pigleg.

I was unfortunately way too intimidated by his wares to ask for a taste of anything (having already spent 14 euros on a mushroom-cured beef fillet, I was trying to be a little circumspect) though we did eat a just-filled canneloni along with a taste of truffled pasta and several types of cheese.  What are these festivals for, after all?

We left this foodhall to head over towards the last one we had yet to see (where we were destined to buy a bag of just-roasted ground coffee beans for our little coffee machine) when we stumbled over a light show.

And yes, that is a can of lamp oil you see on the ground, for fire-breathing.  I guess it's cheaper than high-grade alcohol.  And better for your esophagus, too!

They did a great job of entertaining everyone, though.

At this point, it was getting well on towards dinner.  I know what you're thinking, but snacking all day does not a dinner make!

You know what DOES a dinner make?  Onions!  Many, many ways, though we only tried three.  At first.

Let's see - in the back, a zuppa di cipolle, or onion soup.  I've never had an onion soup like this - it was very sweetly oniony and really extremely delicately flavored.  The left is a cipolla ripiena, or stuffed onion - stuffed with cheese, bread crumbs, and herbs.  Very good.  The beany thing was called a carpaccio di cipolle - I have to say I was expecting something a little more than cold beans with cold sliced onions on top, though the tasty onions of Certaldo did save the dish.

The place was really just long picnic tables, filled with Italians eating onions cooked in about eight different ways.

Becuase we weren't quite done yet with the onions of Certaldo, we got a paper cone of onion rings to go!

As a Flickr commenter already wrote... "oh my gosh, you know what.. i've never even thought of JUST having those two together... now that i think of it...red wine and onion rings.. that must be good!"

Well, she's right.  Especially these onion rings, made with the local red onions and a very tasty, alost tempura-like, batter.

Our time at Boccaccesca 2006 finally drew to a close.  Just so you're aware that not every booth was manned by people hawking food, here is a lovely owl to bid you good-night.  (or, well, to bid me good-night, since it's like 11 PM here and time for bed, thank you.)

I think I want to be the owlet.

girlie

Vivimarket

In a half-hour, I'm leaving the house to go see Il Profumo, a movie based on a German book. In Italian. This is a little intimidating - I should probably be reading the dictionary, rather than putting up a post, but we visited a market yesterday I wanted to tell you about.

I do love having such wonderful access, here in Florence, to many and varied Italian ingredients.  I'm learning the difference in flavor between prosciutto and speck, and that's really exciting.  But I can't TELL you how much I'm missing the access we had in Austin to an array of international tastes!

There are a couple of small international grocery stores here, including one called Vivimarket, which we visited yesterday.

It's on a small street over near the train station and the Mercato Centrale.  We went there yesterday in search of Mexican ingredients - Husbear is craving chiles rellenos with refried beans, and the only way to get good ones around here is to make them yourself.

The small interior is arranged by country, for the most part, with a small dry goods section made up of rices and pulses and a smaller vegetable area, where you can buy okra for 9.75 E/kilo.  (I was tempted.  roasted okra...)

The Chinese and Japanese sections held most of my attention.  Tofu, fermented and fresh, along with many packaged candies and twelve types of seaweed!

We found salad dressings, including "thousand islands" and this rather strange number.

I even know where to go to pick up matzah, when the time comes!

Among all of this wonderful international-ness, I spotted the section reserved for the United States.  What treats would we find here?  Perhaps a great barbeque sauce, or scrapple, or red flannel hash?  Hmmm?

Nah.  Try Duncan Hines cake mixes and lots and lots of peanut butter.

Those Americans sure do love their Cheez-Its and peanut butter!  (Wait.  Actually, I guess that's true...)

On the way home, we stopped by the awesome bakery up the street from our house so I could pick up my first taste of schiacciata con l'uva, or Florentine foccacia with grapes.  It's only available right around now, when the wine grapes are being harvested.  The bread, at least at this bakery, was made in layers - layer of bread, layer of tiny grapes, layer of bread, layer of grapes.

