Tag Archives: gelato

A Wonderful World

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Pick a day of the week, any day, and I’ll give an example of why I’d rather spend it in Florence. Wednesday, for instance:
Lunch at Sergio’s. I think we are official regulars.
I got their ribollita for the second time because I wanted to re-try it after I had it at Mario’s. For comparison’s sake, of course. Sergio’s version is chunkier, you can see the pieces of vegetables and soaked bread, whereas Mario’s was smoother, almost like it was pureed. Sergio’s uses better olive oil, but also tastes a bit more cabbage-y than Mario’s (I’m not much for cabbage)…I think it’s a toss-up. They are each amazingly delicious and soul-satisfying in their own right. This is one love triangle I hope is never resolved ;)
Unfortunately, a large part of my day was spent sleeping. One nap after Italian in the morning, and another in the late afternoon. Sleep and I have a very interesting, ever-changing relationship, and right now we are having some schedule difficulties. It will work itself out eventually; right now, I’m just taking it when I can get it and focusing on getting work done and erasing stress.
I started to get antsy after an all-too sedentary day last night while working and decided that a walk was just the medicine I needed. It was nice to just get out and get some air and do some thinking. And get gelato.
I walked by Carabe, one of the places nearby which seems to have mysterious opening hours that are always ‘just wrong’, and when I saw it open, I took it as a sign. Who am I to mess with fate?
I have gone once before and got the almond, but was a bit underwhelmed by it. My roommate went recently and raved about the tiramisu, so obviously I had to give them another chance! There was also kiwi on that cone – not because it’s the perfect compliment to tiramisu, but really because it looked good and I wanted to try it. I gobbled it down before Frida came out, but it looked like what you might imagine kiwi gelato does – pale green with little black seeds. It was deeelicious. The tiramisu was a semifreddo, not gelato, which basically means it’s a kind of cold mousse instead of frozen. It was heavy on the coffee flavor–but that’s a good thing! It was good. Tiramisu gelato is one of the funnest flavors to try because you never know what it’s going to be like; some are more coffee-y, some are more rum-y, some are blended smooth and others have actual pieces of tiramisu in them. It’s a wonderful world.
The sky looked so cool, I couldn’t resist taking Frida out again. She was in one of her moods and it’s a little blurry, but doesn’t this picture make it look like the bell tower is fake? Like one of those little models architects use. I swear it’s real!
I didn’t really sleep and have a neck/head ache that would stagger a horse, but I’m doing just fine because it’s Thursday, and that means one thing…
COOKING CLASS!!!
Not until I’ve had my oats, of course:
Doesn’t it look like the vanilla is giving the cocoats a big hug? …Well, I thought so. I swear I’m not crazy…just, um, creative.

But back to the show.
Today’s class was focused on cooking with FRUIT! Quite possibly my favorite food category. I don’t take pictures of everything I eat, mostly because it’s just not all that interesting or photogenic, but if I did – you would be very sick of apples and pears. I think I eat at least one of each a day. Can’t wait for summer berries!!
NEEDless to say, I was quite excited about today. We started with a salad:

Spinach, artichoke hearts, chickpeas, red onion, pears, fresh buffalo mozzarella, dressed with lemon juice + olive oil + few drops of good aged balsamic vin.
Now, I grew up with the reigning queen of salads. My mother makes wonderful and creative salads not unlike this one, and I’m actually pretty envious of her ability to whip up the right dressing that complements the salad ingredients. That said, this salad blew my tastebuds away! The pears just made it. Although I would recommend using a more pungent cheese like a goat or bleu, would have been even better with the sweetness of the pear.
We also made some fresh rosemary focaccia to go with it (and by made, I mean actually hand-made it from ingredients-up, not just took it out of some plastic and threw it in the oven):

Oooh, this made me so happy. 
I’ve found I’m not such a fan of the oily, airy focaccia found in the bakeries here, but the focaccia we make in class (see our first here) is amazing. Dense and doughy but thin and chewy, with juuust the right saltiness. I had 4 small palm-sized pieces…I have no ability to resist when it comes to fresh bread. And yes, I know how to make it. Expect to see a lot of this rolling out of my kitchen when I’m home.
My 1st portion of salad + focaccia:
I had a large second helping of this stuff! I can’t wait to make it again!
Next up was my team’s dish:
Risotto alle fragole (strawberry risotto)!
Sounds weird, right? Well, it was. I have had it before, at a restaurant, and liked it a lot, but my tastebuds remained a bit confuzzled. It’s something like mac & cheese in its creaminess, but then there is the surprising sweetness of the strawberry. We made parmesan crisps to top it and finished it with a drizzle of balsamic. The crisps could not be easier – literally take a palm-ful (or however much you like) of grated parmesan cheese, put it in little circular piles on a baking sheet, and bake it for 5-10 (just watch it, it will turn golden-brown when done). Easy and quite pretty! Added a nice extra kick of cheesy flavor, too. I enjoyed the dish as a whole, but I’m not hankering to have it again. To be honest though, I think that has a lot more to do with the fact that I really just don’t like rice very much; it just does absolutely nothing for me. Perhaps I should try this with pasta? Hmm, experiment time…
Next dish:
Chicken with porcini mushrooms and green apple
This dish was fine. Acceptable. Perfectly edible. But I was unimpressed. We took a chicken breast and fried it in olive oil (about 5 minutes on each side), then covered it with the simmered porcini mushrooms and apples with some parsley and baked it for about 10 minutes covered with tin foil. It’s not that it was bad, it just didn’t appeal to me. I’m not a big meat eater anyway (fish, however, is a horse of a different color!), and the texture of the chicken was quite nice (not to chewy and slightly crispy), but overall…meh. Could have done without it happily. The mushroom-apple combo was not as striking as I expected, even with the saffron added (which I love!). Good, but not more than that.
I can’t say the same for the dessert…

Chocolate souffle.
This is, I believe, my first-ever experience with a souffle…and now I am wondering why. This. was. so. good. It had the light, fluffy texture of mousse that I adore but was warm and moist like cake fresh out of the oven. The chocolate was dark but not too heavy and all in all, this was a little ramekin of heaven. We did not alter this recipe, and the only fruit added was that raspberry that you seeon top, but I think it makes an important statement nutrition-wise: it’s perfectly healthy to eat indulgent foods! It’s all about the portion size. And what better an end to a meal than chocolate? Especially in carb-form. I left perfectly satisfied.
This class was the first that I didn’t go ga-ga over every single dish we made, but the salad, focaccia and dessert more than make up for the other two (which weren’t even bad, just not something I personally enjoyed as much as the others).

The rest of the day was spent in a nearby piazza with a nap in the sun and bit of dog-watching. Lovely.

I am not sure that I have formally discussed this other than maybe some lines here or there, but I am as of now looking into culinary school after next year’s graduation (aaah! senior year…how did this happen???). I have no idea what exact career I want–and by no idea, I mean I have about 30 different ones–but I do know that my passion for and fascination with food only seems to increase, and I’m following what I love. I would go for Baking/Pastry because that’s really what I love and where I feel I’m more creative, and, well, I’d much rather deal with finicky pate a choux than learn how to de-bone a duck. It’s something I’ve been putting off announcing mostly because whenever I ‘announce’ something like this, I end up going in a completely different direction. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, as long as I love it, but right now I’m so into the food world that the thought of me suddenly not going into it is too scary and sad for me to think of.
Just throwing it out there.

