Boots in the Oven

Dragging Nana to Siena

Well, since I last wrote, we're up one Mama Bear, freshly arrived from Mandeville with a suitcase half full of things we begged her to bring.  We're leaving in just a couple of hours for Torino and points north and Piedmonty, so let's see if I can put up a post about Siena before we go, shall we?

A post that's REALLY heavy on the pictures.  Didn't have time or the werewithal to edit down the numbers...

With Nana in tow, we hopped a bus and wound through Chiantishire towards Siena.  We arrived and checked into our hotel and immediately went in search of panforte, the Sienese yumminess that's basically a fruitcake, if a fruitcake was delicious.

Two types, panpepato (spicier) and fig and walnut.  Only one type of grandmother in this pic, though.

Then, we walked over to the Campo, Siena's main square.  It's where the Palio takes place every year, that frenetic 90 seconds of dashing horses and flailing jockeys into which the Sienese pour a lifetime's worth of neighborhood pride.  When we were there, it was just full of people sunning.  I'd put this up there with the prettiest sqares we've seen in Europe.  (And I'd say we've seen a good number, at least here in Italy.)

There's a fountain with panels by Jacopo della Quercia, whose works are all over Bologna and Lucca.  Pigeons balanced precariously, fluttering and drinking at the same time.

Then, over to the Duomo, continuing our greatest hits tour of Siena.  A fruit stand caught our eye on the way - you would not believe the amount of fruit Nana consumed while she was here.  (Well, perhaps if you knew her, you'd believe it.)

The Duomo in Siena is impressive.  No, that's not the right word for it... it's huge, and twinkles as the sun hits the mosaics above the doors.  Plus the sides are striped with marble.  They weren't going for "understated" with this building.

But it's when you get inside that the building really shines.  I've never seen another church this big with striped columns - and they're all marble, too.

(This one supports the enormous pole that held up the Florentine standard during the Battle of Montaperti, captured by the Sienese in oh, 1260 or so...)

There are so many treasures in this building.  For one, there's a small statue of Paul that Michelangelo carved early in his career for the Cardinal Piccolomini.  And off to the side, in a small chapel, is a John the Baptist by Donatello - reminiscent of his Mary Magdalene here in Florence.

There's also a crazily detailed pulpit by Nicola Pisano, which has at its base these very detailed lions and lionesses feasting on sheep and horses and such.  It's apparently supposed to be a metaphor for the Church devouring paganism, but it does look a bit strange on a pulpit.

Even Bernini, the Baroque master whose works are scattered all over Rome, is represented here.  Here's his St. Jerome playing the crucifix.  Bernini's one of my favorites - what that man can do with a chunk of marble...

The floor of the Duomo is also intricately decorated, though most of it is usually covered with protective sheeting.  Since we were there the day before Easter, even more of the floor was covered than usual because of the number of chairs set up for Easter Mass, but here's a taste - a detail of the Slaughter of the Innocents. 

Then there's the Piccolomini Library, a huge frescoed room dedicated to the life and exploits of Aeneas Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II. 

Here's the bit that shocked me - these are the original colors!  Because of the amount of light coming into this room, candles were rarely lit, so soot didn't cover up the original brilliance of Pinturicchio's paint.

We were just amazed.

Leaving the Duomo, we walked around the side of the building to the Duomo Museum.  On the side of the church, you can see the beginnings of an ambitious expansion project that would have made the Duomo just absolutely enormous.  The modern nave would have become the transept (that's the long middle part becoming the crossbar).  But then defeat by Florence, and the plague, forced abandonment.  Today, if you buy a ticket to the Duomo Museum, you can climb to the top of the unfinished facade!

Guess what we were about to do.

Don't worry, Nana kept great track of us.  Actually, she climbed up to the first level - not too shabby for 84!  (This involved a big spiral staircase being used simultaneously for ascending and decending, not an easy feat on a spiral staircase!)

The views were worth the climb, I thought.

From the top, the Campo looked just beautiful.

Speed up!  Low on time!

The Duomo Museum itself was interesting, but not... mind-blowing.  Duccio's pretty window was there.

DINNER!  Husbear's birthday dinner, to be exact - thanks Nana and Jenny!  Hostaria il Cartoccio.  (A cartoccio, I learned, is a medieval Tuscan battle cart - priests say Mass from it, it carries trumpeters and the battle standard, etc.)

Crazy antipasta.  Cup of liver, anyone?  No?  How about seventeen cured meats and a selection of delicious toasted topped breads?

Nana really wanted her some stewed veal, and that's what she got.  Though we think it was vitellone, or old veal.  (Italians differentiate between types of veal.)  She was hoping for some stewed veggies in there, but... nope.  If the Italian menu says stewed veal, that's what you get... just stewed veal.

Luckily, she ordered a sformato di spinaci for the side - a spinach pudding.  We ordered one too.

Puddingy!

Husbear and I, of course, did some coursing...

Primi - a risotto with lettuce, gorgonzola, and nettles!  Sounds tastier than the execution really was, I think.  Though I could just eat a wedge of blue cheese.

