drawing to a close.

Am I going insane, or is it really May 12? That can't be possible, since yesterday was January 25. I just arrived in Florence, right? There is no way that I have been here for nearly four months already.

Sadly, that is the truth, though. My time abroad is drawing quickly to a close, and until today, I think, I was a little bit in denial about it. As ready as I am to go home and see my family and get out of this tiny apartment, I am going to miss Florence, living abroad, my roommates, buying fresh food, and a million other things that I could never recount.

Things might get hairy over the next couple of days as I finish my final exams, pack everything up, and attempt to cram as much Florentine culture into my days as humanly possible, but I hope to update again before I have to leave my apartment on Saturday. After I move out, my parents and I will travel to Rome, Naples, and Pompeii before I return to Pisa to fly to Alicante, Spain for three days. Then, I'll go back to Pisa to fly home on Tuesday, May 25. It's sure to be a whirlwind of a week, but I suppose that it's a fitting close to my whirlwind semester.

Speaking of whirlwinds, it seems like it was just hours ago that Gillian and I returned from our second trip to San Gimignano (when in reality we went last Saturday).

For those who don't remember, San Gimignano is a tiny gem of a Tuscan town, located a little over an hour south of Florence close to Siena. It's known for its beautiful scenery, medeival feel, and, of course, the world champion of gelato: Pluripremiata.

Unlike last time, it was actually open [and crowded, to say the least.] I was a happy camper.

Remember this?

The line was nuts and the girls working behind the counter were...brusque, to put it politely. But I walked out with a giant cone of joy, in the form of tiramisu, banana, and nutella gelato.

It only costs 3 euro to make my day.

Then Sunday, my parents arrived in Italy after a hectic series of plane rides that finally ended in Pisa. I spent the better part of Monday showing them all of the major sights of Florence, and we managed to hit two restaurants I've been meaning to try: Acqua al Due and Trattoria Casalinga. I was quite impressed with Casalinga, and while Acqua was a fun night, the food wasn't quite what I expected.

My parents first Italian gelato experience: Grom!

In front of the Ponte Vecchio on Monday.

The parents.

At the Piazzale Michaelangelo.

My dad treated the whole city like a museum, stopping to inspect every little detail. He was particularly fascinated by the vehicles, including this little toppolino, or "Little Mouse". In this picture, a woman is telling him not to lean on the car or it might dent! Whoops.

Tuesday, I woke early to eat breakfast with my parents before they headed to the Galleria Uffizi while I took two of my finals. I feel comfortable with how I did on both. After that, the parents and I went to Mario's, where my mom finally got to experience ribollita after all of my chatter on this blog about it.

Mom&Dad departed Tuesday afternoon (in the pouring rain) bound for Cinque Terre! I haven't heard from them since yesterday night, but I hope that the hike went well. As far as I know, they are headed for Siena tonight, and will return to Florence on Friday night to help me move out on Saturday morning.

Today, I met up with Bethany and Mary for our last Wednesday lunch at Sergio's :[ It would have been a sadder affair, but the restaurant was hopping, and we had to eat quickly. No time for nostalgia when it's Italian lunch time! Gillian and Sam met me in the San Lorenzo market after that to finish up some last minute souveneir shopping...no matter how much I shop it just seems like my list keeps getting longer and longer!

Then, Gillian and I finally took on lampredotto, a Florentine specialty made from a cow's fourth stomach. [I can tell that you are salivating at the thought!] We were both a bit intimidated by it, but we absolutely HAD to try it, so we decided to just buy one sandwich to sample.

Looks innocent, right?

My first bite...

Sam digs in...

Bethany gets in on the fun, too...

Verdict?

I personally liked the taste, but couldn't get over the combination of my mental block about eating cow's stomach as well as the very SLIMY texture. Gillian and I each braved another bite, trying to give it another chance, but it was a no-go. We tossed over half of it in the trash. Oh, well! At least we gave it a shot.

I finished off my Wednesday with my final practical cooking exam, in which my teammates and I prepared a bruschetta as well as a panna cotta. Both turned out great, and we were all pleased with how it went. Since I've been feeling a bit under the weather this week (sore throat, congested, headache) I decided to rest up tonight in preparation for our final days here. I actually packed one of my suitcases and started in on my big one...as soon as I do laundry, I should have no problem finishing up Friday night!

I hope to write again before I leave, but be assured that I will update a few times while I'm travelling if I don't get to. Ciao!

trip to sicily.

Just a quickie, since I know that you all love my food pornography...

Today, the regions that we were focusing on were Sicily and Sardenia, which are the two largest islands off of Italy's coast. Sicily is the large island at the tip of Italy's "boot" toe, and Sardenia is due west of Tuscany. Obviously, being islands, they are well known for their seafood!

First up? Probably one of the best pasta dishes I have had in Italy to date:

penne alla norma.