The British weekend is coming!

~Namaste~

Unreal

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On Sunday, my weekend adventures took me to Cinque Terre, five little hill towns on the Mediterranean coast on the northwestern side of Italy that are connected by a loooong trail. We went with Florence For Fun, a local travel agency that arranges spring break, long-weekend, and day trips for students in Florence. It was a great deal, too! Cinque Terre (literally, ‘five lands’) is world-renowned for its incredible natural beauty–it’s on UNESCO’s World Heritage List–and it has a fantastic hiking trail with some drop-dead gorgeous sites. It really felt like we were walking around inside a postcard. It was almost too beautiful to be real.
We arose at the obscene hour of 6 AM; well, my travel companions did…I fell back asleep and they jostled me awake at quarter to 7. Whoops! I also awoke to find my puffy face had returned; a mosquito must have bitten me last night. Grrr! It wasn’t as bad as last time, and faded by the time we got off the train in the first town, Riomaggiore. It seems that it’s not just Florentine weather that likes to trick us more than treat us, but all of Italy – it was cloudy and freezing when we got there! (Don’t worry, we sang “Oh Mr. Sun” in Italian and he eventually came out to de-thaw us!)
The big deal history-wise with Cinque Terre is its muretti, “little walls.” Despite its terrain being incredibly steep, rocky, and generally difficult to farm, its people have thrived as farmers from the first centuries AD. They propped up their farms and vineyards by building little stone walls – a lot of them. 11,000 kilometers (6836 miles), in fact, which is similar in length to the Great Wall of China. I know, crazy, right?? The craziest part is they did it completely by manual labor. SAY WHAT???
This mural was painted in recognition of those who built the walls. They deserve this and more! 11,000 KM!!!!
We didn’t actually go in to Riomaggiore; we pretty much got off the train, went to the bathroom and started hiking! Didn’t stop me from snapping away, of course:
The bar where we used the bathroom listed the ingredients used in the breads/pastries they sold. TOO COOL!! Look at all that real food - no artificial unpronouncable chemical ingredients here! This made me happy. [coughfoodgeekcoughcough]
The first trail, from Riomaggiore to Manarola, is called Via dell’Amore – The Lovers’ Walk. It was actually named by a journalist who was writing a story was walking on the path and found a note left by two young lovers. Awwwwwww!!!
Doesn’t everyone proclaim their love on a cactus leaf? I would.
When couples come to Cinque Terre they bring a lock and put it on rails, plants, nets, anything, then lock it and throw the key into the ocean. So sweet!
Ok, get ready for some serious picture overload. I’ll try to let the pictures speak for themselves and narrate only where necessary :)
Town #2: Manarola

Follow the “Indiana Jones” bridge to…
Town #3: Corniglia

LUNCH BREAK!!!
After all that walking + 382 stairs to get to Corniglia, our collective blood sugar was very low. BUT we were determined not to let our stomachs take us to the first (or second or third) touristy restaurant we found and wandered to find the “right” place. Jackpot!!!! We found a wine bar with a restaurant upstairs. Quiet, music in the background…and some seriously incredible eats & drinks.
We started with a necessary bottle of wine:
Cute label, right?! 
They only produce white wine in Cinque Terre, and I am not complaining – this was delicious! A little fizzy, a little sweet & sour. Very tasty. (and for 16 euro, I should hope so!)
I also split an appetizer with Alaina:
Anchovies!!! They are the specialty fish here, and I see why – these were amazing. Soft, tender, almost silky in texture, and they were drizzled in a garlic-infused olive oil with I think a bit of pesto on top. I need to find anchovies at home.
For our main course, we all ordered the same thing and it was brought on one big platter:
Pasta in a tomato sauce & pesto
Cinque Terre is in Liguria, where basil is grown and hence is the region from whence comes the holy pesto sauce. And I must say, this pasta was a downright divine experience. The pesto was a beautiful, vibrant green color and the basil used was sooo fresh. Mixed with the slightly sweet tomato sauce, I was sad when my plate was empty and there was no more sauce to sop up with bread. We were happy little hikers!
After lunch, the trek continued to…
Town #4: Vernazza

^Corniglia from the trail^
Vernazza from the trail
This trail called for some serious hiking & rock-scrambling! It was a little rough at first, what with that big lunch sitting not fully digested in my tummy, but after a quick breather I was good to go, and by the time we got to Vernazza, it was definitely gelato time!
Frutti di bosco (mixed berry yogurt), mint chocolate chip, dark chocolate
It was amazing gelato, but the dark chocolate was quite good. We had more chill time in this town and we got to walk and shop a bit – I found one store with some faaaabulous turquoise jewelry and I wanted to wrap the whole shop up and put it in my pocket!
We also, as usual, made some furry friends:
The hike from the 4th town to the final 5th is the longest and most difficult, and because we were quickly running out of time before out train left in the last town at 6:30, we took the very fast 5 min. train ride to…
Town #5: Monterosso
Loved the turquoise/coral colors of this house!
What a charming little beach town! We have been planning to go to a beach in May before we leave, and we are thinking about coming here to explore it more and do the last hike we missed out on (it’s also supposed to be the prettiest).
Before leaving, I had to try the limoncino, which is Liguria’s take on the southern Italian limoncello (basically lemons, sugar, and alcohol – it’s a very typical after-dinner drink). The only difference between the two is the lemons; limoncino uses lemons from the north.
I could definitely taste a difference between the ‘cino and ‘cello – the lemons had a distinctly different flavor, more mellow and sweet maybe? I liked it well enough but just like limoncello, I can only handle a few sips and after that my tastebuds just get bored. Even though it’s poured in a small dessert-wine glass, it still seems like a little too much to enjoy. But I’m still happy to have satisfied my curiosity!
[More gelato may or may not have been consumed at this point. I am powerless to anything melon-flavored.]
We also bought some focaccia for dinner on the rather long train ride home. Focaccia is the bread specialty of Liguria, and my cooking teacher expressly specified that focaccia con formaggio (with cheese) must be tried in Cinque Terre. No arguments here! I got some with cheese, tomatoes, and more anchovies (so amazingly good here!), and swapped half for some of Alaina’s cheese and tomato piece. It was really good, especially with the anchovies. Very light, airy and buttery (well, olive oil-y, in a good way). Although I think I prefer the focaccia we made in class last week for being denser and doughier, both have their own place in my carb-loving heart.
A long, glorious day of walking, eating, oohing and aahing. Now it just seems like a dream! Every moment was like stepping inside a picture on a postcard. It was breath-taking, awe-inspiring, mouth-watering, exhausting, rewarding, and above all…
Unreal.
~Namaste~

From Puccini to Pasqual

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Oof, what an action-packed weekend! Lots was done, seen, and eaten – and plenty of fun was had to boot!
We started out Saturday on a day-trip with our study-abroad program API to the city of Lucca and an olive oil tasting. Lucca is a bit to the north of Florence, only about an hour or so away. I had actually been here several times already because the summer before my freshman year in college, my family rented a villa for a week just outside of Lucca. It was a great vacation, and I was happy to return! [Have I mentioned I love Tuscany? Cause I do. A lot.]
We began, as most of our API trips often do, with a guided walking tour of the city. It was a bit on the long side, but our guide was a little whacky, which always makes things more interesting! I do wish that the tour had been shorter so we could wander around more, but alas, it was not to be. I did learn some stuff though! The city is surrounded by a big old wall built (medieval era, I think – don’t quote me) to protect the city from the warring larger city-states nearby (like Firenze!). They even built a moat around the city and got all prepared for a HUGE battle, but on the day that the battle was set for, their opponents never showed up because they decided Lucca was too small to bother with! All dressed up and nowhere to go and no one to fight, they just kept the wall as is, and now it’s what Lucca is known for. I thought that was cute!
The amphitheatre (anfiteatro) here is actually one huge elliptical-shaped piazza! It was built in 2 AD and did look like a traditional amphitheatre (think small-scale Colosseum); in the Middle Ages, houses were built over the ruins that remained. You can still see a lot of the original wall layers here and there. How cool would it be to live over a Roman amphitheatre???