And a dish of pici, that famous Sienese pasta, here their house version - ham, mushrooms, onions, creamy, yummy.  Not homemade, I don't think - the shapes seemed a little too regular for that.

We split a secondo, a sliced meatloaf in peppercorn cream sauce.  Good, though too salty, I thought.

Dessert - "Do you have amaro?"  No.  "Limoncello?"  No.  GRAPPA.

Theirs was in a bottle with pear and coffee - a really good idea, though it was time to change out the flavorants.  Husbear is really liking the grappa.  Yurch.

Next morning - back to Nannini!  Not for panforte this time, but for breakfast.  Can you believe we did this to my grandmother?  I'm kind of embarassed showing it, but it's too funny not to share.

The morning was spent first at a Chagall and Miro' exhibit, which we enjoyed.  I'm a big Chagall fan (the museum of his works outside of Nice is well worth the trip, if you find yourself in the area), though not so much Miro'.  Sorry, guy.

No cameras here.

So, how about food stores instead?  Siena has some great ones!

Here's one with a bike in front that Nana wanted us to document for my uncle Erik.  Cool wicker bicycle, though I was more impressed with the prosciutto hanging in the window.  But that's me.  Always.

So, you know the color Sienna?  Named after the town, which is all that burnt orangey-brown because of the color of the soil surrounding the place.

We took a midday bus out of town, feeling pretty good about what we'd seen.  Goodbye, Siena - we liked your wisteria!  And your church was pretty cool, too.

And, we're off!  We don't get back until Tuesday, so please cut us some slack at least until then...

girlie

Curry and BRAIIINSSS!

So Apicius is chugging along at a fast clip. We now officially have less than two weeks until the final restaurant simulation. Wow.

However, in the meantime, we have been doing some pretty rockin’ stuff and I thought I’d share a particularly interesting day with you. My favorite class this semester is World Cuisine. It is taught by the one, the only, the giant among men, Il Barba. This man loves food (like really, really, really loves it). So he can’t help but say yes if we want to stray from the curriculum and make a few dishes that have piqued our fancy.

This was the case a couple of weeks ago during our Indian Foods class. We were slated to make a slew of curries and tandoori and whatnot, but I’ve been having a real hankering to work more with the NastyBits. You know, the parts that normally get thrown away or makes people go all wrinkly nosed with, “That? Eww. Are you kidding? I would never eat that.”

To these folks I would advise a quick retreat back to their boneless, skinless, chicken breast world and let the rest of us get on with some real eating. These low men on the meat totem pole can be seriously delicious if handled properly. More people are catching on as recently the NastyBits have experienced a little status boost thanks to the concept of Nose to Tail eating. It’s kind of that old Indian philosophy that says if you’re going to hunt it done and kill it you’d better use every part of it.

But enough of that. Back to food. Il Barba appeared on our appointed day carrying a large dripping plastic bag. He proceeded to pull out pig intestines, liver, veal brains, chicken hearts and cockscomb (the flappy thing on top of the rooster). We gathered around.

Il Barba was raised on this stuff and he wanted to start with his grandmother’s intestine recipe, a very Tuscan preparation where the long tube is cleaned, cut into tiny snippets and then braised for a long time with garlic, rosemary, white wine and tomato. Why not?

Next we started on the cibrèo. Cibrèo is a very old chicken stew based basically on various chicken organs and scraps. You start by cooking down the livers and hearts (adding some herbs and other aromatics if you want) then you throw in anything you can get your hands on: the cockscomb, the testes, nervetti, embryonic eggs, anything really. Add some water or broth and cook until everything is done.

The last step is to thicken the mess with a mixture of eggs and lemon juice. This is the defining step that makes cibrèo, cibrèo. Spoon it out over some toasted bread and you’re in for a seriously old school gastronomic treat. The cockscomb has a particularly nice texture. It’s a little chewy but soft- kind of like the rind of parmesan that you find floating in pots of soup around here.

Il Barba pulled out the brain. “I cooked this last week for my young son. When my wife came home from work his whole face was covered with it. She barely had time to make it to the bathroom.” I guess this proves that not even all Italians are big organ fans.

John, one of the guys in my class started blanching the brain in acidulated water. In an unfortunate turn of phrase he announced, “If any one here ever needs brains, I’m your man!” He cringed and stammered a quick retraction as the alternate slang of his pronouncement set in.

Once the brains were blanched we took off the membrane, sliced them and dipped them in a simple batter. After deep frying them to a golden brown you just serve them with some sea salt and a squeeze of lemon. The flavor isn’t much, but the texture is amazing. It’s super soft and pillowy like a whipped oyster mousse.

The cooking done, we laid out our huge spread. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend serving traditional style Indian food with Italian style organ meats. However, in this particular case I can’t complain. Everything was delicious and now I have a great idea for some curried testes and palak intestines.

A dopo. -L. Pants

Rainy Florence with Nana

So, Internet's on the fritz.  Again.  We're back at the bar with the free internet, sitting with potato chips and wine.  This means NO TIME.  So, fast post!