I took a bunch of pictures that are quite blurry.  My bad.

It was the last piece they had left right before dinnertime, and it was totally delicious.  The grapes still had theit crunchy little seeds, which made for a really varied texture.  The bread itself was soft and moist, but not wet - like eating very thin toast spread with really tart/sweet grape jelly.  I need more.

So, off I go to Il Profumo!  Wish me luck....

ViviMarket: Via del Giglio 20-22r, 055/2648120

Pane e Foccacce: west side of the street on Via de Macci, right next door to Enoteca Bacconudo - north of Via dell'Agnolo.

girlie

Santa Reparata, Boccadama, and Lampredotto! Oh, my.

So, I closed my post yesterday by revealing my plans to locate this parade, in honor of Santa Reparata, leaving from the Palazzo Vecchio at 5.  Santa Reparata is one of the two patron saints of Florence, along with San Giovanni Battista, and her feast day is celebrated on the 8th of October.  (Right.  Don't ask me why her parade is on the 9th, because you will get the stock answer:  Italy!)

After finishing that post, Husbear and I took off for the Palazzo Vecchio, arriving breathless just before 5 to find... nothing out of the ordinary.  Tourists, police officers, and cart drivers, all milling around and smoking or taking pictures - depending.

I mustered my courage and my limited Italian to ask the cart drivers and police officers if they knew anything about a parade leaving from the square in, oh, five minutes or so - I got two people to admit they knew it was the feast day of Santa Reparata, but that was it.  (Not knowing the Italian word for "parade" hampered my style - I was actually asking if a bunch of men in old clothes would be walking around at some point.)

We walked to the Duomo... also nothing.  Just as Husbear was about to give up and walk to his 6:00 class, drumbeats sounded in the distance!

We located the parade!  Yay!  I'm still not sure how the police officers were completely unaware something like this was happening imminently.  Ah, well.

After enjoying the paradino, I returned to the house to find a message from a friend of a friend of my aunt's who is visiting Italy with her husband.  The two of us had been trying to connect for several weeks, and now that it was her last night in Florence, somehow we finally did!

So, to Grom for gelato, of course!  Their flavor of the month is delicious, delicious pine nut - and they've added a candied chestnut flavor as well!

Unfortunately, her husband was sick (can you believe it?  My dad always used to get sick on vacation too.) so the three of us went for a brief walk around our neighborhood and stopped for dinner at Boccadama, a restaurant on the Piazza Santa Croce that we'd been wanting to try.

Boccadama probably has the largest wine list of any place we've been so far, with three pages of Tuscan offerings alone.  We ordered a Chianti Classico... and this is why I should always take pictures of wine bottles, because I've forgotten the makers.  Mostro-something?

The three of us decided to split a couple of appetizers and entrees - by far my favorite way to eat, especially at new restaurants.

The first antipasto was the fegatini di pollo, a chicken-liver pate - yet another take on the classic crostini toscani.

This one was made with a lot of sweet wine and cinnamon, and served with a small apple salad and really thinly sliced toasted bread.  It was a much sweeter preparation in general than we've been seeing around here.  I liked it, but I'm still partial to the more rustic versions.

We also ordered a salad with pecorino, pear, pine nuts (seems like we've been eating a lot of those lately!) and large leafy greens.  No dressing, as usual, though there was red wine vinegar and olive oil on the table.  No picture, because it looks like, well, a salad topped with little cheese cubes, pear, and pine nuts.  I liked it ok, but am really missing dressed salads.  I guess no dressing's better than drowning a salad?

Moving on to our mains (two primi and one secondi), we ordered gnudi.  These are like ravioli filling without the pasta, boiled like gnocchi.

This is where I think Boccadama fell down - they were undercooked and had a really floury mouthfeel.  I did like the tomato sauce, though.

We also ordered the gnocchi (I have such a hard time passing these up on menus, especially if it's a new preparation) in a pesto made of squash blossoms, pecorino cheese, and walnuts.  I liked this a lot - probably my favorite of the dishes we ordered.  If I had to nitpick (and don't I always?) I'd advise them to cut down a bit on the walnuts, perhaps substituting some with almonds.  The walnut flavor was the strongest of the many flavors in the pesto, and I would have liked for the squash blossoms to be more assertive.

