Italy - the Food

A Batting Percentage of .996
I've always liked Italian food but here in Tuscany I am beginning to love it.  I see why there are so many Italian restaurants in the States, I understand what they're trying to accomplish.  Unfortunately, they just don't have the ingredients.  Here, the trees and gardens furnish the spectacular, seemingly on autopilot.  I've not seen a single person tending them.  At the fruit store they ask when you're going to eat your purchase and give you something of appropriate ripeness.

They never pick anything too early, but at the right time, like this basket of apricots, pears and figs which our landlord and her son harvested from the yard.

Down the road from our house, among the olive trees, some raspberries peek through a fence.


I'd never associated kiwis with Italy, but there they were a few feet from the raspberries.  I'd describe a kiwi plant as a small tree that sprouts long meandering vine-like arms.

The morning pastries are fresh and have a shelf life of about two hours.  If you were to eat this at 11am it would be stale already.

At the beach we get seafood that tastes like it was fished out that morning.

Truffles?  Sure, shave off wafers of it onto my pasta, please.

Tortelli with ragu in Lucca.  Never had it before - it's reminiscent of ravioli.

This region is bursting with porchetta - a roasted ham chock full of fat.  They usually slap it in between two pieces of bread.

'Tis the season for porcini mushrooms and here in the mountains they're fist-sized yet tender.  They chop em up and throw them into pasta or risotto.  Or, even better, they roast them in a wood burning oven with olive oil.

Speaking of risotto, there is an endless variety.  This is a curry risotto with sliced apple.

All the pasta is made in house which is impossible to beat.  This tagliatelle has a sauce that includes zucchini flowers.

There are many more pasta shapes than I'm used to.  This one is shaped like twisted french fries.  Another we tried was like a thick, dense rope.

More often than not, we buy stuff from the market, cook at home and eat on our veranda.  I don't feel like I've gained weight but I don't see how that's possible.