I went to the airport to get Nana on April 3.  She didn't get off the plane I was expecting her to.  Luckily, a nice woman adopted me and took me to the Air France counter, where I learned Nana would be coming in three hours.  So I prepared to wait.

And the power went out. 

Several times.  By the time Nana arrived, sans luggage, it seemed like they had the power figured out.  I got Nana home and we fed her lasagna.

Husbear says this is a gross picture.  I don't agree.

The next day dawned rainy.

See?

We looked around and got rained on some more.

We were thinking "museum", but we didn't know which one - see, the lines for the Uffizi and the Accademia have been so long, that we went and bought tickets for later in the week, and we didn't want to buy more.

So we looked at the Duomo.

I was excited to see that the copies of Ghiberti's doors had finally been uncovered, on the Baptistery.  They've been under wraps since we got here!  My Old Testament knowledge came in handy, but I wasn't able to figure out what all the scenes were.  Beautiful to look at, though!

We went into the Duomo and looked around a bit, and then Nana wanted to see the remains of the church that was replaced by the Duomo.  They're right underneath, in a small museum that's usually totally empty.  The signage is horrible, so it's hard to tell what you're looking at, but there are little maps talking about the remaining pavement.  Some of it's pre-Roman, though the part in this picture was probably the original mosaic floor of Santa Reparata.  We think.

Here's some spurs they found under the church.  Still with little bits of fabric remaining!

There were lots of tombstones around.  Dates were hard to come by, though we did find a couple that were from the mid 1100s.

Having wandered the full underground area, we left the Duomo and went around to the back.  That's where you can find the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum that holds all of the church's original artwork.  It's really interesting, and usually there's nobody there.

It has one of Michelangelo's last sculptures, a Pieta' that was supposed to decorate his tomb.  That's a self-portrait as Nicodemus.

The museum also contains an extravagantly spooky Donatello.  It's Mary Magdalene, clothed in her hair.  Cloaked in crazy, I think.

Though I have to say my favorite things there were in the room of panels.  Who they're by escapes me at the moment, and since I'm running low on time I'll just have to make my apologies... but they run through a history of Man, starting with the Old Testament and ending with allegories of the Renaissance creation of sculpture, architecture, et cetera. 

Here's Gd creating woman from man's rib.  Nana didn't see the woman right away, and turning to me said "but Eve has a penis!"  Then she saw what she was missing...

My personal favorite was this one, the creation of wine.  Or perhaps the creation of overindulgence?

(Correction - thanks, Tom!  This is actually drunk Noah exposing himself, a story taken straight out of Genesis.  Oh, that crazy dog.  Look for another fresco of naked Noah exposing himself in San Gimignano, if the pictures we took in the church came out OK.)

Creepiest artifact?  Brunelleschi's death mask.  He designed the Duomo's dome, so his death mask shares room with a bunch of old tools.  Dignified, I suppose?

The museum is proudest of the original panels Ghiberti created for the Baptistry.  There are eight of them on display right now - they rotate in and out of the museum, since they're in almost constant restoration.  Apparently, there are caustic compounds between the bronze plating and the wood that's backing the scenes.  I imagine this is a sticky problem.

After all this art, it was time for gelato!  So, we went to Grom - just a block or so away.  Their April flavor is white chocolate, by the way.  Nana got dark chocolate and pistacchio.  And liked them - a lot.

Dinner was good - a solid place called Pane e Vino near our house, on Via dell'Agnolo.  It's cheap and dependable.  Nana got to have a really good Tuscan vegetable soup that made her very happy.

And then we went by Santa Croce again on the way home.  Oh well, you have to walk home some way, right?

Day One.  Mama Bear arrives Thursday, and pending Interet, I hope to have wrestled this dang blog up to date!  Look for more posts.  Hopefully.  Pray to the Internet gods for us!

Seder in Florence

During the couple of days we had between guests at the beginning of April, Passover hit!

A seder was thus definitely in order.  For those of you who don't know what a seder is, it's the traditional Jewish meal served during the holiday of Passover.  Every family has its own rituals, but basically the meal is preceded by a retelling of the escape from Egypt led by Moses.  With lots of singing. And drinking.

It takes a good bit of preparation to put together the Seder meal.  There's a traditional plate that's used, which has to have certain ritual objects represented.  We didn't have a true Seder plate, which is marked with what goes where.  Oh well - we did have a pretty china plate!

What you see on there is a cup of salt water (to represent the tears of the slaves), a roasted egg (represents sacrifice and Spring), Italian parsley (bitter, like the bitterness of slavery - you dip in the salt water to eat), a roasted lamb shankbone (also represents sacrifice), haroset, and prepared horseradish, since we couldn't find fresh.

The haroset, on the bottom, looks like the mortar the Jews used while they were slaves.  I'm the one who makes it around here.  Here's the ingredients for this year's incarnation:

And then you chop and throw everything together.  It's pretty simple, and gets better as the days go by.  Of course, after a while it starts to ferment, but then hey, it's party time!  There are lots of different ways to make haroset, depending on where your Jewish ancestors hailed from.  My family always uses Eastern European variations.  (I may have to try one of these out next year.)