Last, we ordered the filetto di manzo (beef fillet) marinated in juniper, served with porcini mushrooms and crazy tasty double-baked quenelles of mashed potato.  I thought the beef was cooked perfectly, though Husbear said he would have preferred a touch more rare.  The porcinis tasted like the concentrated mushroomy wonderfulness that they are, and I loved loved loved the mashed potato quenelles!  Like fancy twice-baked potatoes, basically.

We opted for limoncello in lieu of eating a dessert.

I had a great time last night!  It's always so much fun to meet new people.  We all compared notes about travel and life (though I'm afraid Husbear and I may have come across as obsessed with the state of our knees) and just had a rollicking great time, fueled by good Tuscan food.  I got back a little late and proceeded to do about half of my homework incorrectly, but it was definitely worth it.

Class this morning went well; I've decided to add another week, so I'll now be in class through next Friday.  I feel like I learn so much every day I'm there, and just couldn't pass up that opportunity!

I got back from class to a smiling Husbear, who announced:  "Today is tripe cart day!"

He called my tripe-eating bluff!

(A brief aside about tripe - it's basically the intestines of a cow.  Florentines are crazy for the stuff, and there are tripe vendors all over the city.  Standing in front of one at the Mercato Centrale back in August, I overheard the following conversation between two American teenagers:

girl: "Hey, lookit the tripe stand!  Do you like tripe?

boy: "Nah, I don't really go for seafood."

girl: (beat.) "Ummm - that's cow intestines."

boy: "YAWRP?" (with a backwards jump into a perturbed older lady)

Anyway.  Back to the regularly scheduled blog.)

There's a cart Husbear passes every day on the way to school, which sets up in the Piazza Sant'Ambrogio.  It's really just one of those teeny weeny Ape trucks, converted into a food stand.

They serve tripe and lampredotto, the latter being apparently the darker intestines from the end of the cow's stomach.  Aren't you just drooling already?

Choices are pretty limited.  There's, well, tripe and lampredotto, either by the kilo or in a sandwich.  You can also get wine, beer, water, and sodas.

There are also daily specials, though by the time we made it to the cart at 1:30 they were long out of today's, the lampredotto with spinach.

It takes a little time to make your way up to the front where you're allowed to order, since this place is very popular with students and office-workers.

Husbear and I both opted for the lampredotto sandwich, on a crusty roll dunked in meat juices, with salt, pepper, parsely sauce, and pepper sauce.

I can't say it's the most appetizing looking sammich I've ever eaten.

But it's the only offal sammich!  Ha?

Imagine a texture sort of like poached eggs, but with some extra chewy bits.  I gave repeated thanks for the bread and sauces.  I think this is a bit of an acquired taste, shall we say?  I would like to try it alla fiorentina, which is apparently baked with cheese and tomato sauce.  Hell, even intestines are probably really good baked with cheese and tomato sauce.

I've tried one of the most traditional dishes of the extra-traditional Florentine arsenal, and have come out the other side, victorious and not hungry any more.  I will try this again, though perhaps I will try to talk Husbear into sharing one next time.  A big bun stuffed with tripe is a lot of tripe.

Tonight, I'm meeting some kids from my Italian class - one of them works at a restaurant in the Oltrarno, and we're going to go see him and check the place out.  I'm bringing the camera and my release forms!  (I should probably have those made up sometime soon.)

Boccadama: Piazza Santa Croce 25-26r: 055.24.36.40

Tripperia Pier Paolo e Sergio: sets up in Piazza Sant' Ambrogio in the mornings Monday - Saturday, stays until at least midafternoon.  No phone, I don't imagine.

girlie

The Streets of the Oltrarno

Happy Santa Reparata's Day!

Today is the end of three days of festivities for the co-patron saint of Florence, Santa Reparata.  I think this page is telling me that there is a parade today leaving from the Palazzo Vecchio, so I'm heading that way in 45 minutes to see if there is anything to see.

