We should be in Switzerland right now, probably chowing down on a lot of fondue and raclette and cheese in other melted forms with Auntie, but I've got a post for you to keep you up to date on italian food!
So, what have we been eating since Auntie got into town? You've seen the truffles at the festival, but man does not live on truffles alone! (This fact may surprise readers of the cookbook the Silver Spoon, which has a recipe for a truffle gratin which, I kid you not, is made up of layers of truffles and cheese. Only truffles and chese. Sounds expensive.)
I'm glad you asked, though that digression was perhaps unnecessary.
Well, we of course started with....
Gelato!
We took Auntie to Vivoli, the snootiest gelateria in four counties, to try their gelato. It's supposed to be among the best, and it is pretty good.
I think she chose her gelato by color! Chocolate, raspberry and pistachio.
All of our gelato that day was overly sweet. We have to get this woman to Grom!
Husbear's been cooking his way through a whole duck he bought, so we've had duck leg confit in a salad served in tasty crepes.
We also took Auntie for a tour of our local much-loved market, Sant' Ambrigio, and finally ate at the trattoria inside.
We've been curious about it for a while, so it was good to have an excuse to go!
We ordered half of the menu, it seemed, and some of the dishes were definitely better than others. Somehow, we ended up with a table full of meat - meatballs, meat-stuffed eggplant, stewed meat with potatoes... and pappa al pomodoro, the Tuscan tomato soup thickened with bread (that's in the foreground). We also got a dish of peas with ham, and a vegetable sformato, or pudding with bechamel sauce. That, along with the lasagna (which was also jammed with cream), were my favorites - what's not to like about bechamel sauce?
For dinner that night, we headed up the street to Il Pizzaiuolo, a Neapolitan-style pizzeria. It's some of the best pizza you can get here in Florence, if you have the patience to wait. I made the reservations that day, so we weren't able to get in until 9:30. They were packed.
We ordered an antipasta we'd had before, involving Mozzarella di Burro. When we visited Florence last fall with Mama Bear and GQ, we had the same antipasta at this restaurant, and got really excited upon hearing the name of the cheese... thinking we'd had donkey mozzarella.
Turns out it's mozarella in the style of butter. Not as interesting, but very tasty. The antipasta comes with prosciutto and sliced cured sausage, along with a small bruschetta topped with tomatoes and basil. Yum.
The cheese looks normal, but then you pull out the fork... and all hell breaks loose.
It goops everywhere! Luckily, they serve it on a wooden tray with a moat, or there would be seriously creamy problems.
We only waited another hour or so for our pizzas. They were really good, when they came, but kind of soupy in the middle. Definitely knife and fork territory.
And then, of course, the truffle festival happened. Husbear had limited cooking time this week, what with being in class working on the upcoming restaurant simulation and with us leaving for Switzerland, so he went all out for lunch on Monday.
To start, the summertime treat of prosciutto e melone. But wait, it's November! Hey, the cantaloupes at the market were still looking and tasting quite good, so why not?
He wrapped the melone in prosciutto casalingo, which is one of the saltiest we've tried.
This dish really depends on melons that taste like melons. It's a delicious salty/sweet combination.
And then, the man really outdid himself with this beautiful truffled pasta, served with cavolo romano. It's on trofie, the traditional Ligurian pasta that's become one of our favorites.
And don't worry, it's an egg white sauce, not all cream!
Ohmygod, truffles are so crazy. And that cavolo romano was delicious, too - and so pretty! Nerd alert - I've always thought it looked kind of like a fractal. A jewelry store near here uses this vegetable, along with eggplant, in their display window, and it makes me want to paint a room green and purple.
And, you will note the everything's-better-with-an-egg theorem being tested here. Still haven't found an exception.
Food post over! Back to your daily routines. We return from Switzerland late Monday night, so lots of alps after that, if we don't get rained out!
girlie
da Rocco, inside Mercato Sant'Ambrogio. Lunch only.
il Pizzaiuolo, Via de' Macci 113 r, 055 241171. Reservations highly recommended, if not essential.
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