The haroset gets put on a piece of matzah spread with horseradish to make my favorite Passover treat, the Hillel Sandwich.

Husbear went out the day Passover started to pick up some matzah, the traditional unleavened bread - an absolute must, since Jews can't eat regular leavened bread during the 8 days of Passover.  Pickings were slim.  He ended up with a kilo of matzah.  I'm still working my way through it.

Husbear spent a good bit of time before our friend Anna arrived preparing things for the meal.  I'm going to let him tell you what he did to this poor little lamb leg, still complete with its tuft of fur.

Ooh! Weee! I gets to writes. I'm on the internets and stuff! (Normally Mme. Pants beats me if I get near the computer.)  However, lamb is important -so with special dispensation I can lamb it up (get lamby with it?).

Basically, this is a prepartation that I stole from the awesome resturant that I've been working at.  First you trim up the overly fatty and grisly bits and then proceed to cut out the big bone in the middle.  You stuff the center with rosemary and thyme (and thick slices of pancetta if this wasn't a pork-free jewstravaganza) and then give it a healthy salt and pepperering. 

Then you tie it up real tight like (warning: do not make fun of my trussing skills.   I was in a hurry, my hands were greasy, I went blind and was overcome with vertigo. Look I'm sure there's a good reason why this thing looks like a game of Cat's Cradle played by a poorly trained intoxicated monkey but it escapes me at the moment.)

Anyway, brown the whole thing on all sides in a really, really hot pan.  When it's caramelly delicious looking, put the pan in the oven at 220°C until it's almost done.  When that is will depend on lots of things so you should probably use a thermometer.  Next, I let it cool a bit, took off the string and then put on a crust made of almonds, rasins, rosemary and anchovies.  I browned the crust all nice and crispy and then that leg was bona fide table ready.  Slice and eat.

Now back to the lady:

Our friend Anna arrived bearing side dishes and dessert and a little memory stick, on which she had downloaded several haggadot - that's the book you read during the meal to make sure you're doing everything correctly.  We set the computer up on the table and started the ceremony.  We're high-tech!

This is usually quite a meal.  You don't eat until several hours after you sit down, after the story has been told, two glasses of wine have been drunk (seriously, it says so right there in the book), and various songs have been sung and prayers have been made.  I remember when I was a child that I'd get so hungry while the parents were talking that I'd welcome the point in the seder when you eat the parsely dipped in salt water.  It tasted SO GOOD.

During Passover, you have to have matzah ball soup.  This is probably the most famous Jewish dish - dumplings made of matzah meal, served with vegtables in a chicken soup.  I've heard a cute anecdote about matzah ball soup - Marilyn Monroe was on a publicity tour in New York City, and after being served matzoh ball soup for the third meal in a row, she asked her manager, "Isn't there any other part of the matzah you can eat?"

Heh.

Husbear made a true soup (I've usually just settled for the Manishevitz mix), with actual chicken stock and ground matzah for the matzah meal.  He even added duck fat to the dumplings, in a bit of a departure from the traditional schmaltz (chicken fat.)

The perfect start to the meal.  We wolfed it down and moved almost immediately on to the lamb, now roasted perfectly and served with the veggies Anna brought.  She managed to make a delicious fennel and cauliflower roast in her little toaster oven, no easy feat.  The perfect lamb side dish, and she hadn't even known we were having lamb!

The lamb was the tenderest meat I've ever eaten.  It was pillowy, I swear - I wanted to take a nap right in the middle of it.  The flavorful crust was just awesome with the soft meat, and the vegetables couldn't have been better - fennel and cauliflower actually makes a really good combination.

The lamb gravy was delicious overkill.  Unlike so many roasted meats, this one had no need of moistening - but it sure was a tasty sauce.

One of the refrains from the Seder is "It would have been enough," or Dayenu, in Hebrew.  It's part of a song that thanks G-d for delivering the Jews from slavery, bringing them through the desert, feeding them, giving them the land of Israel, et cetera.

So, this meal would have been enough, but Anna had a delicious dessert up her sleeve.  (She's studying baking and pastry at Apicius and LOVES making desserts.)

A white chocolate souffle with whipped cream - and matzo brittle!

This was Husbear's first time trying matzo brittle, matzo covered in caramel and chocolate - and I'm pretty sure he liked it.  A lot.

Fully sated, we pushed ourselves back from the table and sang a couple more Passover songs.  Another Seder done.

The traditional line to end the Seder is "Next Year in Jerusalem."  But for the two of us, who knows?

Wrapping up the wine jaunt - Montalcino and Montepulciano

After a lovely morning of trying Croce di Mezzo's tasty wines, we headed into nearby Montalcino to get a brief taste of the town and grab some lunch.

Montalcino is a pretty little hilltop town.  (Look at the last post for a view of the whole place.)  We rather liked this cathedral, and were sort of surprised to read that Lonely Planet describes it as "an ugly 19th-century neoclassical travesty."  Maybe we all just like neoclassical travesties?