Any bets on the likelihood I'll get this post done before then?  The caffelatte just brought to me by Husbear should help...

Yesterday, we took advantage of a beautiful early fall day to do another walk out of our Lonely Planet Florence, this one the "Oltrarno Stroll."

We had to push our way, almost literally, through the hordes of people in front of the Uffizi and on the Ponte Vecchio... remind me again when low season is supposed to start?  Ah, yes, when the weather gets just yucky enough that you don't want to be outside.  Sigh.

Anyway, the first piazza we came to after shaking off the crowds around the Ponte Vecchio was Piazza Santo Spirito.  Awesomely, Sunday is their market day!

We took a little time doing a lap of the piazza, considering 8-track players, jewelry, and scarves.  This market seemed to have much better deals than the one surrounding the Mercato Centrale.

To me, market day means tasty streetfood!

I stupidly have yet to try lampredotto, the traditional Florentine tripe roll snack.  I'll get to it, I promise.  I did, however, buy a giant piece of pinenut brittle (sorry, Mike), which was really tasty.  Toasty and sweet.  A little went a long way, though, and this three euro piece was definitely overkill.

Then, we espied a sweet little old couple fixing something curious, called necci.  Closer inspection revealed these to be crepes made with chestnut flour.  (Chestnut season has arrived with a BANG here in Tuscany - the little tasties are everywhere, all of a sudden!)

How could we pass that up?

We got the one smeared with fresh ricotta cheese.  A good small snack, with a nice gentle honey-like sweetness from the nuts.  Very good straight off the fire-heated griddle pan.

Continuing on with our walk, we finally found an Asian market that sells frozen spring rolls!  YAY!  Sadly, we couldn't buy them because we don't have a fridge bag.  But at least we know where to find them.

Wandering the Oltrarno was lovely, especially since we seemed to have most of the streets to ourselves.

The weather couldn't have been better, unlike nasty Saturday.  The sun lit the banks of the Arno so warmly.

Unfortunately, at least one person in Florence was not having a good day.

After a good fifteen or twenty minutes without food, we passed a gelateria (Gelateria Carraia) jammed with people.  We looked at each other and shrugged.  Well, why not?

Mighty good - though I was really jealous of Husbear's light, citrussy limetta.  My tiramisu mousse was just too, too heavy.  Husbear says he thinks we're going to have to add this place to our list.

Continuing on, we again had to fight our way through the morass at the Ponte Vecchio.  It's the small price we pay for living in a place everyone wants to come visit.

I very much liked Via de' Bardi.  This street, right off the other side of the Ponte Vecchio, was quiet and lined with old palazzi.  Many of these had much more recent doors carved into the side.  The ones with the wood fashioned to look like stone were the most interesting.

Eventually, we made it down to the area of San Niccolo, just across the river from our house.  And, wouldn't you know it - they were having a block party!

We heard the drumming from blocks away.  I thought it might just be another group of Hare Krishna, but no - it was a capoeira demonstration! 

We settled in at one of the many enoteche (wine and snack bars) along the square to enjoy the people-watching.  The particular one we chose, Bevovino, had a nice by-the-glass wine list and a great ambience.

I ordered a 2005 Catarratto, while Husbear opted for a Rosato Toscano.  Drink ye white and pink wines while ye may, since all too soon yere tuchus will freeze off...

Cheers!

We even lucked into a table outside, where we were able to enjoy watching doggies bark at each other and people gathering in the square.  An 8 piece brass band started playing terrific background music, and all up and down the piazza, little old ladies stuck their heads out of the window.

And, with our 6 euros worth of wine, free snacks!

Even better, stumbling into this street festival (San Niccolo sotto la luna, or San Niccolo under the moon) meant we were able to partake of a giant free buffet!  We gave the organizers a few euros to offset costs, and filled up on pappa al pomodoro (bread and tomato soup), couscous, penne with tomato sauce, little dark bread sammiches, crostini with liver pate, wine, biscotti, and vin santo.  They ran out of food right after we went through the line.