The sauce was made by first sauteeing red onion in olive oil. Once it had carmelized a little, we tossed in garlic, tomatoes that had been boiled, peeled, and chopped, basil, and the usual salt&pepper. While the sauce was thickening, we deep fried strips of eggplant in oil, adding them in just before the sauce was done. Toss the al dente penne with the sauce, top with parmesan and extra strips of eggplant, and voila! Deliciousness. I may have gone back for seconds.

Next up was calamari imbottiti, which is stuffed squid. A lot of people in my class were real babies about trying this dish, but I sucked it up and gave it a try. I wasn't SUPER impressed; it was a bit "fishy" for my taste, but at least I tried it!

Since everyone was being a pansy about trying the imbottiti, the teacher deep fried some of the extra calamari bits, like we Americans like.

The calamari was stuffed with breadcrumbs, parsley, and the chopped tentacles, lightly fried, then simmered in a tomato sauce made with white wine until tender.

Finally, my group was in charge of the dessert (how does that always happen?). We made a cassatta siciliana.

Sandwiched between layers of pre-made sponge cake soaked in liquer is a blend of ricotta, sugar, candied fruit, and chocolate chips. On top, we made a glaze with water, food coloring and powdered sugar, before finally topping with a berry puree and freshly diced strawberries. Honestly, there was just too much going on in this dessert. It was too sweet, and the combo of the chocolate chips AND the candied fruit was a little strange. It wasn't bad, but definitely a little intense for me (didn't stop me from polishing off my portion...)

Now that I'm back from class, I'm totally exhausted due to the pills I took earlier today for my ALLERGIES which have been acting up! Something about this Florentine pollen is really aggravating my nose; I've been having sneezing attacks and my eyes are constantly puffy and watery. I'm surprised that I haven't terrified the locals with my teary appearance. So today, I meandered down to the farmacia and demanded relief from the man at the counter, who handed me a box, took my eight euro, and gave me no directions on how often to take the pills, etc. Welcome to Italy.

sleepy stomach.

I think the mere title of this post says more about my current state of tiredness than anything else. For some reason, since I got home from cooking class, I have just been beat. Unfortunately, with a research paper to write, bedtime will likely not be until some unmentionable hour past midnight. Yuck.

Cooking class was somewhat uninspiring again tonight, but I thought I'd share the fruits of my labor with you anyway.

We started with a stereotypical Italian antipasto (deja vu?), bruschetta al pomodoro. The usual went into the tomato mixture: chopped tomato, olive oil, salt, fresh garlic, oregano, and fresh basil. Toss, let sit, then top toasted Tuscan bread with tomato-y goodness. Add a little red pepper to spice up your life.

I was REALLY excited about our primi piatti when I first read the recipe today, but the end result was less than impressive. Orchiette al cime di rapa is an ear-shaped pasta made with turnip greens and anchovies. Of course, everyone in the class freaked out at the idea of anchovies, but in the end, you honestly could not taste them. The dish ended up being bland, boring, and sadly without any real flavor or identity. I liked the pasta shape, but ended up topping it with anything and everything I could get my paws on (salt, pepper, red pepper...more salt...and parmesan).

Parmesan cheese makes everything better.

Again, reading the recipe for this next dish, flan di zucchine, excited me much more than the actual food. I personally sliced enough zucchini to feed Ethiopia, then we blanched it. Layer the slices in the bottom of a pan and top with a mixture of egg yolk, parmesan cheese, beaten egg whites, and a dash of nutmeg. Top with more zucchini slices and bake.

Blah.

I did, however, love our main course, pesce al spada di marinara. We baked fillets of swordfish topped with chopped tomato, olive oil, chopped black olive, capers, breadcrumbs, and an array of spices. Simple, delicious...and hot. I may have burned my tongue wolfing it down.



Aaaaaand the finale! The dessert we made was actually not on the syllabus, but since we weren't scheduled to make one today, our very kind cooking teacher showed us the "proper" way to make a tiramisu! (Briana, tell Matt that I'll make him some when I get home.)

In case you were wondering, the proper way to make it is sans liquer, with straight espresso, lady fingers, eggs, sugar, and marscapone. Boom. Using a 100 g marscapone to one egg to one tablespoon of sugar ratio (depending on how much you want to make), separate the eggs, mixing the sugar into the yolk and beating the white until VERY VERY stiff. Add marscapone to the egg yolk mixture then mix in the whites. Prepare the espresso, then quickly dip the lady fingers in the coffee (do NOT leave them there to soak or they will be too soggy). Place a small amount of the marscapone mixture in the bottom of a pan, topping with the coffee-soaked lady fingers. Top with the rest of the marscapone. Refrigerate. Serve topped with cocoa.

Boom. Delicious. Simple. Italian.