Walking down the main drag, we spotted a good-sounding restaurant from our Lonely Planet and decided to drop in and investigate.

Osteria di Porta al Cassero was full of Italian families enjoying a late Saturday lunch.  We placed our order and then sat back, only to have our very generous crostini misti plate arrive almost instantaneously!

It's a measure of both how hungry we were and how good it looked that we forgot to take a picture until we had started to demolish the plate...

This was a really generous crostini plate, for only 3.50 euro - there were five kinds of crostini represented!  One was toscani (chicken liver pate), one porcini mushroom, one a onion jam, one tomato sauce, and one fresh tomato.  All quite good, we thought.

After that, we only ordered one course.  Keef was feeling a bit cold, so he went for the "zuppa di pane", or bread soup - actually a thick vegetable soup served over Tuscan bread.

Jodi and Husbear were feeling more pasta-ey, so Jodi ordered the Maccheroni al Sugo (which was a long, thick ribbon pasta, not elbow macaroni, and which we only photographed blurrily), and Husbear got the Pinci co' le briciole, pici pasta with bread crumbs.  True cucina povera, or cooking of the poor.  Both of their pastas were fresh, homemade, and absolutely stellar.

And I got tongue.  It was on the menu, and this seemed like the place to finally give it a try.  I thought it was really tasty - it reminded me of the bollito sandwich at Nerbone, which is a fatty boiled beef cut.  Though this was topped with a delicious basil, parsley, and caper sauce.  Husbear pointed out that I'd probably eat anything topped with capers, and he's right.

It was a little surprising that the tongue came with its own contorni, or vegetable sides - I've gotten used to this not being the case in Italian restaurants.

We were completely stuffed at this point, so we asked for one (1) tiramisu to split.  The waiter looked at us strangely, but he did bring it, and it was just as good as the rest of the meal.

I think the four of us would strongly recommend this restaurant to anyone finding themselves in Montalcino near mealtime.  They did solid Tuscan food, with an even more local emphasis.  I'd really like to try their tripe.

Lunch finished, we walked the rest of the way down the main road to the Fortezza, or fortress.  Gotta love a fortress with a wine bar in it...

Just on the other side of the fortress was a small garden with beautiful views back towards town.  It looked like it would have been a great place to sit with a picnic lunch and a bottle of local wine.

Unfortunately, it was really time for us to be going if we wanted to see anywhere else before heading back to Florence.  We retrieved the car and drove towards Montepulciano.

We did have to stop a few times to admire the Crete Senese, or Sienese hills - covered with wildflowers this time of year.  The grape vines were just starting to bud, as well.

Just makes you want to roll down the hill, doesn't it?  We didn't, since we had places to be.

Here, specifically.

That town on top of the hill is Montepulciano.  Wine people likely recognize the name, because of the town's famous Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.  The town does have a lot of un-wine-related beauty, though. 

Like a Fiat CinqueCento convention!  (yeah, probably not every day.  But hey, how awesome is that?)

This is a car that invites crazed loyalty.  Sort of like the Volkswagen Beetle.  They're much too cute not to love.

Montepulciano is a very Tuscan town, with evidence of the Medici everywhere.  Once you learn to recognize their family crest, with the six balls, it's amazing how often it turns up.  (Here, it's in the top of that well you see between the buildings.)

And you have to love the shades of brown.  Jodi and Keef were so excited to see all of the wall treatments visible in the town.

Of course, there are enoteche all over town selling the local wines.  They're really tempting! 

On the other side of Piazza Grande, we found an overlook that allowed spectacular views across the lower part of town and the valley below.  What a wonderful place!

While we were in town, we knew we had to go visit a cantine - a place where we could learn a bit more about the local wines and hopefully even taste a few.

The first one we looked at was rather uninviting... and smelled sort of strongly like weed, which was a little odd, given that it didn't appear too laid-back!

We recrossed Piazza Grande and walked through an open door into Cantine Contucci.  There was nobody in sight, and we walked in.   I was in the back and turned around to find a crotchety-looking older man staring at me, and asked him if we could enter.  He waved us on, looking perurbed...

When we finished our exploration, I tried to ask him a few questions in Italian, and he lit up.  He talked with Husbear about learning Italian cooking, stroked the back of my head (sort of creepily, I thought), and expounded to us about Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.  Apparently, it got its name by being the favored wine of the Medici.

We bought a bottle of his wine.  By this time, it was getting late in the afternoon - so, back to the car, back to the Florence airport, back to the house...

Jodi and Keef had what I hope was a relaxing last night in town before having to catch their flight to Paris in the morning.  They had an overnight in Paris before flying back to Houston... and I hope that went well!

Next posts - seder, and then on to Nana's visit!  And I'm trying to talk husbear into a cookin' post, but we shall see.

Fun with our search terms!

We like to track what brings people to our site.  Who wouldn't?  So, tonight's winner:

German Google, with "The Cats and the Griddle and the Silver Spoon."

We love you, searcher, for the mental images you provide.  And we hope our site was helpful!

love,

girlie and husbear.

Back to J/K, this time in the hinterlands of Tuscany!

