Ahhh Firenze!

(Or Florence to we non-Italians).  What a city!  I think, of everywhere we’ve been, Florence is the most amazing historically speaking. (Cindy, you are going to love it.)  In France, the architecture was pretty, but the art all hidden away in museums.  In Florence, there are architectural marvels like the Duomo (wow), the Uffizi Gallery building, and the Pitti Palace, not to mention the many huge statutes in the Piazza di Republica.  (Excuse me everyone but I have to say, I have never seen so many marble penises!!!)

  

Anyway, cooking today, art history tomorrow.  We met our chef  (his name is actually Giovanni not Massimo) who is not what I expected at all!  Instead of being fat, jolly, older and Florentine, he’s young and slim and from Positano on the Amalfi Coast (no ladies, although not bad looking, he’s no Marcello).  He immediately sets off for the San Lorenzo market with the group trailing behind and Scott right up front chatting away to him about Canada.  Scott’s in his element – he loves tours and talking to new people.  After a long walk and goggling at the astounding array of shops – from Chanel and Gucci to cheap AND expensive jewellery boutiques to a zillion market stalls (I’m not really interested in the stores but the market stalls and the prospect of bargaining is irresistible) we finally arrive at the food market.  It’s a little like Granville Island, but smaller.  Giovanni talks to all the stall owners (he has his favourites) like they’re old friends and they probably are.

     

We get to taste foccacia bread and pecorino cheese and great fresh first-pressed olive oil made locally as well as balsamic vinegars.  One that we test is 12 years old, tastes like sweet syrup with an edge – yum – and sells for 47 euros for a teeny tiny bottle.  We resist buying truffled duck foie gras (which I’m pretty sure is French anyway) but we’re bringing home some of the younger – only 4 years old – balsamic vinegar.  We suspect that Giovanni gets discounts from the stall owners for bringing us by so they can sell us their goods.  In Italy, it seems that one hand always washes the other and nothing comes for free.

After the market, we take what seems like a really fast long walk back in the heat (29 degrees) and up 3 flights of stairs.  I struggle to keep up wearing my stupid flipflops – nobody told me I’d need running shoes!  Giovanni’s “cooking school” is actually his apartment (un-airconditioned by the way) which is meticulously clean (we appreciate that) and all Ikea white and black.  I suspect he may be a tad OCD because he mentions several times that you must clean after each dish is made.  He’s all about simplicity and fresh ingredients – none of those silly french sauces that overwhelm the food – pah.  Our menu today includes bruschetta, which, he reminds us, is just the name for the toasted bread and NOT chopped tomatoes in vinegar (he makes another disgusted face), meat sauce with fresh pasta, and ends with the dolce (dessert) – the classic Italian tiramisu (HIS recipe of course).

     

We start with the tiramisu – I get to seperate the eggs – that’s my only job (other than rolling pasta) that day – I am not cute and blonde and young (aaagggh 50! I’m FIFTY today!!) like Sarah – the youngest member of the group.  He gets Daniel from Perth, Australia (or Daniel-o in Italy) a big, florid carpenter, to whip the whites, and Adam from Miami (or Adam-o in Italy) to combine the yolks and sugar.  (Oh by the way, we are the oldest people in the room – everyone else is at least under 35.)  Danielo is overwhipping the whites and Adamo looks like he is afraid of his yolks & sugar mixture and is mixing it very very slowly and delicately.  Giovanni says “Adamo – we don’t have all DAY”.  Adamo blushes and beats the mixture harder with the wooden spoon.  Giovanni seems particularly taken with Sarah (even though she’s newly engaged to her partner Jon) and has her assist him numerous times (she even gets recruited to dry his dishes! what an honour!  I don’t think she thinks so but she’s too young to tell him to dry his own dishes!). 

After the tiramisu Giovanni starts on the bruschetta and gives us 3 recipes to top the toasted bread.  Meanwhile, he has Adamo toast the bread in the toaster and then teases him because first it’s too white and then it’s too brown and then he burns the last batch.  Poor Adam – good thing he’s a great sport.

Ok, I could go on and on and on about the food but suffice it to say that Giovanni is young and needs to work on his group people skills, he looks startled when we (well me, no one else did) ask questions and no one has a chance to talk to each other.  However, his meat sauce is divine (and ju-ee-cy as he puts it and I try not to giggle too obviously) and the pasta that Scott helps to make (I wait for Giovanni to Italianize his name to Scott-o but disappointingly, he doesn’t) is yumm-o to quote Rachael Ray -now I know where she gets this propensity from.  Everyone has at least 2 servings and Giovanni makes Scott eat the last bit – as you can imagine, it was really hard for him.  REALLY!  It was!!

