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.

buona pasqua!

Buona Pasqua! Happy Easter! I'm only a few days late, I know you'll forgive me.

The weather played games with us all weekend. I would wake up inthe morning, and be incredibly excited because the view out our window would look like this...

But by the time I showered and got ready, the view would look like this...

Which would usually turn into an all-out downpour by afternoon.

We managed to make our own fun anyway. The celebration started a couple of days before Easter, when Gillian brought me along to a chocolate shop that had been recommended to her.

Here, the children are given giant, hollow chocolate eggs that usually have toys in them. There are all kinds of varieties, and they are all beautiful...and tempting.

This one was the size of a small toddler and cost more than 95 euro.

Gillian and I may or may not have bought one each, and though it did take a great deal of willpower, I resisted the 20-pound egg and went for a smaller version. The chocolate store is also home to a gelateria, and since we had been planning to get gelato anyway, we decided to gamble and try this new, untested and unrecommended place.

We were not disappointed.

My cone...dark chocolate with sicilian orange and "milk" flavors. SO GOOD. And cheap! That is quite a lot of gelato for 1.70 euro, let me tell you. I'm turning into quite the connoisseur.

Every Easter for more than 300 years has been celebrated in Florence with il Scoppio del Carro, or the Explosion of the Cart. The cart is pulled by four white oxen in a procession through the city until it comes to rest between the Baptistery and the main cathedral. A wire is attached somehow, and a white dove that is actually a "rocket" is sent down the wire to the cart, which is full of small explosives and fireworks. Apparently the belief is that if the explosion is successful, then there will be a good harvest that year.

I personally missed the actual explosion, but got to see the cart being pulled away by the oxen after the event.

After that, I went home to celebrate with the roomies!

Lovely morning picture, but check out how big it is! It's the size of my head! And the chocolate is of much higher quality than the stuff they use to make those nasty hollow bunnies with in America. I gave half to my roommate Marissa because Lord knows I don't need that much chocolate.

We had a nice Easter dinner (after trekking through the POURING rain to the other side of the river) at Dante's, which had been recommended to us multiple times, partly because of the food, but mostly because as students, we get free wine. We each ordered a pizza and had a few glasses of wine. When we left the restaurant, it was raining even harder, and our feet were already soaked, so we called a cab to take us home, where, in our wine-induced giddiness, we may or may not have started an all-out berry-throwing war. I think there were berries in every corner of the apartment by the end of the night. Don't worry, parents, we woke up the next morning and promptly swept, mopped, and picked up every last berry.

Oh! I forgot to mention that I spent most of Easter constructing a crostata, or fresh fruit and custard tart, like one we had made in class earlier in the week. I didn't manage to get a picture of it before we demolished it, but Gillian did. I kind of messed up the custard, but it was still delicious. I was quite impressed with myself.

Gillian and I are now off to check out the San Ambroggio market, which is just another one of Florence's food markets, but we have been itching to see if it is better than il Mercato Centrale. The weather is also gorgeous, so I'll probably hang outside before meeting Mary for lunch at Sergio's later this afternoon. Mmmmm, minestra here I come!

mario and sergio: the men in my life.

I'm too tired (and my internet is moving too slowly) to upload all of the pics necessary to portray my London adventures to you, but I will tell you a bit about my day today and my weekend plans....

I got up early for class this morning, but I didn't have history this afternoon, so I got to come home early. When Gillian and Sam woke up, we all headed out together to run a few errands.

First on the list...

Looking at adorable bunnies of course! With Easter coming up on Sunday, it certainly seemed appropriate. We actually checked out the bunnies while we were waiting for an available spot at...

Trattoria Mario.

API had recommended this spot to us in the handbook they gave us at orientation, but we never got around to trying it until today. BIG MISTAKE. It is such a great little typical Italian joint. It was totally packed. We had to wait around 30-40 minutes for 3 of us to be seated. We were given a 4-person table, then, in true Italian style, they seated a random stranger at our table with us after we'd begun eating. Fortunately, he was a pretty cool guy.

The restaurant itself is really tiny, and there are two longer tables, cafeteria style, then several smaller 4-person tables in the back, all crammed together. The menu is handwritten up at the front, along with a bunch of other signs such as one that said Vietato chiedere ketch up!!! (It is forbidden to order ketchup) and others commenting on the fact that they do not use a freezer (everything is totally fresh!) and that their stock is not made with bouillon cubes, but actually chicken and vegetables.

Sam and I ordered minestra di riso e fagioli (rice and bean soup) while Gillian had the ribollita (typical Tuscan cabbage soup with bread). Everything was delicious and we walked out paying only around 6 euro each. Quite cheap for a true Italian experience. We plan to become regulars
there, and I think that Gillian and I have officially become Sergio's regulars as well. That is our usual Wednesday lunch spot, where they gave us extra bread for free this week. That sort of favor is how you know that you are in with the restaurant. Go us!

After lunch, I had wanted to go to a park or something to enjoy the weather...which had rapidly disintegrated during lunch into an all-out storm. Boo! So we came home and played with KinderEgg toys.

The boats that you get in the eggs do not float, FYI.

(P.S. Orange and blue!!)

Later in the evening, I got really adventurous and decided to recreate something we made in my cooking class last night, since I wasn't in the actual group that made it. It is a pasta dish called spaghetti alla'amantricia. I used whole wheat spaghetti and made the sauce from a base of olive oil and pancetta, which is a streaky and flavorful Italian bacon, along with garlic and tomatoes that had been chopped and peeled. At the end, of course, I doused it with a good handful of freshly grated Parmaggiano-Reggiano cheese. I was quite impressed with myself, and there was even enough for Sam and Gillian to try it and declare me a master chef (okay, maybe they didn't go that far, but it was definitely good!).

In the midst of preparation. I forgot take a shot of the final product because it smelled so good and I was starving!

This weekend is going to be simultaneously relaxing and busy. Tomorrow, I'm hoping I'll get to do what I had planned for the day: go to the Cascine Park to read my book. However, it looks like the weather may not cooperate, so my backup plan is to head to the Uffizi museum, which I still have not visited...whoops.

Saturday, Gillian and I have a full day trip to Bologna planned. Because the trains are so odd with their timing and cost, it is cheapest for us to catch an early 8:30 AM train and then stay until around 8 PM at night, so we will be eating two meals there and likely spending some time in coffee shops around the city. Luckily, Bologna is known as being a culinary Mecca, and also has a lot of historical sites to see. Hopefully it will be enough to keep us busy for a full day!

Sunday is Easter, which is a big deal here in Italy (obviously, with the Catholics and all that). There are a lot of events going on around the city, most notably the "Exploding Cart" on Sunday morning after Mass at the Duomo. I'll explain more about that later.

Then Monday, no one has class, so there are no solid plans yet, but I am sure that we will find some sort of trouble to get into...

Tomorrow morning before I head wherever the wind takes me, I should have time to update on my British vacation. Ciao!