A Japanese girl from my Italian class surprised me at the festival, and we spoke extremely stilted Italian for a while.  Definitely fun!

See what wonderful things happen when you leave the house?

And with that in mind, here I go to check out Santa Reparata!

Gelateria Carraia: Ponte alla Carraia, Oltrarno

Enoteca Bevovino: San Niccolo 59r, Firenze

girlie

The Ladies Take Their Roman Farewell

For the first time in six weeks, we stayed in Florence for the weekend!  I can't tell you how excited this makes me.  Yesterday's weather was pretty uninviting, cool and rainy, so Husbear simmered a big pot of soup for dinner.  Today, through the Oltrarno and into the middle of a block party in San Niccolo!

How about a Rome post until we get the block party pics edited?

The Colosseum was impressive and beautiful, of course, so we thought - why not jump forward 14 or 15 centuries and take a gander at St. Peter's Basilica?  Over to the Metro again, by way of Termini station, and we popped back out into the daylight several blocks from the center of Christendom.

As you follow the hordes towards the walls of Vatican City, be sure to take a look at some of the tackiest souvenir stands you may ever see.

The stands right now seem to be mostly filled with changeover stuff - lots of Benedict 16 smiling with the late John Paul 2, that sort of thing.  He still seems to be reaching for the love the late Pope enjoyed.

We made our way through the opening in the walls.

That crowd you can see in front of the columns in the background is made up of tourists elbowing each other to get into the Basilica.  Yipes.

To get in, you have to be "appropriately attired", as represented by these stick figures.

And they do check, believe me.  I saw several women with hastily-purchased scarves thrown around their shoulders - the gift shop must do a booming business in these!

I've mentioned on here several times that I'm Jewish; even so, I can't help but be impressed by the scale and pomp of this building.  The level of art reached in decorating the Basilica is baroquely amazing.

Interestingly, the front is so huge that when you're standing in front of the church itself, you can't see Michelangelo's dome!

The scale of this building is just not to be believed.  And every nook and cranny is jammed with altars, sculpture, mosaics... by some of the greatest artists of the time.  I've read that this may have had something to do with the fact that construction began around the time of the Reformation; the Counter-Reformation sought to smack people over the head with impressive works.

Bernini's baldacchino is on the left side of this photograph - the canopy was supposedly fashioned from metal stripped from the dome of the Pantheon.

This 13th-C  statue of St. Peter precedes the Basilica.  There was a line to touch and/or kiss his feet, which were quite worn.

On the far side of the church sits St. Peter's Throne and a beautiful sunburst window.  When we visited, they were keeping tourists out of this area so it could be used by worshippers. 

The sunburst window is another Bernini - this prodigy's creations can be found throughout the city.

Another Bernini can be found to the left of the back of the church - it's probably my favorite piece among the many packing the Basilica.

It's the tomb of Pope Alexander VII; the most arresting detail is the skeleton fighting his way out from underneath heavy robes of marble, symbolizing the inescapable nature of Death's hourglass.  Very different, very cool.

These giant artworks were everywhere...

And then we read in Rick Steves that they're actually mosaics!  There's no way I would have caught that on my own without reading it - the work is much too minute and well-done.  Husbear took a close-up to prove it.

Without parallel.

Actually, the scale of the entire place is shocking.  I really wanted to have a complete history of Catholicism somewhere about my person, but I was carrying too many books as it was.

I suppose if one really had to choose a "don't miss" amongst all the artwork to be found in St. Peter's, it would have to be Michelangelo's Pieta, carved when he was in his mid-twenties.  Though Italy is really full of Pietas (Piete?) this one, so much more liefelike than most, is really worth seeing.  Unfortunately, you can't get all that close.  Some nutty guy tried to beat the crap out of the statue back in the 1970s, so it's behind glass now.