We also got to see the musical school that Puccini, who was also born in Lucca, studied at!! He went to the Boccherini Institute of Music, Boccherini being the dude that statue is of. I looove me some Puccini – my favorite Broadway musical ever is RENT, which is based on his opera La Boheme, but he also wrote Madame Butterfly and Tosca, to name a few. This may have been the coolest thing I saw in Lucca [music nerd alert!] ;)
This tower has a pretty cool story too. Those trees you can see on the roof are in fact growing out of the building – if you climb to the top room, you can see the roots in the ceiling! Unfortunately we didn’t have time to do it. Next time, right?
For a small town, Lucca sure has plenty of churches!
Actually, in the 2nd-to-last church we visited, I got rather angry. Just inside the church–a beautiful, centuries-old place of worship–were racks and tables of souvenirs and postcards. Inside the church. Really??????? Aaaargh, it was just so outlandishly wrong to me, I couldn’t handle it. That just seems beyond inappropriate and downright offensive. At that point, I was ready for the tour to end. And what better to turn my mood around than food?!
I ordered, of course, one of the local specialties:
Minestra di farro (spelt soup)
I actually had this first on our little day trip to San Gimignano, and adored it! This one, however, was a bit too “soupy” for me – I only like soup that is suuuper thick, otherwise I just feel like I’m eating water and it’s just not as fun for me. The flavor was good, and the bread helped (what doesn’t bread help, really?), but I think I will stick to Sergio’s & Mario’s for my Italian soup fix.
It wouldn’t be a complete trip without gelato!
Raspberry + soy vanilla
The raspberry was just ok – a little artificial-y tasting, but the soy vanilla was really good! It was without sugar, which I think hlped because it let the nautral sweetness of the vanilla flavor to really sing. Not quite as good as Perche No in Florence, but that would be near-impossible to beat. I have been noticing soy vanilla/chocolate gelato flavors more and more, and I think it’s great! Eating too much processed soy is something to be aware of, but in general it has a lot of benefits. And I really like the flavor of soy ice cream – creamy with a really nice nutty taste. I was content.
After our [short] afternoon in the city, we hopped back on the bus and headed for Fattoria il Poggio, a nearby  farm we were visiting for an olive oil tasting!
Though this would be my second olive oil tasting, at the first one we didn’t get much guidance as to how to go about tasting the oil or what to look for in the taste. At this one, our guide explained that the best way is to take some oil on a spoon and let it go directly to the back of your mouth/tongue, then roooooaaarrr like a lion! The roaring will send the oil closer to your nose and you can feel/taste/smell the fresh aroma of the olive oil. It was, needless to say, a very amusing day at the farm.
These are the machines used to make the olive oil! [Below is the cold press the squeeeeezes the olivey goodness right out!]
Olive trees galore!
Much like my first tasting, we were served bread and other little snacks to enjoy with our oil. No complaints here!
Olive oil with a dash of balsamic in it, sundried tomatoes, olives, and some the best Tuscan bread I’ve had yet. And I have had a loooot of it. I will admit, I liked the olives/oil from the San Gimignano farm better, but this bread was whoa-so-good.
Salami! Took me back to when I was little and would go to a little Italian specialty shop in my town with my mom and they would give my slices of cheese and salami over the counter. Food memories are the best kind :)
This is a kind of salami specific to Tuscany called finocchiona because it is dotted with fennel seeds. Now while I am generally at all interested in any kind of meat except seafood and the occasional turkey or chicken bite, this was delicious. I made a mental note to seek this out in Florence–it would make a phenomenal sandwich!!! I need to describe it as I eat it because the flavor is so different and complex I can’t find the words, but just trust me – it’s good.
We finished with the classic Tuscan dessert of cantucci (basically Tuscany’s biscotti) and vin santo, a sweet dessert wine.
These are little bites of almondy sweet wonderfulness. They are not obnoxiously break-your-tooth crunchy but juuust soft enough to really bite into and then crumble in your mouth. 
This vin santo I actually really didn’t like very much; too alcoholic-acidic and not very sweet. I have had vin santo before and really enjoyed it, but this was meh. Blame my underdeveloped palate, I guess.
I am planning on trying this again in Florence [pretty much any restaurant you go to in Tuscany will have this on their dessert menu], just because I know I’ve had it before and liked it. And those cantucci rock!
We returned to Florence for a few hours and then went right back out – to our first soccer match!!! I was SO excited. Soccer is the sport here, and Florence’s team Fiorentina is like the Red Sox to Boston. They were playing Milan’s team Inter, who have been doing reaaaallly well and if they beat us tonight they would go on to  play for the championships. All donning our purple Fiorentina gear (I wore my Firenze sweatshirt), we took the bus to the stadium and let the games begin! I didn’t bring my camera because they warned us about the intense security checkpoints and I was afraid they wouldn’t let me in with it or something [you just never know in Italy], but it was lots of fun! I forgot how much I love soccer, both watching and playing. I guess a lot of people find it boring to watch because it takes a lot longer for a team to score than in football or basketball, but that is what I love about it! It’s so tense and keeps you on the edge of your seat, but not for too long, and I really like the fact that they have to work so hard for just one goal. It makes it all the more exciting when it happens! It was so fun to be in the stadium surrounded by the Italian fans and feel the atmosphere (and learn Italian swearwords). The game ended in a 2-2 tie. I also developed a major crush on defenseman Manuel Pasqual- #23, because he was reaaallly good and wore neon yellow cleats. 
It was the neon cleats that really did it for me.
My weekend adventures took me even further north on Sunday…stay tuned!
~Namaste~

