'Course, Tuscany doesn't really have too many hinterlands, so in the interest of accuracy let's say... wine country?
Once more, the house is quiet. Nana left yesterday for what turned out to be a 24-hour odyssey across Europe and back to the East Coast (she got home at 4 A.M.!). I've been indulging a newfound craving for kebobs and hummous and enjoying the absolutely beautiful day, which Husbear had to spend in class and then going to his LAST DAY of work! Eep!
We have two weeks before Mama Bear arrives, and that two weeks will be full of blog entries and planning for our trip to Thailand and Vietnam, for which we leave in just under a month. There's so much to do!
But first, let's see what Jodi and Keef did with their last two days in town!
Unfortunately, they weren't so lucky on the weather. It was drizzling when we picked up our car, a hideously gold Smat ForFour, at the airport just outside of town. We drove south, trying to pick up the Strada Chiantigiana (Chianti Road) and only made one wrong turn.
We were all pretty hungry, so at the first turnoff we spotted with picinc tables, we laid out a Husbear-packed picnic.
We ate our fill of Florentine schiacciata (that flat, salty bread in my right hand), spicy Calabresi 'nduja pork fat sausage, two kinds of cured meat, olives and caper berries, taleggio and parmesan cheese, strawberries, and pears. Ah yes, and some wine to wash the picnic down.
Lunch was yummy, but the rain was starting to come down a little harder, so we went into the Cantinetta da Verazzano tasting room that shared our picnic parking lot and tasted their wines. The Supertuscan was nice, but the Chiantis were both really meant to go with food, I think.
On the road again... admiring the vineyards of Tuscany.
Right about this time, we realized that we would soon be driving awfully close to Panzano in Chianti, home of Dario Cecchini's butcher shop. (Here's our visit to see him last September.)
Since we knew we had an avowed meat-lover in the car, what could we do but pull over and park?
We were the only people in the shop this time, a marked difference from our last visit - a market Saturday. Dario himself was behind the counter, breaking down a side of beef. We asked if we could take pictures.
After ten or twelve, he asked us if we perhaps hadn't had enough? We were offered glasses of his house Chianti and sampled the polpettone laid out on the sidebar. (That's a giant meatball, really a meatloaf. Delicious with his pepper jelly.) We also got to try a taste of what he calls the Butter of Chianti (Burro del Chianti, I think) - seasoned pork fat.
Why not? It's such a tempting white fluffy mound in the case. And it is delicious, rich and creamy and scented with Tuscan herbs. And more than a little fatty.
We resisted the siren song of the meats and meat products and bought some of Dario's delicious pepper jelly, then hopped back in the car.
Next stop? Siena, the town with a color named after it! Mama Bear was rather insistent that Jodi and Keef get to see Siena's Duomo...
It was raining pretty hard at this point, and we? Didn't have umbrellas.
We did take some pictures of the Duomo, but to be honest, they aren't very good. Plus, we were back a week later with Nana and took some good sunny pictures, so if you wait until I get those blogged I promise it'll be worth it. The church is amazing and the town is really quite something - it was crushed pretty thorougly by Florence and thus never really made it out of its Gothic years.
After Siena, we got our thorougly soaked behinds back into the car and set out for Montalcino. We arrived at the agriturismo where we'd be staying just outside of town (La Crociona, though their website seems to be on the fritz - here's a Slow Travler review), met the cat, and settled in.
Then we got hungry so we went to the agriturismo's restaurant for yummy Tuscan dinner.
Crostini Toscani! Like I said, TUSCAN DINNER. Tuscan Crostini is chicken liver pate on toasted bread. Husbear makes a good one. These guys did too.
We also got a little vegetable sformatino for an antipasta - it was basically like a little broccoli pudding cooked in a muffin tin. A cute idea that I think you could apply to any number of Southern style casseroles. But it doesn't make for a good picture.