'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!

Waiting time at the Uffizi - it's tourist season!

Waiting time at the Uffizi - it's tourist season!, originally uploaded by bootsintheoven.

So, anyone wanna come visit us? The weather's sunny and clear, the tourists are showing off their shiny spring plumage, and the scent of motorini wafts enticingly through the air.  The population here in Florence has become both larger and pinker (sunburnt Americans and Brits) and shorter and darker (influx of Japanese and Chinese tour groups).

More and more people have arrived, ready to treat Florence as their own personal Disneyland, where all you have to do is yell a little louder for people to understand you.  We're back to hearing more American English on the streets than Italian.  (And yes, thank you, I'm aware that we're here and we're American.)

This is the waiting time for the Uffizi, yesterday, April 11, 2007.

Look for a new post about wine country hopefully later in the day.

Buona Pasqua! E Anche, Tanti Auguri a GQ!

To those of you who celebrate it (including, I've heard, something in the neighborhood of 97 percent of Italians), a Happy Easter!  Buona Pasqua to the Italians!

And a Happy Birthday to Husbear's dad GQ.  Tanti Auguri, many best wishes, and we are glad we caught your busy self on the phone earlier!

So, you know what Nana, Husbear, and I did today for Easter?  We watched the Florentines blow up a 250 year old cart!

We arrived in Piazza del Duomo at 10:40 this morning for the Scoppio del Carro, or Explosion of the Cart, which was supposed to take place at 11.  The whole area was already completely packed with spectators and the large cart had already been pulled into place by oxen.  Positioning ourselves in the crowd took a little work, but we eventually got to a place where we could see... a little bit.  At least we could see the flags thrown by the standard bearers when they were at the top of their arc.

Just after 11, a small rocket shaped like a dove flew from the Duomo and ignited the cleansing fire of the cart.  (Seriously.  The tradition dates back to the Crusades and has to do with the cleansing fire of Christendom being brought to the heathens during the First Crusade in 1096.  The tradition has been carried on since 1102!)  The same cart has been in use since the 18th century, loaded down every year with fireworks.

Lucky Husbear's got those long arms - it was the only way we were able to get any pictures of what was actually happening!  All around us, children were on shoulders and people lifted cameras high into the air to hopefully capture the happenings.

We couldn't believe just how many fireworks had been loaded onto this cart.  Some flew high into the air above us, sparking against the thick clouds of smoke, while others were on frames attached to the cart itself and swirled around and around.

Soot settled slowly on our upturned faces and the air soon became totally full of smoke.  It was a terrific spectacle - but if we come again, we will be sure to arrive a little earlier!

The final shebang blew open a flag on top of the cart - I think three flags were supposed to unfurl, but ony one did.  We worked our way upstream against the people leaving to see if there was anything to see up front.

Men in costumes milled around, and carters hauled small carts full of olive branches that they distributed to the crowd.

We stuck around for just a few minutes, until we were certain the spectacle was over.

However, lest you think that Florentine Easter is all about only the fireworks and the explosions and the smoke and flame, let me remind you that we are in Italy and so... FOOD!

Here's a piglet in his Easter finery.  Lambs have been all over the place, too, hung whole but skinned with little tufts of fur above their cute little hooves.

We spotted this fun-looking bread in the bakery on our corner late last week.  Seems like the shells would make this sort of difficult to pick through, but we get shrimp shells off of shrimp in dishes, so why not?

Italians are very much into Easter eggs.  Some of the eggs we saw were HUGE, and I've read that you can find any manner of surprise in them, up to and including car keys and engagement rings.  In that light, I guess this 250 euro specimen isn't all that shocking.  Wait.  YES IT IS.

This was in one of our favorite stores to browse, Alessi, just a block south of the Duomo.  A couple of weeks ago, we walked into the store to find they had been taken over by Easter spirit.

It's a pretty store to wander normally, but this time we had to move more quickly than usual lest I be tempted by the beautiful chocolates and candies on display.

Though we were easily able to leave behind the enormous eggs.  Out of our price range.

Of course, it wasn't just the regular shops that were full of easter candies.  The caffes and pasticceria had also really outdone themselves.  View the windows of Gilli, one of the grand caffes on Piazza della Repubblica:

Beautifully colored chocolate eggs and trees.

And little chocolate dogs, for the nontraditional:

But it was the chocolatiers that had really outdone themselves.  The displays at Vestri, on Borgo degli Albizi, are always nice for a look - but the last couple of weeks they've been just a riot of spring color.

Of course, it's always more fun when you can actually SEE the chocolate, which Andrea Bianchini's shop on Via de Macci was more than happy to accommodate.

(He had the most darling ghost egg, but it was missing from the window when we went to take photos!)

As always, wish you were here!  We could look shiftily at chocolate eggs together.  This one was just outside of Siena and wishes a happy Easter to all the customers frequenting the bar.

Next, back to the regularly scheduled program.  Wine country with J/K, and then on to Florence, and Siena with Nana!