Now I'm off to...procrastinate a teensy bit more before I finally settle down to write about Caterina and Marie de'Medici, Queens of France. You'd think they would be more interesting than they actually are.

Buona notte!

if you're hungry...

...walk away. Just walk away now. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Happy Hump Day to you all! I must say, that while I generally dread Wednesdays because they are the obstacle to the all-downhill-from-here second half of the week, they are possibly my favorite days here in Italy.

If you read my blog at all, you know what Wednesday's mean: Sergio's! We have had a standing Wednesday lunch date there since late February I think, and I've mentioned before that I think the staff is slowly getting to know us. None of us can really put a finger on what it is about this place that just warms our hearts, whether it's the ever-changing handwritten-daily menus, the same faces we see every time we go, or the simply incredible food, I have no intentions of ditching this date any time soon.

As soon as Gillian and Sam were ready to go, off we went!

The funny thing is that Sergio's wasn't even recommended to us by API, as most of our favorite places thus far have been. Gillian's professor from home actually knew of Sergio's when he visited Florence something like 50 years ago! Back then, it was little more than a sandwich shop, but now, it's a full on trattoria. For the sake of comparison, I ordered the ribollita today. If you have been paying attention in Italian class (a.k.a. my blog), you know that ribollita is a typical Tuscan soup with a black cabbage and bean base. I ordered it once when we first arrived in the city and I was not impressed at all, but when I decided to try it again at Mario's last week, I fell completely in love. Today, the two ribollitas competed for my heart: Sergio vs. Mario.

Ignore the fact that the soup looks vaguely disgusting in this photo, and concentrate on the fact that it is delicious. I think I decided that I prefer Mario's ribollita to Sergio's, but that Sergio's other soups (pasta e fagioli, minestra di farina, etc.) totally beat out the bean soup I had the first time we went to Mario's.

After our lunch, Sam and I took our books down to the Piazza Independenza again to soak up some Florentine sunshine. We say that we go to study, but we mostly just watch the dogs play in the park. We have come to recognize many of them, as well as their elderly Italian owners, who seem to gather in the park for little reason other than to cram onto benches with other elderly Italians to watch their dogs have a good time. Interesting people, these Italians.

I went directly from there to my cooking class, where I knew I was in for a seriously delicious dinner. I have literally been waiting for this class, knowing that what we were preparing was going to blow everything else away.

The star of the show today was...pizza napoletana! Neopolitan pizza, just like they famously make in the southern city of Naples. Holy crap, was I excited.

We handmade the dough ourselves, allowing it to rise before rolling it out and then portioning it into three separate pans.

One pan became this...

Our teacher essentially just took the dough, made indentations with his fingertips, topped it with fresh rosemary, salt, and olive oil and then stuck it in the oven. Yummmmmm.

The other two pans became pizza margherita, which is just the dough and tomato sauce (don't forget the olive oil!) topped with fresh bufalo mozzarella cheese and basil.

Sound boring? It's not. I'd just like to inform my parents that when they get here there will be a non-negotiable pit-stop in Naples just for pizza. Thanks!

And you can't have pizza without beer...

We each got a small cup of Peroni, a typical Italian beer. I actually didn't hate it like I do most normal beers (Guiness is the only one I can say that I legitimately like).

Now we're going to play a small game called Name That Entree!

You may not be able to tell, but underneath all of that tomato sauce and cheesy goodness is...aubergines! Yes, we made parmagiana di melanzane, or eggplant parmesan. I've never actually tried it, due to my unfounded fear of eggplant, but I can tell you that I will be sampling this again before leaving Italy.

We started by slicing the eggplants very thin and then coating them with salt. While they sat like that, we prepared the tomato sauce the normal way, with peeled tomatoes, olive oil, salt, the works. After the sauce had thickened up, we set it aside and heated up some oil, which we deep-fried the eggplant in, after rinsing the salt off. We then lined a deep pan with the fried eggplants, then a layer of sauce, then a layer of sliced fresh mozzarella, then basil, repeat. Top with grated parmesan cheese, and bake. Then devour.

Then there may or may not have been a little more pizza...

Finally, our teacher let us at the dessert, which I was personally involved in preparing! See that crust? All mine, baby.

Pasticheria napolitana is a dessert normally made at Easter. The crust was prepared the same way we prepared the crusts for the fruit tart and the torta della nonna, with flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, but this time we also added the zest of one lemon. The filling was made by heating milk and boiled wheat (which I had never seen before, and is sold mostly so that people can make this particular pie) until it became creamy. After allowin that to cool, we added it to a sweetened ricotta and egg mixture, which also incuded some vanilla and orange flavoring, as well as more lemon zest. The kicker? We also put in 150 grams of candied fruit.

I singlehandedly rolled out the dough for the crust, and after the teacher had added the filling, a classmate and I did the criss-cross pattern with the dough strings on the top.