After a couple of hours fighting the crowds at St. Peter's, the idea of a coffee sounded really nice - so we walked back towards the metro, stopping on the way for a shot of caffeine at a really cute little candy/sundries shop cum coffee bar.  I wandered the streets around the bar long enough to become insanely jealous of the number of Asian food markets in Rome.

The four of us made the decision not to go back by the hotel - we had shopping and Pantheon-viewing to do!

Have I mentioned, it's been getting dark a lot earlier around here already?  This week, in Florence, it's pitch-black by 7!  Yipes!

Anyway, the Pantheon is even more striking by night.

Lots of people strolled in the piazza, gelati in hand.  We were planning on something a little different for dinner, though.

Sardinian!

The restaurant was a Frommer's rec called Il Miraggio, and it's within close walking distance of the Pantheon.

Worryingly, there were only a couple of other tables at the restaurant when we arrived for our 9:00 reservation.  Ah, well - the worst that could happen would be Frommer's guiding us to another... yipes... Camille Stephani!  (aaaaaaaaaa!)

We sat down and ordered a few dishes, and around comes the ubiquitous rose guy.  These are men who will come into a restaurant where you are eating and jam a bouquet of roses in your face, hoping you will buy them.  They are everywhere. 

Since this was Mama Bear and Pegs' last night in town, we went ahead and bought a rose. (sorry, just one - they really jack up the price when you buy them on the street!)

The first food brought out was Fiore Sardo, a slightly tangy Sardinain sheep's milk cheese.  I read an article extolling the virtues of this cheese in perhaps my Food and Wine a year ago, and had to try it.  It was wonderful, with all that sheepy tanginess as well as an interesting herbaceous quality.  Really good - have to try more.

I also agitated for saltimbocca alla romana, a veal dish with a piece of prosciutto and a sage leaf spiked to the top - the whole thing is then coated in flour and panfried before being topped with a lemon sauce.  A very Roman thing I really wanted to try, and it was worth it.  A very flavorful preparation of a meat that can be really bland.

And a lasanga, because who doesn't like lasagna?  This one was wonderfully creamy - as good as it was, I was glad we were splitting it four ways, since I'm thinking a good bit of heavy cream was involved in the preparation.

Husbear's request was for Spaghetti alla Bottarga, spaghetti with bottarga (cured, dried fish roe) shaved over it.  I really wanted to like this, but it just tasted so much like cured dried fish roe... even our tasty Sardinian white wine couldn't cut through the fishiness.

To round out our meat pasta pasta, we chose another meat - a simple roast lamb with roast potatoes.  We'd been trying to order potatoes for the poor ladies the entire time they'd been in Italy, only to be told each time that they were out.  This time - success!  I liked the lamb a lot, though husbear found it a bit fatty.  Eh, it's lamb, it's always kinda fatty!  Silly vegetarians-on-hiatus...

Mostly sated, we decided on two desserts.  First, a creme caramel.  Husbear first tried this on our first anniversary in Austin, and thought this one was better.  Consistently creamy all the way through, with no dry spots.

We also tried a seada, a flaky fried pastry shell stuffed with pecorino and drizzled with YUM honey YUM YUM where is one of these right now when I need it?  Huh?

I thought this meal was really good, overall.  However, it was one of the most expensive meals the four of us had while the ladies were in town, and for the price - we were happy, but not entirely overwhelmed.  For Rome, though, it was eminently reasonable.

Our happy bellies stuffed, we walked the few short blocks to the Trevi Fountain, which is on my personal "must-see-by-night" list of Rome.  It's just so beautiful, to see it all lit up - the fact that every square inch is covered in either tourists or people selling things to tourists almost doesn't detract.

I mean, look at that!  It just screams "Rome" to me.

As their goodbye to Rome, we made the ladies throw coins over their shoulder into the fountain.  Legend has it that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the Trevi Fountain, you are destined to return to Rome.  We've done it each time we've been there and so far it's worked out!

It's the best way to say goodbye to Rome.

Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye as well to our intrepid ladies.  Their flight out was midday the next day, which gave us enough time to get them one last cappuccino.  We bid them a sad arrivederci as they waved from the back of their private car which luckily did not rip them off.