This, That, and Gelato

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Having class on Friday completely threw me off. I had no idea what day it was. But regardless of the day’s name, it was a pretty good one.
My Food & Culture class was taken outside of the classroom and into Mercato Centrale for a little taste of some on-field research! We all were sent off to walk around the market and surrounding streets and take note of what the market is selling, who is shopping, who is selling, how they are marketed, what ethnicity products are of, etc. We had to interview a vendor, which made me sooo nervous. I’m such an introvert. BUT, I interviewed a fresh produce guy who did NOT speak English and I conducted the whole thing (um, all 2 minutes of it…I couldn’t think of many interesting questions) in Italian. Woohoo! It was a really interesting experience, and I really enjoyed the time to just walk around the market expressly to study it closely. Such a fascinating place. SO touristy. It’s really a shame, it gets treated essentially like a museum – just another site to see for tourists. Because of Florence’s traffic situation, getting to the market for non-locals is a huge pain and often just too inconvenient. It’s so sad, because supporting local businesses & farms is SO important, but convenience prevails. It’s definitely an issue in the U.S., but awareness seems to be growing bit by bit. It’s quite the money-saver too; the amount of produce I can get at the market for about $5 is enough for most of the week for me. And I think it’s so much cooler to be able to buy an apple from the person who grew it–just takes the experience of eating to a different, more personal level.
In between classes, I stopped at my favorite cafe for the best cappuccino EVER. The perfect between-class activity!
My music class also took a field trip! We went to the Accademia (home to the David) to see their special exhibit of musical instruments collected by the Medici (Ferdinando specifically, I think). It was pretty cool; there was an elderly gentleman playing one of the harpsichords! It was nice to go with my professor to, who is so knowledgeable about everything music! But, about 3/4s of the way through my body started whining at me for having 2 classes mostly on-foot and no food. Being the clever gal that I am, I went to my sandwich place between classes and snagged a sandwich, which I scarfed down the minute I got home from the museum (which is literally 2 blocks away from the apartment). No picture – it disappeared before Frida could get a word snap in edgewise, but it was the same thing as last week (with some added arugula…mmm!)
It was another BEAUTiful spring day!! ‘Bout time, too. Alaina and I did a bit of shopping around town – I needed some batteries before our weekend travels! When she gets hungry, Frida shuts down. Literally. And a shut-down camera is just no good in Tuscany.
Dinner was pretty basic, mostly because it was what I had on hand:
Lentils + some kind of leafy green I bought at the market + garlic + pecorino. Simple and delish. The bread was wonderful as well – a kind of whole wheat sourdough we found at the market. Perfect paired with the lentils+cheese!
Later, after a long struggle with flakey internet, I got restless and talked my roommates into a gelato field trip! (It usually doesn’t take much talking ;) I was dying to try Grom’s new grapefruit sorbetto, and I was definitely in the mood. To Grom we went!
Pompelmo rosso (red grapefruit) + Limone
The grapefruit was…well, grapefruit! Grom’s fruit flavors are incredible because it tastes like the exact fruit and nothing else. I looooved the lemon – like a tastier version of those Minute Maid push-up pops (which I also quite like ;) ! Hit the spot.
Bit of an uneventful and low-photo post – but I promise, it is just in preparation for the weekend to come! Lucca for an olive oil tasting on Saturday followed by a soccer game back here in Florence (VAI FIORENTINA!!!!), and then a hiking tour of Cinque Terre on Sunday. Good thing I happen to be in love with Tuscany, no?
~Namaste~

Chocolate Anger, Green Contentment

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 I mentioned a slight kink to my lovely day in the sun yesterday – a sudden cloud cover, if you will. Downright stormy in fact. But this was not a storm of hurricane winds or torrential rain. This was a technological cloud of doom – my internet was gone. Now, you might say “oh, kids these day, they  lose their precious internet for an hour and think the apocalypse has come” – but I am NOT finished. My internet was gone because there was supposedly another person using my internet account, and of course that sent me into a tailspin of questions, like “if they got my internet password, what other passwords could they have??!!” My dad later explained that it was probably just a router reboot issue, and the “other user” was probably me, it just hadn’t logged me out correctly – but this was not something I knew to consider. Angry and powerless, I turned to the one thing that always helps: baking.
Some people run when they get angry. Others listen to loud music. I make cookies.
These were the cookies we made in my first cooking class and they were so incredible, I’ve been craving them ever since. We had all the ingredients on hand, and thanks to my mom who sent me my food scale, I was all set. A little too much flour (they were a little bread-y), but I halved the recipe so I think the proportion may have been off. Instead of dark chocolate chips, I chopped up some of my egg left over from Easter. Delicious, brownie-like, and not even very damaging from a nutritional standpoint. I felt quite a bit better.
I didn’t have a lot of time to focus on the internet issue anyway because tonight we had tickets (thanks to my study abroad program) to MoMix, a modern dance company performance! We had heard that it was awesome, and very much like Cirque Du Soleil (which I adore), so I was pretty excited! It was a very interesting performance – modern dance goes a little over my head, but I can usually get it for the most part. It was just such a cool experience to see it! The music was really good, and the dancers really did a beautiful job. I think I like Cirque a liiiittle bit more, but this was really cool. Such a fun way to spend a Wednesday night!!
After that, I convinced the roomies to get gelato because they had yet to try Perche No!, which is where my other roommate and I went over Spring Break and declared it our favorite Florentine gelato so far (although Vestri may tie up the competition…).
After falling in love with their soy vanilla flavor, I tried the soy chocolate – and was not disappointed! It was very cocoa-y, which I love. Sometimes when I’m having a chocolate craving, I just have a little spoonful of cocoa powder. It sounds weird, but it works – my theory with chocolate is, the darker the better! I also got mango because, well, I’m pretty much obsessed with all things mango. SO good!
We came home and sampled my cookies (I think they were approved of…), and then my internet issue came flying back at me. I was not in the best of moods. And it only got worse when I broke my tea mug, and then seconds later remembered I had a report for my cooking class due tomorrow, which was actually today as it was already past midnight. Not gonna lie, I had a bit of a breakdown. I pulled it together (although another cookie may have been eaten), cleaned up the mug shards, wrote the paper, and got to bed. Unfortunately, that didn’t leave me much pillow time, and I am feeling it today.

BUT, Italian was more or less painless. I left actually pretty excited because yesterday we gave oral presentation about our favorite books and I chose:

Ruth Reichl is one of my very favorite authors. This book is about her time as The New York Times’ food critic, and it is just a completely charming, funny book. I’ve read her others, which I like almost as much as this, and just started her newest one, Not Becoming My Mother. ANYway, my Italian teacher went out and bought it after she heard me talk about it! I love spreading the foodie love :)

Today continued to make up for last night’s ick-factor when I came home, made a big cup of coffee, and discovered my internet to be restored. And all was well again. Honestly, I think my issue last night was lack of sleep more than anything else. It’s just been a bit of a tough week sleep-wise. And really, when I look back on my semester here, I am not going to remember the internet-less nights of stress; my trip is going to be marked by my sunny afternoons spent lazing in Piazza Indipendenza, making fun of the pigeons and talking to the dogs.

The ladies who lunch sit.

Lazing in the piazza is exactly what I did today – after my cooking class, of course! Today was a “green class”   – lots of antioxidant/fiber-filled goodness!