I wasn't entirely sure about how I was going to feel about this dessert, with the candied fruit and all. It turned out to taste pretty similar to the torta della nonna, just more citrus-y and sweeter, thanks to the candy. I certainly wasn't complaining.

Tomorrow, I have class pretty much all day, but then, in the evening, my roommates and I are going on a tour of a gelato factory! Free samples? I sure hope so! Then this weekend we are going on our final excursion with our program to Perugia for a wine tasting and to Siena to experience Italy's thermal hot baths! Woohoo!

I hope your Hump Day was at least half as good as mine! Ciao!

it's a beautiful day.

I hope that a burst of song filled your head when you read this blog title...IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY! A month ago, it was snowing. Today, it is in the 70's, sunny, and completely cloudless. Beautiful.

Today, I fell in love with Italy all over again.

My day started when I woke up around 10. Ate breakfast, the usual, enjoyed the beautiful weather out the window while I ate. Then Gillian and I finally made it over to the San Ambroggio market, another food market, located in the eastern part of the city. I personally have never been to that part of the city, so I enjoyed our walk in the perfect weather.

The market itself was...markety. Pretty sweet. I'm definitely going to miss markets when I am buying my produce at Publix in just over 6 weeks. Ew.

Haha, check out the stall owner smoking while he works. Typical.

Another lunch place that is on our list, and it's actually located IN the market. We would have gone here yesterday, but we had a date with Sergio.

We each bought a few things, and spent a bit of time inside, chatting with one of the cheese vendors. He had a thing for Gillian and kept giving us free samples of all kinds of things...three different kinds of pecorino, an unidentified kind of creamy cheese on a cracker, and finally, a large green olive.

Then we walked back toward the city center...

Yet another thing on our to-eat list: Florentine street food! Trippa, or tripe, which is...cow's stomach, is very common locally, and we are determined to at least sample it...no matter how scared we may be. I think Gill and I agreed to split one later, just to be on the safe side.

Then we came upon this little area, which I had no idea existed...

More used books.

I think the weather has drawn all of the couples out into the open...and they are not shy about PDA around here.

Then we stumbled into this little courtyard.

It's full of little junk shops! Most of them were closed, but I really want to go back and check on one in particular that looked like it had some antique postcards and prints inside.

Then of course, since it was Wednesday, we had our usual lunch at Sergio's! Sam's friend from home, Kasey, who is studying in Stockholm, joined us. I had the pasta e fagioli, a soup with little round noodles and beans, topped with the mandatory dose of olive oil. It was, as usual, delicious.

Before lunch, Gillian and I had done a bit of shopping at San Lorenzo. I picked up a pair of sweet shades and a bracelet for a few euro.

Thennnn the weather was so gorgeous that we took a blanket down to Piazza di Independenza and just spread out to enjoy the sunshine.

Sam did some homework...

While Gillian napped.

I, of course, took the opportunity to show off my new sunglasses! I haggled the guy from 20 euro all the way down to 5. Good job, me.

I spent most of the afternoon, though, with Sam's copy of Eat, Pray, Love.

I picked up directly from the park and went to my cooking class. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't exactly enthralled with what we made last night, but free dinner is free dinner.

We started with pasta coi ceci, which is a kind of pasta and chickpea "soup" which, like most Italian sounds I have encountered, is thick enough to eat with a fork. On the side, broccoli al limone, broccoli topped with a lemon and olive oil sauce, and a nice slice of Tuscan bread.

For our main course, we made lamb with fresh mint, but I personally wasn't a huge fan. We roasted it, with the garlic and mint wrapped up inside, in the oven for over an hour, stopping to add white wine to the pan as it evaporated. There was just something weird about the taste (plus I got a particularly fatty piece). I wasn't a fan, and didn't stop to take a photo.

Dessert was cicerchiata, which is a kind of carnival food. It is essentially fried dough balls, which we topped with a honey glaze made from raw honey, crushed almonds, cinnamon, and lemon zest.

They were good, but again, uninspired.

I literally ran from my cooking class down to Via Ghibellina, where I met up with the rest of the API crew for Momix, the modern Italian ballet, which had been described to us as a mixture between dance and Cirque du Soleil. I have never actually seen Cirque, so I was a bit unsure about what to expect. Our seats were pretty sweet, on the top floor in a box front and center of the stage (though it took us about a year to find them...)

I enjoyed Momix, though it was quite different from what I had expected. The word "ballet" to me just automatically means choreographed dance to music, but this was much more...interpretive. There was a lot of play with light and different kinds of music and the "dancing" itself was unlike any ballet I'd ever seen.

At the end of the night, we walked home and enjoyed some freshly baked dark chocolate chip cookies that Gillian had (angrily) prepared earlier in the evening, while the internet had been playing games with her. A perfect end to a perfect day.