Futbol Blackshirts

I was buying a bottle of water in a shop when I heard a huge commotion. Loud shouting voices... It sounded like a riot. 

Soon I heard marching with the chanting. I hurried into the sidewalk where I saw this gang. Apparently it's a common occurrence - two futbol teams were playing that night, and apparently the out-of-town fans were marching from the stazione, making their presence known.








Goodbye, Florence

I strolled around Florence my last morning, and had a nice lunch which I hoped was high fiber. I ran into Alessandro on the street and met the woman from Colorado who took my room. Then I headed to the treno for the quick trip to Lorenzo in Fiesole.
















Dinner with Friends



My last night in Florence I had dinner with Emma, Alessandro, and Alessandro's girlfriend Maria who had only moved to Florence two weeks before from Moscow.

We went to a small restaurant in the next via over, Marione's, where Alessandro is well known. We sat and he immediately went to work teaching Emma how to pronounce the food, and how to order in the restaurant. He decided what each of us would eat, according to his knowledge of the restaurant and Italian food in general.

We ordered still water and red table wine, which was very good. As a starter we had toast with tomato bruschetta, and toast with chicken liver pate. Yes, I ate it.

Then dinner was served. We shared pasta with clams, and beef stew with mushrooms. It was very good. It was more beef than I've eaten in the past six years combined. The gravy was good with the Florentine bread.

Afterwards we strolled through town, crossing a bridge to Alessandro's favorite piazza. Again, he was very well known there. Emma and I had some nice Sardinian beer with a definite kick, Alessandro and Maria had gelato.

We wasted a lot of good breath trying to convince Emma that a 20-year old male college student is too immature to be dating a 25-year old woman of the world -- unless she wants to hang out at his parent's house and play X-Box. Alessandro pretended to be Emma and send Julio a mushy Whatsapp. We looked around the piazza for a suitable date for Emma -- perhaps even a husband so she can get the Italian equivalent of a Green Card...

Then we strolled back to our respective homes at #11 and #12 via del Sole, and said goodnight / goodbye / ciao ciao.

Easy Riders


What a fun tour!

Altogether we had a foursome family from Australia, two ladies from Vietnam, a Brit and his wife who had come to Florence to see David Gilmour of Pink Floyd the night before, a couple from San Diego on their honeymoon.

Additionally there were two friends who had grown up together in Philippines and lost touch after school. One moved to US and ended up Upstate NY 30 minutes from Montreal. The other became a nun and moved to Rome. We were very happy to have the blessing of the church on this tour!

We stopped for a view over Florence from a San Miniato al Monte. Then we went by Galileo's final home, provided him by the Medici's -- and where today there is an Observatory, and throughout various hill towns just south of Florence.

Then we went back to a villa where they have cooking classes, excellent dinners, and where we were served a wonderful feast!

And where we met a giant dog similar to this that had been rescued from Eastern Europe -- where they were planning to set him to fight bears!


Prepping for the Tour


So before the Vespa tour we got suited up.... got a helmet, got all buckled in... Then it was time for the driving test. I was the only 'single' and there was only one other Vietnamese lady driver... all the other drivers were men. Every driver besides myself had experience with cycles of some kind. Sadly, I didn't pass the driving test.

While these were 'single gear' scooters, I really had trouble controlling the gas... which you had to pull toward you... and then push away if you didn't need it.... I guess my thinking was that if I wasn't specifically pulling it, or if I put on the brake, the gas would back off by itself. No such luck.

So, I was given the option of driving a beautiful old Fiat car at the back of the line like the nun was doing (I'll get to that in a minute!) or riding in the front in the beautifully restored Rally Fiat with Francesco, the guide.

Hmmmm, do I want to drive a car inside the city, and try to keep up with a team of scooters..... or do I want to ride with the guide where I can get basically a private tour?

I chose riding with Francesco.

Dinner with Andrea and Romolo


That evening I walked back to the piazza with the carosel, because I wanted to buy a water color painting from an artist there. He has a brother who lives in NJ and works at a large US bank. Hmmmmmmmm...

I asked which of the six-ish restaurants in the piazza I should eat and he sent me to the one all the artists go to. I walked over, got a table outside in the tent / loggia and started looking at the menu. I didn't want a lot, because I'd had so much at lunch with my class, so I took some time looking through the menu.