Patate agli spinaci
This was very interesting. We took boiled potatoes and peeled them–you want to boil vegetables with skins on because if you peel them first, the water will take and dissolve all the nutrients! Of course, you can do this to create a vegetable stock – all the nutrients seep into the water. But for this purpose, boil-and-peel! The potatoes were then riced (I am pretty sure it was a ricer?) –you could probably grate them too– and mixed with spinach that had been sauteed shortly with olive oil and garlic. This mix was put in a pastry bag and squeezed onto a baking sheet into perty potato-spinach flowers and sprinkled with parmesan cheese (which got all crunchy and golden and delicious!), and baked. They were pretty tasty, although I feel like they could have used a bit more oomph. More salt maybe? I feel like potatoes and spinach are two more or less bland-flavored veggies (don’t get me wrong, though, I love eating both!) and they needed more than just the herbs and cheese to make these really *pop.* Ok, I just talked about potato-spinach flowers for about five minutes, NEXT plate…

Trofie al pescatrice e pesto
Holy WHOA this was SO yummmmmmy!! We used trofie, a type of pasta that looks like it’s been stretched and then twisted, and is popular in Liguria which is near Genova where basil is grown for pesto! Nice little linkage there, no? We made the pesto, but instead of using water like last time, we used some ricotta cheese to make it creamier. Normally I don’t like super creamy pesto, but it went so perfectly with this dish! Into the pasta also went cubed pieces of fresh swordfish…oh dear, how I love fish. I’m pretty sure my eyes lit up when he said we would be making fish! The fish taste was not at all overwhelming and was perfectly balanced by the sweet and creaminess of the ricotta-pesto, and the pasta choice of trofie worked really welll. Something about the thin shape and soft denseness really seemed to accentuate the pesto flavor and the alternate texture of the fish. Definitely had 2 servings of this! Could have happily drowned in it.

Foccacia agli spinaci
They made the foccacia from scratch, of course, so the chances of this being amazing were pretty good from the start. We used mozzarella instead of the usual scamorza, because the mozzarella is fresh and less fatty. They sauteed the spinach in olive oil and garlic and then stuffed it inside the foccacia (btw – that is not an easy to word to spell) and baked it. Towards the end of baking, Marco (our teacher) brushed olive oil and white wine on the top so that it would turn a nice golden color. The secret to making foccacia in under an hour? Use a pinch of sugar in the dough. The yeast loooves sugar and will grow faster with the addition of the sugar.
This was out-of-this world good!! It was just salty enough and suuuper doughy (a very good thing!). I had extras on the crust because it was just. so. good. I just love bread. You start with yeast, flour and water and yet the variety of different results you can get from those simple ingredients is infinite. So cool.

Finally, my team’s dish:

Bet you can’t guess!

Sfogliatine di pomodori verdi (con sorbetto di limone)
This is basically a jam made of green tomatoes, lemon juice, and cane sugar inside puff pastry. We de-seeded and cubed the tomatoes and cooked them in a pan with the sugar and juice of half a lemon, and towards the end of cooking added crumbled pieces of panbrioche (a sweet bun, basically) to thicken it. We brushed milk (instead of egg yolk) on top of the sealed pastry triangles and sprinkled them with a little more cane sugar. Pop them in the oven for 20 minutes or so, and you’re good to go. We served them with a “dollop” (my teacher was very proud he remembered that word) of lemon sorbetto, which put these over the edge! It may sound very odd, but it worked so well. The green tomatoes are higher in acidity, and paired with the sweetness of the sugar and the sweet-sour sorbet (plus that hot/cold contrast), this was one of the most uniquely tasty dishes I’ve ever had. The jam was SO easy to make; definitely worth a try on my own! (Or your own – if you want the recipe, just leave a comment!)

After class & said-park lounging, the roomies and I decided on aperitivo for dinner. I have given up trying to takes pictures in Kitsch because it’s just too dark, but just image a nice glass of prosecco and various little appetizer tastings. Always lots of food and nice prosecco for the low low price of 8euro. Hard to beat.

We have make-up classes tomorrow  - whatever classes we didn’t have on Monday (we got it off for Easter). I know I am going to the market for my Food & Culture class to walk around and talk to the vendors. Should prove to be quite interesting at the least!

~Namaste~

My Bologna has a first name…

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Let’s talk bologna – and I do not mean the lunch meat. That was the destination of our adventure on Saturday; once I heard that it is the gastronomic capital of Italy, it got priority on my must-see list!
We got up waaay too early to catch a specific train because the only trains to Bologna are the super-fast [read: super-expensive] trains, but we being the wily, financially clever college students that we are found the one cheaper train at 8:35 AM and planned accordingly…only to arrive at the station to discover that it was already sold out. ‘Sall good, we at least got the cheaper one on the way back…but we had a mourn a little the sleep time we sacrificed in vain. 
We got to Bologna and had no idea where to go, so started wandering in hopes of eventually running into the center. We found this sweet used book fair:
We bought a little present for Sam and I got a restaurant guide for Northern Italy for ONE EURO!! Sure, it’s the 2002 edition, but it has a glossary of terms for the typical dishes of the areas and we found lots of restaurants we had already been to in the Florence section, so I would say it was well worth the price!
On our way towards the center (we hoped!), we came upon a park:

There was a huuuuge flea market too! Bologna is home to the oldest university in Europe, so it is a major city for students. Even if I hadn’t known that before, I could have guessed judging from the vast amounts of bongs being sold.
Next stop: coffeeeeeee. After obtaining a horribly overpriced map, we sat down and planned out our route for the day. I came prepared with, as always, a list of good restaurants/gelaterias to hit, and Bologna being the gastronomic capital and all, good food was the main mission for our day.
We wanted to check out the Mercato delle Erbe, Bologna’s food market, and compare it to our beloved Mercato Centrale a Firenze!
Tuscany does bread, Bologna does fresh-made tortellini. (Not gonna lie, bread wins in my book…but it’s definitely a hard decision.)

Note the large inflatable banana hanging from the ceiling.

Rose-like lettuce!

Easter in Italy = Chocolate eggs GALORE!

It was nice and all, but Mercato Centrale is still #1 in my book. Nicer atmosphere and less rushed, I think.
I’m really loving these trips specifically geared towards food. This really is the way to live.
We started getting a little hungry, so we decided to wander in the general direction of one of the restaurants.
The restaurant I had written down was, of course, closed for lunch :( Because of our train schedule, we planned to go big for lunch and then have a light dinner, but unfortunately this restaurant was not cooperating. No matter, we found another little trattoria nearby. We saw a hand-written menu on the outside, which we have learned is usually a very good omen.
We split 2 pasta dishes:
Tagliatelle alla bolognese (of course!)
Tortellini con panna (cream) e prosciutto
The bolognese was alright; certainly authentic, but I think I am just not much for meat sauce. The tortellini were incredible. I didn’t think I would like it; I connect the cream-and-ham combo to dishes that have peas (my mom & brother adore mac & cheese with ham and peas)…and my abhorrence of peas knows no bounds. ICK. BUT, this was perfectly pealess! The cream wasn’t too heavy, either – just light enough to add the rich taste without being goopy or overwhelming. And as I have mentioned, prosciutto is just wonderful. The little tortellini were filled with a kind of sharp cheese, probably parmeggiano (it originates in this region of Italy) and a meat which we both were guessing was also a pig-product. We were happy girls!
But, just in case we weren’t happy enough, we stopped at a chocolate store we had passed for some amazing-looking gelato. However, you can’t judge a book by its cover – this was even better than it looked. And let me tell you, it looked absolutely drool-worthy.

(Post-1st lick)

“Cuor di cacao” e frutti di bosco
The “cuor di cacao” (heart of cacao) was 75% dark chocolate dotted through with teeny chips of dark chocolate. Might be the best chocolate ice cream I’ve ever tasted. And it was perfect with the sorbetto, which is also probably some of the best I’ve ever had – the texture was not too icey or too sherbert-like, it was just smooth enough to please the palate.[Frutti di bosco, literally fruits of the forest, is basically mixed berry.] It was so fresh and fruity and…oy. If I was happy before, this was just pure uninhibited joy.
We continued to stroll/windowshop for a bit. I really like the architecture here, pretty brightly colored buildings and lots of archways.