J/K's limited engagement in the Cinque Terre

After basking for several days in what turned out to be very cold and rainy weather in Florence, Jodi and Keef were ready to head to the coast.  Specifically, the Cinque Terre, on the recommendation of Jodi's sister Mama Bear.  (She must have had a good time when we were there in September.)

The Cinque Terre, literally "Five Lands," are found on the Mediterranean coastline in Liguria, the state just north and west of Tuscany.  Roads didn't connect them until the 1980s, at which point tourists started arriving.  The towns are beautiful, strung along the coast like little gems.

I've learned something new this year - high season for travel into Italy begins April 1.  So, last week all five of the Cinque Terre towns were spit-polishing in preparation for the onslaught.  Seaside walks were being paved, railings were being painted, and buildings were being repaired.  (To see what the Cinque Terre looked like during high season, follow those links above.)

Foodwise, the Cinque Terre are known for their farinata (a thin baked chickpea pancake,) as well as their pesto and light white wines.  (And a delicious dessert wine calle sciacchetra.)  Pesto is for sale in almost all of the little tourist shops, and it's not cheap! 

The area is also full of ceramics shops.  The style here is different from what you see around Florence - lemons figure really prominently, for one thing.

We arrived in Monterosso, the largest of the five towns, midday after a morning train out of Florence.  After dropping our bags off and having a light foccaccia-based lunch on the sea, we went for a little poking around town.

We looked into the adorable little striped church of San Giovanni Battista (St. John the Baptist), begun in 1307.  It obviously still enjoys regular use - a group of kids were meeting in the central nave.

Right next door, we saw the Oratory of the Dead - a rather oddly decorated building that used to belong to a Catholic organization that arranged funerals and cared for widows and orphans.  Skeletons abounded. 

This carved bench was particularly awesome.

Monterosso is just such a cute little town.  There's a lot more going on there than in the other towns, which is why we like it as a place to stay.  And the colors...

Though the boats between the towns weren't supposed to be running, we had seen a schedule posted that made it look like they might be.  So, when we found ourselves at the dock just before 3 in the afternoon and saw a boat loading passengers, I took off to find out if we could get on.  The ticket office was closed, so I ran up to the boat and asked if we could buy tickets.  "Groups only," they said.  "But, if you're going to Riomaggiore..."  We were.  So, they took us!  (Sometimes, seventeen words of Italian really does help.)

It's really a treat to see the towns from the sea.  (See our pictures from September here.)  Jodi and Keef seemed to like it, anyway.

We zipped directly from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, the first town.  Everything was beautiful, though it was a little nippy on the water.  Here's Manarola, town number two:

We arrived in Riomaggiore very quickly and disembarked with a large school group.  I'm so happy Jodi and Keef got to take a boat in the Cinque Terre!

Riomaggiore is a cute little town.  We usually don't spend much time there as we're always itching to get on the Via dell'Amore (Walk of Love) to Manarola, town #2.  Smile!

Though technically, access to the water is prohibited off of of the small boat ramp, we jumped the rope and went in.  Danger: Area By The Sea!  (I think they mean "slippery.")

Since the weather was quite a bit nicer than in Florence, we snapped up some gelato and wandered the streets a bit.

My strawberry was good, though it was actually strawberry-banana.  The lemon, though, was wonderful and even had a few lemon seeds in it!  Authentic.

Since it was getting a little late in the day to start out on a walk over to Manarola, we decided to hop back on the train to have an aperitivo (before-dinner drink) in Vernazza.  This is Rick Steves' favorite town in Rick Steves' favorite Italian place, so the number of Americans there is always staggering.  This time of year, though, it was relatively peaceful and uncrowded.

It does seem like Americans on vacation here have a need to talk to other Americans that we don't see nearly as much here in Florence.  "So, where ya from?  Whatcha doin?" 

Anyway, we stopped into a little bar just off the harbor that I remembered from our trip here in September.  We had a couple of glasses of lovely local wine and snacked on the offerings set out on the bar.

This is one thing I'm definitely going to miss when I get back to the States.  Around happy hour time, if you buy a drink in a bar, you have free access to their bar snacks - which are often quite a bit more elaborate than peanuts and potato chips.  (Though sometimes they are... peanuts and potato chips.)  Here, for instance, there are two types of salami - spicy and mortadella, two types of cheese - marinated sheep's cheese and parmigiano-reggiano, foccaccia topped with flavorful local olive oil, and three different types of bruschetta - anchovy/oil, crab, and prosciutto. 

Of course, they make fun of you if you overload your plate - it's really about a light snack, not making your meal out of bar snacks.

After grazing a bit here, we went across the harbor to another bar, where we got prosecco and took it out to a bench by the sea.

We headed back to Monterosso, happier and more relaxed than when we arrived, and went to our hotel to prepare for dinner.  We decided to go to the restaurant owned by the same people as the hotel, the Ristorante Belvedere right on the waterfront (and under the rumbling train tracks).

Their specialty is a 45 euro seafood hotpot for two, complete with a lobster and several octopi.  The ladies at the table behind us ordered it, so I asked if I could take a picture.

Impressive!