It was so lonely and sad coming back to Florence!  Fortunately, Pegs left a pair of shoes here for us to remember her by, and we now are all stocked up on saran wrap and baggies and washcloths, all things it's difficult to come by here in Florence.

I just hate being reminded of how far away from family we really are, all the way over here!

girlie

A Roman Goodbye, Part 1

The newest rumor around these parts is that all good things must come to an end. 

With this in mind, last Friday the four of us hailed a taxi and set a course for Florence's Stazione Santa Maria Novella, prepared to catch a train to Rome.

Things went swimmingly all the way to Rome, where we checked into our unforgivably adorable B & B (a very enjoyable place, great owner, just 5 rooms, though a little off the beaten path).  When I say "swimmingly", I mean only one cabbie attempted to rip us off, and that was only for about 5 Euros - I used my teeny Italian to stammer at him until he decided the 5 euros just wasn't worth listening to me.

Pegs elected to take the afternoon off, wanting to save her energies for dinner (smart lady), so Mama Bear, Husbear, and I walked the couple of blocks to the Metro and made our way into town.

We got off at Piazza Barberini, right in the thick of busy Rome.  There's a beautiful fountain of Neptune there, designed by Bernini, but... I took a picture of these sandwiches instead. 

Consistency of obsession is my trademark.  I can't decide if those sandwiches (or tramezzini) look good or not!  They are certainly put together very prettily, but the fact remains that there's still something a little off about them.

Since it was getting to be well past lunchtime, we quickened our steps towards the Campo de' Fiori and the antico forno there, lauded by Jeffrey Steingarten in It Must've been Something I Ate.  Their pizza bianca, a six-foot long piece of pizza dough brushed with olive oil and salt, has attained a stance of near-legendary proportions, so we of course had to go.

We got to the Campo de' Fiori late in the day (after 2) - the produce and flower market was already mostly shut down, and the baking at the Forno was done for the day.  Luckily, they were still selling bread made fresh that morning, and Mama Bear and Husbear bought a selection for us to try.

We tried (top to bottom) pizza margherita (bread, tomato, mozzarella), their famed pizza bianca (bread, olive oil, rosemary) and pizza rossa (pink pizza, just bread and tomato).  The pink pizze were delicious, but that pizza bianca blew them right out of the water.  It was soft, but had a good crunch and chew, with a perfectly salty, yeasty, herbaceous taste. 

If I had a small bone to pick, it would be that since we got there so late in the day, our pizza had been out of the oven for a while.  I'd love to try it fresh!

Done with the Campo de' Fiori, we walked over in the direction of the Pantheon, Rome's best-preserved ancient Roman building.

When we got there, we spied a gelatieria (Cremeria Monteforte) right in the shadow of the building, so we stopped to pick up three enourmous servings.

If you click on the picture, it will take you to our Flickr photostream, where I've named all the flavors I can remember.  Their offerings were quite good, with several semifreddi (more custardy flavors) on offer, and treats like chestnut and rose.

After making ourselves almost sick on gelato (some of those flavors were really dense!) we walked around the corner to the Pantheon.  The Pantheon sits on the Piazza della Rotunda, a beautiful archetype of a Roman piazza.

The building is just as stunning as I remember it being.  I have a couple of nighttime pictures of the facade that I'll put up in the next post.

The dome is enormous.  The next time a dome that big was built was when Brunelleschi crafted the one for the duomo here in Florence.

The hole in the top (9 meters across!) was to let out smoke and let in light, and those empty squares originally held bronze which was later taken and melted down to form the altar at St. Peter's Basilica.

Having viewed the Pantheon, we returned to wandering the streets.  We spent a good hour in a terrific specialist shop, that I can't tell you about in case you have a gifty coming from there.

We spent an awful lot of time wandering the streets around the Campo de' Fiori and the Panthon, and it was time to find our way back to the metro and thence to the hotel so we could gather Pegs and eat eat eat!