And I like any city that colors the buildings with turquoise!
Ran into some nice piazzas too…
Spring is trying to come…just not quick enough!
Italy really likes their leaning towers.

It also likes its ruins. Seriously, give me a building and I promise I have seen it thousands of years later.
 We eventually felt the need to sit and chill, so we found a caffe and people-watched for a bit. People are just…interesting. Particularly the ones who feel that cutting slits in the back of their jeans juuust below their butt cheeks is a necessary fashion statement. No picture – you’re welcome.
We got up and did some more aimless wandering before eventually deciding to try and find a place for a glass of wine and a snack. We found a place that I had heard about and it looked perfect. Very nice red wine. I also got two crostini:
Vegetarian (eggplant-zucchini-onions-peppers) and another with mortadella, a deli-type meat that is a speciality of Bologna, and some kind of very creamy cheese, almost like cottage cheese. It wasn’t mind-blowing, but fit the bill. And we really liked the chill, local feel of this place :)
All in all, Bologna was fun – a nice mix of a big city feel and the Italian culture. As a “gastronomic capital” I was a little underwhelmed, but it’s probably something to discover with the help of a guide. I really like day trips – at the end, I’m always ready to come back to Florence. Home sweet home.
~Namaste~

San GimignanOMG!

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Sorry for no post yesterday – my internet was not being cooperative. Sometimes it’s like a small child; it gets cranky if it doesn’t get a nap in the afternoon.
Friday was super exciting because it was my cooking class field trip to an organic farm in San Gimignano, a town made of little hills in Siena and what I think is one of the most beautiful places in the world. 
Exhibit A (and then some):
The farm, San Donato, dates back to 1001!!! How cool is that??? They mostly produce wine, olive oil, saffron and spelt, but they grow other crops as well, and just a couple years ago became an organic farm. In fact, they recently bottled their first organic wine product in 2009. We were there to taste the wine and the olive oil, and taste we did! They produce Vernaccia wine, which comes from a grape introduced to the San Gimignano area dating back to the thirteenth century. The Pope’s cellarmaster declared it the finest white wine in Italy! It was also the first Italian wine to be given DOC classification and was later upgraded to the higher DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) , which is basically the highest award of quality insurance possible for a wine to receive. 
We got off the bus, the farm owner gave us a brief history of the farm and the vineyards, and then it was on to the eat/drinks!!
There was a spread of olives (of course), picked peppers, Tuscan bread topped with salami or prosciutto, and garlic bread bathing in olive oil. And wine. Lots and lots of wine.
I swear I was not in any way inebriated when I took this picture. But I think Frida may have been…
I started with the white – the Vernaccia (you are supposed to start with white – see, I’m learning!) OH MY GOD even I could tell this was good freaking wine. I actually had seconds! (And by seconds, I mean I poured myself a 2nd tasting portion, so like 2 oz) It was delicious. And because we were at the farm it was produced at, they sold it there for 5 Euros a bottle. I bought 2 and a half! Cha-ching!!
There was also a blush wine and a red wine, which were nice. I liked the blush a little more than the red. I wish I could use sommelier terms to describe them, but all I can tell you is I liked them. Baby steps, people.
On to the food! 
Salami isn’t really my thing, but I’ve been feeling like I’ve not been getting enough protein, and I wanted to try at least a bite of everything. I have, however, discovered my love for prosciutto….
Italy just knows how to do food right.
There were also bite-sized pieces of bread spread with fresh ricotta cheese mixed with the farm’s saffron (hence the yellow color) – I was a little disappointed, I really couldn’t taste much after 2 or 3 tries. I love saffron; perhaps ricotta is just the wrong vehicle for it? Or maybe my tastebuds just weren’t awake yet. 
These other pieces were spread with a very soft and creamy cheese, and I think it was bleu cheese – this I adored. Usually bleu cheese is too stinky for me and I really don’t like it, but this was incredible! Very mellow, but with just enough bite to it to satisfy. I kept thinking my mother (bleu cheese’s #1 fan) would have died. I’ll have to ask my teacher what it was! 
Ok, these olives are probably the best. I’ve. ever. tasted. And I am quite the olive connoisseur – when I was a tyke I ate an entire can (and then some) of black olives for breakfast. It was unreal how good these were. I left quite a little collection of pits behind.
With olives that good, the olive oil must be drop-dead amazing, right? 
YEP! 
They brought plate after plate of toasted Tuscan bread slices that had been salted and baked with garlic, drowning in pools of liquid gold, aka the best olive oil my taste-buds have ever had the pleasure of meeting. The aroma was so fruity and fresh and the flavor was just out of this world!! I just…I can’t….no words. Ohsogood.
After our “light lunch” (HA!), we wandered around the farm. What a life. I could so live here.
My kind of stone lion – napping in the sun.
Limone!
Farm=Animals!!!
And vineyards=wine cellar:
And get a load of their backyard:
The wine I drank at lunch came from these exact vines. It is pretty cool to see the actual vines that went into my glass. Pretty freakin cool.
I  got back around 2:30 to pouring rain in Florence. The sun came out bright and shiny not 10 minutes after I had gotten back to the apartment….love ya Florentine weather. I went to the grocery store and got OATS!!! because they finally restocked them, and then Alaina and I ventured off to a chocolate store I had heard about to look at the Easter goods!
Benvenuti a Vestri!
In Italy, instead of baskets, each child gets a BIG hollow chocolate egg that has a little present inside. I considered it necessary for my cultural assimilation here to partake in this tradition…and bought myself a big ole dark chocolate egg. Don’t worry, you’ll see it…I can’t wait to open it!!!
Alaina and I had planned on getting some gelato after our chocolate quest, and whoda thunk that the chocolate store would have gelato? This we had to try!
Mango + dark chocolate
OH.EM.GEE. This is quite possibly the best gelato I’ve had here yet – the mango was just perfect (I’m a little mango obsessed – it’s just so dang delicious!), and the dark chocolate was so…so…completely satisfying. Rich  and dark, but not overwhelmingly so. I enjoyed every last bite.
Quite a gastronomically successful day, I would say. My favorite kind of day.
~Namaste~