Shortly, they seated another single female directly next to me. We were reading our menus and drinking water when they seated another single female next to her! We all laughed and I started a conversation with the lady next to me.

Andrea is from Essex in England, but she doesn't know any of those 'Snookie-types' from the TV show. We had a great night talking. We covered British TV, American TV, Star Trek, William Shatner, Benedict Cumberbatch, world politics, human nature, Florence, Italy in general... we talked for hours.

At about hour three I asked the waiter -- and old guy in a red vest -- for the check, using the universal check sign. He said, 'why you leave?' ... at which point he suggested that I take another glass of wine For FREE. I said to myself and to Andrea, 'well, hell, if it's free'.

So Romolo -- that's his name -- brought over a free glass for each of us. After another hour we both insisted he bring the checks and we paid as quickly as we could... since it was 11 by this time and we were the only people left in the restaurant.

Altogether I had four glasses of very nice table wine.

We strolled off together. Andrea, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Lessons from Cooking Class



The bread in Florence is unsalted. While they feel it makes a perfect platform on which to really taste the other flavors (olive oil, etc) there is a story behind this. The trade route from the sea where the salt was produced was through Pisa to Florence. At some ancient time, during a war with Pisa, trade was cut off and salt was hard to find. The people left salt out of the bread. After the war was over, the people continued to leave the salt out of the bread (whether because they liked the flavor[-less] or to snub their noses at Pisa I don't know). I heard later that even in Pisa the bread is unsalted, so perhaps the was just a medieval urban legend.

The meringue for the tiramisu should be so stiff you can turn the bowl upside down over your head without fear of it falling out. Whipping up the meringue with an electric product is OK, but the tool emits heat which serves to immediately breakdown the mass... So if you are using an electric mixer, you might want to put the blades in the freezer for a while first. Lady fingers are too soft -- there is a different cookie / biscuit which is better to use (can't remember the name of it). The cocoa / mocha should be just a dusting, else the powder could dry out the dish. Any additional 'flavoring' or sweetening should be done via the coffee -- not in the eggs. In the summer you can substitute fresh fruits for the coffee / mocha.

In preparing the base for the bolognese, be generous with the olive oil and cook the onion / carrot / celery on medium heat only -- you want to make the onions translucent, not caramelized. (You will also be generous with the wine -- and use REAL WINE in a bottle.) The beef / pork ratio should be 80 / 20%. When you add the meat into the pot, turn the heat up to sear the meat. Only after there is no more red do you add any salt (you do not want to draw the moisture from the meat). Mix tomato paste into veggie stock and pour into the pan for simmering -- continue to add stock as needed during 2+ hours of simmering on lowest heat. Throw large bit of lemon peel, whole rosemary and thyme on top to simmer with and give hint of flavor. Fish out before serving. The sauce should be brown -- not red. In the summer you can use (more but still not a lot of) fresh cherry tomatoes for a more rustic sauce.

Fresh pastas only contain egg and flour. (One egg and 3/4 cup soft wheat flour for each large serving.) Dried pastas may be other ingredients like olive oil -- but no seasonings in the pasta, as that will come from the water in cooking and from the sauces. To make pastas with veggies (like spinach) you will process / puree the spinach, then squeeze out as much water as possible.

It's impossible for me to describe the kneading and 'judging' part of the process, but once you've made your ball of dough you wrap in in plastic, getting out all of the air, to let it rest. Knead directly onto your marble / granite / large wood board. Roll out onto this surface as well -- thinner and thinner until you can see the grain of surface through the pasta. Dust with flour and fold to cut, and cut with pizza cutter or kitchen 'trowel'. Unfold and dust with flour to wait for cooking.

After you've drained the cooked pasta, you throw it all into the simmering sauce, and turn the heat up to high for less than 10 seconds, tossing the pasta in the sauce all the time -- this helps the sauce coat to the pasta. Then you pour this entire into your large serving bowl.Wide noodles should be used with meat sauces. Narrow noodles should be used with fish or vegetable sauces.

 This is all I can remember....... Perhaps the Chianti we drank with lunch caused short term memory loss..........