I FORGOT to take pictures of the food so memory will have to do.

After we all say goodbye and go our separate ways, clutching our “certificates” in the “Wanna be Italian” cooking class, Scott and I head to the Uffizi Gallery.  There are artists lining the piazza painting various Tuscan scenes, and portraits etc – some of them are really good!  The line is ridiculous so we buy tickets for the next day, and then I drag Scott around the outdoor markets selling scarves and bags and tacky tourist stuff etc.  poor guy.  He’s very patient though I have to say – I’d have been not NEARLY as patient if he’d dragged me through electronic store after electronic store!  To his relief, we leave the market for the bus station because after we try to hail a cab a lady tells us they won’t stop so we’ll have to call. (Very nice of her by the way.)  Better to go to the “stazione” – there are lots of taxis there.  We don’t find a taxi but we do find an underground mall (weird and a little scary – wouldn’t want to be down there at night) and an aeropuerto shuttle.  Costs a lot less than the taxi – only 10 euro instead of 25!  2 hours later, we’re back in Bagnone and once again fall into bed exhausted.

We get up early again to head back to Florence for Day 2 – our “appointment” at the Uffizi is for 11:00 am and we have a 1 1/2 hour drive.  I finally buy some good walking shoes in the mall under the street – I’m so happy!  They’re red, and leather, and COMFORTABLE!  I love them and my toes match, and my bag matches…Oh yeah – the Uffizi – Kevin – when you recommended we see it, you did not tell me how HUGE this gallery is!  It’s an entire city block.  Took us 2 1/2 hours JUST to get through the 3rd floor after which we gave up.  But there!  We DID do SOMETHING cultural and I enjoyed it (even if Scott was fed up after room 15).  I didn’t realize that all the Italian masters painted the SAME things – all having to do with Christ’s life & death. There are at LEAST 12 versions of “Madonna Adoring Child” (I love Botticelli’s best) and these are only the ones in the Uffizi – worldwide there are probably 100’s.  Then of course, there was the never-ending museum shop (which seemed to take up the entire first floor).  I buy a couple of Botticelli postcards – one is the Madonna in the Rosegarden which I fall in love with and the other portrays a lady holding a sword with her maid behind her carrying a man’s severed head in a basket – not sure what THAT’S about but I want to find out.  There are 4 or 5 versions of that particular scene too, one painted by one of the ONLY female painters of the time (and a whole lot gorier than Botticelli’s), Artemisia Gentileschi. 

 

(The first is Gentileschi’s and the second Boticelli’s version.)

Scott is overjoyed when we find the uscita (exit) and even happier when we are lured into a trattoria for lunch.  After lunch, we go shopping again and I find a beautiful green leather bag that I buy as a birthday present from Margot – thanks Margot! : )  Leather is everywhere in Florence, shoes, belts, handbags in stores, on street corner stalls – everywhere.  Scarves too!

 

Next we HAVE to have a gelato – could be our last chance in Italy!  We make a mistake though and order our gelato in paper cups and THEN sit down.  No no no!  We are told that it costs extra to sit at the tables because we’re supposed to be waited on, and get our gelato in glass ice cream bowls with lovely decorative cookies.  Oops.   There are a lot of rules for doing things here that I don’t think we have at home?  Maybe we do – we just don’t think about them?

Then, Scott crazily decides he’s going to climb the 435 steps to the top of Duomo in the 33 degree heat – he wants to work off the pasta and gelato and wants pictures to prove that he did it and survived.  Meanwhile I go…shopping…but my heart’s not in it anymore – I’ve had enough of the city – too much noise (sirens, 20 different languages being spoken, buses lurching around, street cleaners).  I want to get back to peaceful and COOL Bagnone.  It’s in the mountains so it doesn’t retain the day’s heat.

    

First, we have to stop at Ikea though – Scott’s on the hunt for ice cube trays and for some reason, we can’t find any anywhere.  The GPS is no help because Ikea doesn’t, as far as it’s concerned, exist here.  Even though it’s a GIGANTIC blue and yellow building and clearly DOES exist!!  We can SEE it from the autostrada and it looks like it’s 5 minutes away but it takes us 45 minutes to find it. Scott’s BIGGEST adventure on this trip is DRIVING.  He’ll have more gray hair when we get back.

Tomorrow – another rest day before we leave Italy and head back to Marseille for an overnight.  I’d hoped to go to Cinque Terre but we’ve run out of steam and need to chillax before the long drive.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a nice gentle walk and actually FIND the stupid river??

For now, as they say here – arrividerci! or ciao! depending…(on what we have no idea).