Of Music and Air

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April? Is that you already?? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???
Today was SO much better than yesterday! I ended up going to bed late because of the concert, so sleep was again seriously lacking in my life. I pretty much made a beeline from the classroom back to my bed and was gone until almost 1 PM! I swear, this is the effect pre-bedtime yoga has on me. It’s incredible. I’m still pretty tired even now though, so I don’t think the nap was a bad thing.
We got up and went to lunch at Mario’s, a Florentine institution right near the market. It was a bit of a wait, but we distracted ourselves with the pet store next door that had BUNNIES!! Aaaah, so freaking cute!! There was one on particular that I would totally get – he/she was lying on its back in the corner of the cage, paws in the air, just chillin’. 
I’m a little in love.
(photo credits to Alaina)
When we were finally called in, we quickly decided it was worth the wait. The restaurant is one little room crammed with tables where everyone sits with everyone else. The three of us were seated at a table for four, and the empty seat was quickly filled by one of their many regulars, a real estate guy named Stefano. He was really cool and chatted with us – and me in Italian a little, which always brightens my day! The atmosphere in this place was just so fun, so busy, so…Italian. Best word to describe it. And I haven’t even gotten to the food!
There were hand-written signs posted above the windows that let you see into the cooking area that stated
1) They never use frozen foods.
2) They never use cream or bouillon cubes.
3) Asking for ketchup is strictly forbidden.
Love it!
I ordered the ribollita, the traditional Tuscan bread-based soup (more like a thick stew). It was awesome; I really need to try to make this again with more success! I didn’t get a picture because a) I was hungry and b) I didn’t want to freak out the poor stranger sitting with us, but it looked pretty similar to my first bowl of ribollita, perhaps this time a little smoother. Either way it was perfect and delicious and we are SO going back. Hasn’t quite stolen my heart from Sergio’s, but we’re already regulars there! Mario’s, however, was staffed by some reaaally cute boys…hmm….what a dilemma!
After lunch we came back and chilled. The weather is still quit indecisive – it downpoured with lightning and some earth-shaking thunder for about 30 minutes, and a couple hours later the rain came back despite the sun shining…come on, Florence. We’ve talked about this.
After some lazing, lounging, and looking up things to do on our adventure planned for Saturday (to be revealed, all in good time), I threw – quite literally – a salad together:
Messy picture, but it tasted good! I just loooove veggies :)
And look at my pretty tomato color spectrum!
Alaina also made pasta all’amatriciana and I felt obligated to sample, you know, to build up my food critic skills *winkwink*. She did a maaahvelous job! It’s basically pasta tossed in tomato+olive oil+garlic+parsley +pancetta with parmesan cheese. She also added some sage, which [we think] added a nice hint of sweetness. Yes, it is as good as it sounds. [Click her name for pictures!]
Tonight was concert #2: Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons and his Gloria. The solo violinist for the Four Seasons was absolutely incredible. As in, I kept expecting to look up and see smoke coming off her bow. I also learned that in Italy they do not give standing ovations, they just clap. And clap. And clap. I think she gave 5 bows! But she very much deserved them! Plus, the Four Seasons is just a fun piece to hear. And it was easy to see that the musicians were enjoying performing it! The Gloria was good, but nothing jaw-dropping. The choir was a little sloppy with their entrances and diction, which gets to me a little because all the choirs I have been in have been intense about everyone singing perfectly together. But the alto soloist’s voice was amazing. It was so thick, rich and a little dark, like really good fudge (yes, I can and do compare everything to food.). I do love a good concert!
On my way back tonight, I decided it was gelato time. To Grom it was!
Caffe + “Crema di Grom”
Their caffe is suuuper strong and espresso-y, which I adore. Crema di Grom is basically a creamy, kind of vanilla base studded with dark chocolate slivers and some of kind amazing cornmeal shortcake biscuit. Gelato is always worth it.
Hearing concerts with singing always makes me yearn to sing myself! In case I haven’t mentioned it, I am a music minor and when I got to college I changed my instrument from flute to voice and never looked back. Singing is such a liberating activity for me, and always has been. In fact, when I get really worked up, the best way to let off some steam is belting out some Broadway tunes or some of my favorite Italian arias. I have noticed in the last half year or so that I have had trouble breathing; sometimes I feel like I have to remind myself to inhale. It’s quite odd. I do attribute a good bit of it to yoga, which I started practicing almost daily this fall. Yoga increases self-awareness like WHOA, especially where breath is concerned as it is such a major aspect of practice, so I know that my increased work in yoga has increased my own awareness of my body in general, which is definitely a good thing. What is not so good is that it has lead me to suspect that one of the big reasons I seem to have this breathing issue is my almost unconscious need to suck in my stomach, one of the many lingering side-effects of my brush with ED (eating disorder). It pisses me off that I am still so anxious about my physical appearance that I would subconsciously deprive myself of air to “look thinner.” Um, thinner may be considered more attractive, but turning blue from lack of oxygen? Not so hot. But to go back to singing (I swear, my ramble has a point), I was thinking tonight that I did not have this breath problem when I was practicing singing more often; it was more automatic to me to breath “correctly” because that is about 85% of what singing is. So, all this to say, I am going to start practicing again when I come home to see if my hypothesis that singing=better breathing in general is right. I hope my household likes my voice!
I’m very excited because tomorrow I am going to a farm in San Gimignano for my cooking class (hence the lack of class today)!!! We will be there for lunch, and you can bet that Frida will be coming along for the ride. Not entirely sure what to expect – but that makes it all the more exciting, no?!
~Namaste~
 Too. Effing. Cute.

Back in Action

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So, Spring break broke. But it was a good one! Lots of sleep, yoga, gelato, and gorgeous Tuscan landscapes. Perfetto!
Yesterday was mostly spent cleaning – swept the whole apartment! Eventually I got a little stircrazy and had to get OUT and enjoy the lovely spring weather! Had to complete the picture with some gelato:

Straciatella al caffe (coffe chocolate chip) + tiramisu. GREAT combo.

I went to Piazza Santa Croce and sat on a bench while I read the homework that I may or may not have forgotten about…It was so nice! The weather, the musicians playing, the CUTE dogs…wonderful way to get homework done. I took the long way home and walked by a church on my street and there must have been a wedding!
RAINBOW RICE!!! Sweet!
When I got back, my roommate wasn’t far behind! We decided to end Spring Break on a high note and go out to one of the many recommended restaurants nearby. We split a baby bottle of wine to go with our respective meals. I went with an appetizer + side dish, which I really like to do because the portion ends up being just right!
Crostini (toasted or grilled bread) with 3 different toppings

The one closest to the camera was a pate of sorts, not sure what animal, but sometimes I think it’s best to not ask questions. Above that was a tomato-onion something or other that included raisins – I wasn’t a big fan of that one, too sweet! At the top was an amazing smoked eggplant-garlic-oil thing that my roommate and I had NO problem polishing off. Mmmm, eggplant. I also ordered a side of cooked spinach – needed something to balance out the bread! I just love spinach. Especially in smoothies…it sounds weird, but you really can’t taste the spinach. It just turns the smoothie green and boosts the nutritional value. I miss those Green Monsters!
Today it was back to the grind. I got a solid A on my Food & Culture mid-term, yayayayay!! I love that class. And I better keep lovin it – I have a presentation and a 10-page research paper due for it this month! Eeek.
A good breakfast was definitely necessary to start back:

Banana yogoat float!
Sliced banana + raw oats + vanilla yogurt. Hard to go wrong when using good ingredients!

I went to the market after my Food & Culture class (my music class was canceled because we are going to 2 concerts this week) and picked up some necessities. 3 apples & 3 pears for 96 cents!!! So exciting. Also, yummy fresh bread:
Pane alla soia – soy bread? I like it a lot! It has an almost sweet(?) flavor…hard to describe. Other than…yum.
I picked up lunch (at Casa del Vino, of course):
Prosciutto and pecorino. Simple. Amazing.
Seriously, this took “ham and cheese” to a whole new level. It might even be my favorite, just because it was so simple yet soooo tasty.
I ate it on the steps of the Brancacci Chapel, on the other side of the Arno.