We decided on a black and white homemade pasta with mussels, along with a penne with scampi.  Both were good, though the servings were ENORMOUS!  We continued with the first stuffed mussels I've ever really enjoyed (I suppose being fresh and still warm would give them an advantage over the cold old kind often found on seafood antipasti plates) and a mixed grill.

See?  HUGE servings!  The food was good, though, and the sciaccetra after dinner was as nice as I remembered it - though a bit sweeter.  (That's the local after-dinner drink made from dried grapes.)

We walked back to our hotel in the new town, completely satisfied with a day gone well.

The next morning, off to the beach!  Atlas holds up part of the cliff.

Keef tried skipping some rocks, but the waves kept eating them.  Not nearly as calm as the Cane River Lake!

After a brief walk back through Monterosso's new town, we bought our Cinque Terre Cards including transportation and hopped on the train to Riomaggiore.  Since we had explored the town rather thorougly the previous day, we went straight over to the Via dell'Amore to start making our way over to Manarola.

At first, we had the trail nearly to ourselves.  The park-run bar at the start of the path was empty.

The graffiti problem was just as pervasive and disappointing as I remembered, but the views more than made up for it.

It is called the Walk of Love, after all!  The weather was just perfect.

Some school groups came along and pressed us out of the way.  They were all Italian, though it seemed to us like all the individual travelers we saw were German or American.  Regardless, it was still far less crowded than in September!

There's just no real way that pictures of this area can do it justice.  Beauty is everywhere, in the cliffs falling towards the sea, in the terracing of the vineyards, and in the blooming of the succulents.

And let's not forget the clarity of the water!

You just have to stare.  And for several minutes at a time, we'd have the trail to ourselves - no other voices could be heard.  We listened to the faraway crash of the waves and the calls of the seagulls.

We made it to Manarola in about a half an hour.  It's a really easy walk.  Unfortunately, the path from Manarola to Corniglia was closed due to a rockslide, so we would have to take a train to get there.  I was none too happy about this, since that path is really scenic and graffiti-free.  Oh well, we were short on time anyway.

Manarola, though.  Very pretty, nestled below some seriously vertical vineyards.

Interestingly, a local landowner has decided to spruce up his hillside with scenes from the Bible.  He lights them up around holidays.  I imagine so many were set up right now because we're getting so close to Easter?

We bought some farinata stuffed with strachino cheese, as well as focaccia topped with tomatoes, and found a beautiful rock to sit on down by the water.

The water was so clear, we could see the sea urchins settled menacingly on the bottom.  Ducks and a couple of seagulls eyed us hopefully, but got nothing.

While we were sitting there, suddenly we noticed a boat being levered over our heads.  It was attached to a long arm with a pulley at the end, and it's used to get boats all the way down to the water from the cliffs above.  I imagine this was quite a pain in the butt before easy electrical power.

Full and happy and having seen the local economy at work, we walked back to the train station to catch the train to town #3, Corniglia.

We weren't able to stay very long, unfortunately (it is my favorite town of the five), but we did go up to the scenic overlook.

We admired the terraced vegetable gardens and vineyards, just starting to sprout for the new growing season.

All too soon, we had to quickly book it back to Monterosso to catch a train.  We had PLANS.  Jodi and I bought train tickets (would you believe only 11 euros per person for three hours of regional trains?) while Keef went back to the hotel to gather our bags.

Then we waited.  But luckily not for too long, because poor Keef...

Too bad, because our train to La Spezia was late and we ended up not making our six-minute connection to Pisa.

We did find a really nice little kiosk across the street with outdoor tables, so we ended up sitting there and enjoying a between-train glass of wine.  We also made fun of the American lady who tried to order a glass of wine in French (in Italy?) but didn't actually know the words for "Red" or "Wine" in either language.

Keef was nonplussed.

The couple who ran the place, who were absolute sweethearts, brought us snacks - bread topped with 'nduja (spicy delicious pork fat mixed with peperoncino) and an olive tapenade, along with potato chips and corn nuts.  (Yup, corn nuts!)

We caught the next train to Pisa, crossed the street, hopped a bus, and ten minutes later...

This was made a lot easier because we only had small bags, but it's a good thing to remember - you can easily turn an hour and a half layover in Pisa into a visit to the Duomo and the Leaning Tower.  Of course, we didn't get to go into anything since it was closed, but we did get to see the outside.

And then, we chanced a Rick Steves recommended restaurant just a block from the station and got several delicious enormous pastas and this big steak and mushroom mess, which Keef was very happy to see.

Warmed through and through, we walked back to the train station and hopped the train back to Florence.  It was really late when we arrived (and poor Jodi and Keef had 8:15 AM Accademia reservations) but we sure had crammed a lot into barely two days!

Things have been busy around here, too - Jodi and Keef left Sunday for an overnight in Paris, on Monday we hosted a fun little seder, and on Tuesday my grandmother arrived... Air France.... sans luggage.  At least that's been rectified now.

I'm hoping to get a post up about the wonderful time we had with Jodi and Keef driving to Montalcino and Montepulciano... but that might have to wait a few days.  Until then, ciao!