So... on to the primi! This is pici with cinghiale, basically big fat spaghetti with wild boar sauce. Each area of Italy has their own pasta shape they're crazy for, and around Siena, it's pici. (Pronounced with a "ch".)
I liked this - good meaty flavor, nice thick pasta. I like thicker doughier pastas - never been a big fan of the angel hair!
Speaking of thicker doughier pastas, gnoccheti with seafood! Little gnocchi (potato pasta dumplings) are yummers. The seafood sauce was also very good. Shell-on shrimp are only a good time if you know the people you're eating with pretty well... this isn't first-date food!
We also got a risotto made with the region's yummy Brunello wine, which I can't say made much sense... that wine costs upwards of 20 euro a bottle, so why would you cook with it? Anyway, again, a big pile of brownish rice doesn't make for an interesting picture. Plus, we're pretty sure they used beef bouilllion in the risotto, so...
on to the beef! (With Keef with us, in Tuscany, isn't beef a given?)
When the waiter put this down on our table, he said "We can cook this a little more..." In unison, our table said "NO!" Delicious and tender... and the arugula is such a peppery nice match with the beef.
You know what else is a nice match with the beef? Cipolline in agrodolce. Literally, sweet and sour onions, but not Chinese style - these are vinegar and sugar and warm and delicious. I think I ate the whole bowl before anyone else could get to it.
We also got some enormous grilled scampi and marveled at the price. When Husbear wanted to buy a few of these last month in Florence, the seafood guy at the Mercato Centrale wanted 42 euro for 9 of them! (He didn't buy them.) The restaurant was charging under the market price.
These scampi were delicious, with sweet tailmeat and enough meat in the claws to make it worth your while.
We were completely stuffed and so stuck to after dinner drinks - an amaro for me, limoncello for Jodi, and grappa for the boys. Can't imagine why, but Husbear's becoming a grappa fan. It tastes sort of like gasoline to me, but what do I know?
We went back to our agriturismo apartment and fell into bed. We had a really nice little apartment, with two bedrooms and a kitchen - it would be a really nice place to stay for more than one night!
The next morning, we did a little exploring. The agriturismo is located in the village of La Croce, which is so small it doesn't have a bar for morning coffee.
We re-met the cat, who was a total sweetheart. When we checked in, Barbara (the daughter of the owners) told us his story. Found just off the side of a highway after being grazed by a car, he was taken to a veterinarian where he took several months to recover. He was such a loving kitty, though, that the family decided to adopt him.
"And that," said Barbara, "is where he got the name Lahhey."
?
"I like the English lahhey much more than the Italian, Fortuna," she said.
AH! His name is Lucky! The Tuscan accent doesn't allow for hard K sounds, and replaces them with a guttural "ch".
This cat actually tried to climb up on my shoulders when I stood close to his chair.
We drove to the large roundabout just outside of Montalcino and found a bar there for a quick breakfast. Cappuccini and pastries all around! And views of Montalcino, of course.
After we returned to the agriturismo, Barbara gave us a high-spirited tour of the buildings that are used to hold conferences and meetings. And then we got to see their wine cellars.
Croce di Mezzo makes Brunello, Montalcino's most highly regarded wine, but they also make the slightly more affordable Rosso di Montalcino.
In the tasting room, we spent more than an hour tasting a couple of their quite good, tannic Rosso di Montalcinos, along with a couple of the precious Brunellos. However, the one that we most enjoyed was their Supertuscan, which Jodi and Keef generously bought for us for a birthday present. Thanks so much, you guys!
Barbara wrapped it lovingly and told us to drink it without food. Huh, think that's the first time I've heard that from an Italian!
I liked the rustic feel of the tasting room, with dusty bottles piled everywhere, but Barbara said they will be moving shortly to the newer building. Such is progress.
So, that's the end of our first twenty-four hours in wine country. I'll do another post with the rest of the day in it, but for now, it's time to go eat Husbear's Asian cooking. Wooo!