A lunch with a view!

I actually went in the Brancacci Chapel today! (I tried to go over Spring Break but it was closed.) It was lovely. So peaceful.

Frescoes surrounded the courtyard (you can see in the picture below this one).

A little sunny courtyard inside. I sat there forever, sunbathing and listening to the birds chirping. Made for a lovely afternoon.
Though the courtyard was my favorite part, the Chapel wasn’t bad either:

A pieta of sorts in the chapel entrance.

The chapel is currently being restored, so there wasn’t much space to walk around. That, and Frida was PMSing and losing battery power. Hence, the subpar pics. But it was pretty!

Yes, lots of camera frustration. What really bugs me is that I get so annoyed over the fact that ever single picture I get is blurry and unrecignizable, that I forget where I am — as in, I have to remind myself to step back and say “whoa. I’m in a centuries-old, beautifully painted chapel in Florence and I’m not even appreciating it. Put. The camera. DOWN.” And I did. Damned if I’ll let technology take away a what should be an enjoyable experience!

I walked home after that, enjoying the great spring weather – finally too warm for my coat!

I got hungry pretty early and whipped this baby up:

Lentils, a small onion, a couple cherry tomatoes, and a TON of spinach. I needed to use it up! Seasoned it with a little rosemary, sage, S&P and pecorino romano. A little boring I suppose, but I liked it! Especially after I added some dijon mustard for a little kick.
It’s harder for me to experiment a lot with cooking here because I don’t have many spices to work with – I adore trying different spice combos. It is so interesting to me how something so small can completely manipulate the flavor(s) of a dish!

I was very good last night about getting to bed. I am trying so hard to get in bed before midnight the nights before I have Italian because it makes getting up and getting through my day SO much easier. Unfortunately, very little actual sleep happened, so I’m pretty exhausted today. I came right back and took a quick nap before meeting the girl I practice Italian with, and then came home for breakfast/lunch. It’s grey and chilly today (I would love to know where that spring weather went!), but I felt quite accomplished yesterday, and so I’m okay with today being a little less active. I have yoga tonight and then it’s time for Ethnic Tuesday dinner with the roomies! I believe we are planning on Indian tonight – woohoo!!!

On my walk home yesterday, I had a moment where all of a sudden I thought “Whoa. I’m in Italy right now. Living here. How did this happen!!” It’s odd, I adapted to life here so quickly, I suppose it didn’t fully sink in. And maybe it won’t totally sink in until I am able to look at it in retrospect. I don’t know how exactly I got so lucky, but I do know that I am in total awe and gratitude that I did.
I’ve been asking myself a lot, “How do I leave this place?” I don’t just mean hopping on a plane; I’m talking about leaving the lifestyle here that I’ve become so happily accustomed to, the sights and sounds, the food. I’m so attached, I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to walk away. But, I know I will figure it out. And I suspect I will end up with a deeper respect for the cultures of both here and my home. It’s going to be interesting, to say the least.

I have a presentation (on CHOCOLATE!) due soon, so I think I will put my sleepy brain to work before yoga. A domani!

~Namaste~

Spring Sprang Sprung

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I know, I know, long time no post. Bad blogger, bad! But I come with pictures! LOTS.
I don’t know how or why, but on Wednesday I slept until 1. PM. I did NOT see that coming! It was literally like someone just hit me over the head with a hammer. It was sooo good though – I haven’t slept like that in months. After all, what would a real vacation be without some great sleep? After a little get-together with Minerva the yoga mat and some breakfast, my roomie and I decided to try our luck with the Uffizi.
Note to self: Do NOT expect to just saunter on in to the Uffizi Gallery at 3 in the afternoon. Ain’t gonna happen. In my defense, there is a reason I thought this was feasible: my study abroad program gave us each an “Amigli degli Uffizi” card that gives us free admission to all state museums in Florence. We were told that with these card, we had to enter the Uffizi at entrance #2 (yes, there are multiple), so I figured there was a special entrance reserved for people with the magic card. Well, the card may be great, but it is not a miracle-worker. There are 2 entrances to the Uffizi – the one for those with reservations, and the one for those ignorami without. So, you say (at least I did),”well why not make reservations for tomorrow?” Because you are reserving a ticket, not just an entrance time, and the magic card means we don’t pay for the ticket, and thus no reservation. I realize that this has not been the most enthralling story…sorry. I like to rant.
SO, Plan A up in smoke, we improvised and visited an old friend – Dante. As in, Alighieri. As in, the Divine Comedy and Inferno. As in, the brilliant poet who lived in Firenze for a good chunk of his life. His “house” is now a museum (read: tourist money suck), and we being the diligent English majors we are just had to see it! It was kinda blah, but this was pretty cool to see:
Firenze ca. 13th century.
Notice anything?
NO DUOMO! Not built until 1476. Thank goodness it was – that thing has saved me from getting completely lost many, many times.
All this tourism shtuff really works up my appetite…what better a reason for gelato?
Mango + strawberry mousse
The mousse had a little of that artificial “cool whip”-y taste to it, but the mango was deeeLISH. 
Dinner was a bit of a re-run:
My vegged-up bruschetta!
Toasted bread with spinach, basil, garlic and tomatoes baked along side the bread on the oven, spinkled with pecorino romano. Bruschetta rock my socks.
So do gorgeous sunsets from out apartment window.
Frida doesn’t like it when I turn the flash off. But the colors are perty!
Thursday was significantly more eventful. It was a gorgeous Spring day – perfect for my first trip to the Boboli Gardens!
But first, lunch at Sergio’s since I didn’t make it Wednesday:
Paste e fagioli! The real deal. 
I want to put this restaurant in a box and take it home with me. So. Good.
On to Boboli! It’s a huge park behind Palazza Pitti (Pitti Palace), where the Medici lived when they were in power. It was absolutely beautiful. I could totally get married here. You know, with my millions.
back of Palazzo Pitti
My favorite part. I. Love. Tuscany.
Do you see this house? It’s turquoise. I have no idea what it is/was…but it’s more important what it will be: my house.
Cutest little spot. Good for reading/napping, I’m thinking.
Old (serious understatement) vineyards
The stone work looked like melted candle wax…no idea how that happened.
Check OUT this bathtub. Maybe the horses used it.
No words.
On the trek back, I, being the bottomless pit that I often am, was feeling some gelato. A neighbor from home told me about this gelato place across the Arno, which is where the Gardens were, and this was the perfect opportunity!
After-eight (as in, the most amazing dark chocolate covered mint candy ever. If you haven’t tried them before and like the mint-choc combo, seek these out. They leave York patties in the dust.) and yogurt & nutella.
The yogurt-nutella was ok; I have discovered I don’t really like the “yogurt” flavor of gelato after 3 tries. It’s tangy in an odd way. But the After-eight….WHOA. Yum-my. I know that the green color means they added all kinds of artificial crap (nautral mint ice cream is white)….but I don’t really care. This was amazing.
BUT – I still think I like Perche No! better. I guess I will have to go back to confirm…;)
If you want to see the rest of my Boboli pictures (or the rest of my pictures in general), check out my photobucket @ http://s32.photobucket.com/home/NorbertsShiksa!
Stay tuned for my solo adventure…where in the world is Carmen Sandiego Gillianasana???