On the way, we found a great street performer.  Italy is full of guys who paint themselves gold, or silver, or dress up like Nero or gladiators, in the hopes of making a little money.  This guy had an interesting new perspective...

He looked so realistic that a tourist, wanting to pose with him, threw an arm around his shoulders and accidentally elbowed him in the head!

So, we eventually made it back to the Metropolitana (Rome's Metro - efficient, but doesn't actually get you anywhere a tourist would want to go).

A much-refreshed Pegs was gathered, and we walked a couple of blocks from our hotel to a neighborhood restaurant, da Gianni (Gianni's).  I'm pretty sure we were the only English-speakers there, and I very much doubt that restaurant got many tourists.

We started things off with three antipasti.

The anitpasti de mare was a cold sampler of seafood, with many tentacly friends included.  We also got fried olives stuffed with meat (though the menu said they were previously frozen, they were delicious) and a fried crab/fish ball decorated with a tiny crab claw.  The fried offerings were the most popular.

The four of us split four pastas for our mains.

The servings were enormous - we probably would have been fine ordering just three pastas!  This is Husbear's plate, all decked out.

There were two types of gnocchetti (tiny gnocchi); one with radicchio and one with greens and seafood.  They were both quite good, with a little bit of heat.  The pasta in the back is the famed spaghetti carbonara, also known as Roman eggs and bacon - it's an egg/bacon/cream sauce tossed with spaghetti.  Rich and oh so good.  The last, on the bottom, was linguini with salmon and asparagus - good, though asparagus isn't really in season right now.  It had a very nice creamy flavor.

We should have stopped there, but instead decided to split three (!) different kinds of desserts, which turned out to not be Gianni's strong suit.  All tasted right out of the freezer case.  The ladies ordered caffe macchiato, normally a shot of espresso topped with a dash of foamy milk, but instead got a lukewarm cup of half warm coffee and half cold milk.  An interesting take.

This was a slightly disappointing end to an otherwise delicious meal.

Ah, well... Roma!  The next morning, we got a slightly earlier start and decided to hie our merry way down to the Colosseum first thing.

What can I say?  It's one of the most famous buildings in the world, and though what remains is pretty much a decaying shell covered in tourists, it retains an aura of magic and history.

I got the audio tour, which I highly recommend - if you're going to pay 11 euros to enter, it's definitely worth the extra 4 to know what you're looking at.

The floor used to sit on top of this warren of tunnels and cells - a bit of the floor has been reconstructed, visible in the background.  Trap doors were placed in the floor, through which scenery (and deadly animals) would be raised and lowered.  You can still see a bit of the marble tracks for the pulley system poking up above the cells.

This inscription records the aftereffects of an earthquake in the late 5th century CE.  Two senators shelled out the money to repair the Colosseum.  Note just how crappy and haphazard this carving is (it's also apparently rife with spelling errors).

Mama Bear added to her extensive Italian photo collection.  Who can blame her?  It's an impressive edifice.

There were a lot of people sharing the building with us.  Less than the 60-70,000 the arena used to hold, though.

Time for "The More You Know"!  The Romans used to cover the floor of the Colosseum (called the Flavian Amphitheater at that time) with sand to absorb blood.  The Latin word for sand?  Arena.

The Colosseum never ceases to amaze... but the ladies only had one day left to sightsee, so we left the building and walked nearby to grab a quick lunch prior to seeing St. Peter's.

Mama Bear and Pegs continued in their streak of odd pizza-ordering with this cappriccioso, or mix, to which they requested asparagus be added.

Yum?  I think the hard-boiled egg sets it off beautifully.

So, the second half of our Rome trip involved St. Peters, a Sardinian restaurant, and moonlit shots of the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain.  Check back later, because right now, I'm hungry and I gotsta work on the past participle.  (you know, learning another language would be a LOT easier if I had ever had any instruction in grammar.)

Antico Forno Campo de' Fiori, Piazza Campo de' Fiori 22, 06.68.806.662

Cremeria Monteforte, Via della Rotunda 22, Roma.  06.686 7720

da Gianni, no information - but it's not the one by the Vatican.