Food post! Each tour, someone reading this blog makes fun of me for how much I talk about food. But there is no way I could be in Italy and not share all the great, delicious thing we've eaten. I learned just a few things from the week of Italian food.
F i r s t wine is serious business. So good.
S e c o n d do not attempt to raise your glass of water during a group cheers session. No one cares about your inevitably very tiny water glass.
T h i r d wine glasses are allllways way bigger than whatever water glass you could have hoped to receive, making proper rehydration after all the wine you drank the day before nearly impossible. Go to the gas station and by the 2 liter bottle of aqua for 2 euro. Let it be a reset button for yourself.
F o u r t h Pastas always come first, even before salads. Here is the order of the courses if I've got this right: Pasta, meat course, third other thing that you didn't see coming (cooked veggies or a salad), dessert, a round of grappa (a type of liquor), a round of espresso (which I've decided is available to keep you from falling into a deep, deep, inescapable sleep after eating enough food for a whole day dressed up as dinner.
F i f t h and final observation, and my favorite, Italy is rich with regional tradition. Our promoter who has traveled with us our entire time here explained that gnocchi in one of part of the country is made entirely different in the other parts. Pasta is different. The typical bread served is different. Each region developed its own traditions and styles over time and has hung on to them still. I think that is incredibly amazing, coming from America where driving across the country on the highway begins to feel like you're circling round in an enormous loop, passing Chilis after Chilis, after Applebees, after TGIFridays, inbetween every state line. If we took a hint from Italy in this way, french fries would be different in California and different again in Arizona. A Boston Burger would be unlike one from Virginia. How cool would that be? To have so many different cultures in all of the space of our nation?
Anyhow, retrospectively explaining each meal with words only goes so far, so here are some pictures for you.
The best pesto pasta.
A sort of rum cake dessert
Happy Birthday Travis!
a puff pastry covered in chocolate ice cream.
Chocolate cake on a fancy plate.
The home of the multi course lunch.
Pasta in Tuscany.
Sharing time.
Some of the boys ate a huge, huge rare steak.
I did not partake.
on the walls.
Travis enticing the restaurant cat.
I almost fell down the stairs trying to get her attention. for real.
The view.
In the mountains.
