I don’t know of a restaurant in the US where we can spend 2 hours chatting with an adorable 7 year old who taught Peter the game she was playing, eat fabulous food...fish and eggplant lasagne, crusty herb pizza bianca, shrimp and artichoke pasta, fresh arugula salad, red wine from Abruzzo, perfect tiramisu, crispy apple strudel, and espresso, AND get to see Hannah’s high school teacher, Inka (who’s daughter has been our table hostess) AND be warmly greeted and served by Inka’s husband Gianni...and not pay a penny for the experience. We would have been happy to pay for such a splendid meal but Peter married Inka and Gianni years ago and we STILL eat free. The respect for the priest in Italy is endless! Ristorante Accademia- Piazza San Marco...don’t miss it!
I’ve already expounded on the fabulous food we ate in Switzerland but I want to say, and reiterate, that the food we ate at the tables of our friends, usually a group effort with lots of love and laughter, was the BEST. We just happen to have friends who are great cooks and I always learn something new from them.
Betty Nadalini never fails to have a new take on an old favorite. She taught me this time how to make risotto in the pressure cooker, how to clean porcini the RIGHT way and a new way to prepare eggplant. Sitting around their table is always a treat, so I was really pleased when she said she’d host our friends staying in the villa at Suvereto on Saturday afternoon. Mary and Rick and Doreen and Dan drove an hour to us through the hills that Rick and Dan had been biking for a week, leaving poverina Deb at the villa with an earache.
There’s not much better than good friends having a multi-coursed meal on a terrazzo with a view to the north of a Tuscan hill town and a panoramic view to the west of the Island of Elba rising out of the Mediterranean. Betty and Cesare served us Spumante with perfect bruschetta and thin, thin sliced eggplant roasted and crispy. The primo was porcini risotto...so good we didn’t want to go to the next course. Secondo was thin sliced juicy roast beef and rosemary roasted potatoes, and then a salad. And for dessert, peaches marinated in red wine with cookies. Then there’s always coffee and chocolates to let us linger longer at the table. All of it was so good, after our guests left we got it out again and ate more for supper! Thank you Betty and Cesare for sharing your beautiful place and fabulous food!
And then there’s Susanna Ballarini’s food at Le Boscarecce. Mary and Rick and Deb and Peter and I spent 5 nights out at Susanna and Massimo’s country inn in the Tuscan hills. Not only is it the perfect location to drive out every day for sightseeing but you get to return for Susanna’s amazing dinners. Several times we said…”No, I think this is the best!” We ate her famous liver pate, pappa al pomodoro, roast pork, mushroom pasta, artichoke pasta, squash soup, gnocchi with butter and sage, panna cotta, lemon cake… M&R&D&P...what have I left out?...oh yes...chicken and mushroom baked in clear plastic pouches gathered up like a present on your plate!
The breakfast spread at Le Boscarecce is pretty fabulous too. The opulent buffet had pretty much everything you can think of including ricotta and spinach soffles, full fat yoghurt with fresh berries, and homemade breads, granolas, and breakfast cakes… and hot dogs.
Suzanne and Giovanni made Peter and me a splendid meal served out on their beautiful terrace. Giovanni kept bringing out plate after plate of antipasti...perfect prosciutto and melon, liver pate, salami, cheeses including my favorite, buratta. Then he came out with a whole fish baked in crusted salt with roasted potatoes. It was so succulent I can still taste it! We finished with ice cream and a torta made by Giovanni’s father just for us...except he’s gotten hungry and eaten half of it.
Out in Suvareto the caretaker of the villa, Luciano, made us an all cinghiale dinner...it was a LOT of wild pork!
Antipasto: cinghiale pate on toast
Primo: pappardelle al cinghiale
Secondo: cinghiale stew with roasted potatoes
Dolce: Mary’s lovely biscotti with vin santo
Before dinner Doreen had said she’d make a salad, but Luciano said “Why would we need that?” Despite the richness it was all very good.
Sharing favorite restaurants with friends is also really fun. I’ve already mentioned Sallie and Martin sharing the fabulous Alpina with us in Champex...hard to beat!
But in Florence...
Giovanni, Suzanne, Isabella, and Matteo walked us over to their favorite food stand in San Ambrosio Market. Tables radiate out around the kitchen so you can watch all the action. As soon as we sat down, before we even ordered, the owner (who looks just like Jon Stewart) brought Isabella her favorite plate of pappa al pomodoro. I had a selection of all the vegetables of the day and their famous poached pear coated in crunchy caramel. I was having so much fun sitting across from Isabella eating that I really don’t know what everyone else ordered.
We shared two of our favorite places with Rick and Mary and Deb and they shared one of theirs that was new to us…
Mario’s behind the Central Market is so well known that there’s always a line, but it gives everyone a chance to chat and give advice to newcomers about the menu. If you sit in the crowded old space, you may sit with other people you don’t know but we were taken down to the cantina where it’s quieter and actually has menus for the table instead of the paper wall chart upstairs. We had their very delicious ribolitta and pork roast and salads and roasted potatoes and sautéed spinach...yum. We’ve eaten there a few hundred times ( at least 3 times a month for 9 years and then visits back?) and it’s always great Tuscan comfort food.
Casalinga off of Piazza Santo Spirito is an old classic. We settled into a table next to the bar and had the BEST waitress...straight out of an Italian movie...never wrote anything down...always a wry comment. I’d go back just for her. But the FOOD at Casalinga is sumptuous. Casalinga means “housekeeper” so you get all of the old Tuscan specialties… antipasti of prosciutto, lardo, olives and cheese, then slabs of toast rubbed with garlic topped with white beans with sage poured over with new olive oil, bresaola (dried beef) simply covered in arugula and olive oil, roast pork, sautéed spinach...so...so good!
And then Mary and Deb’s discovery on Borgo Ognissanti...a bar spread out onto the sidewalk with an $8 wine or cocktail that comes with quite a spread of antipasti. There were a few places like this with aperitivi when we lived there but now there seem to be many. I used to go to the Rotunda with my book club but it was always noisy and hectic. Because Ognissanti is quiet, this sidewalk setting was very pleasant, the nibbles very good, and the company...of course, very dear.
After our visit to Vatican Hill we rode the bus out to Rome’s equivalent of East Austin where Peter had copied off the names of the featured places on a 70 euro tour...we thought we could tour ourselves. They were bakeries and salumarias, and a restaurant that was closed, and the market place, which was a smaller and newer version of San Ambrosio in Florence…and not as charming. But the booth selling pasta and risotto was good and the experience was completely neighborhood...no tourists.
Roma! After we parted with all our friends, Peter and I had one day in Rome and the first night went with Alex Turpin to Broccoletti on Via Urbana. Our adorable AirBnB hostess is a screenwriter for TV and knew exactly the hip place to send us. Via Urbana is a very interesting street full of enticing shops and laughing young people. Fortunately we got there early and put our name in because Broccoletti is a popular small place that filled up as soon as we got in. Their spaghetti alle vongole and truffle risotto were perfect for primi. Then Peter had fried seafood while I had an exquisite swordfish with a pistachio sauce AND the most beautiful plate of vegetables… radicchio, snow peas, white cabbage, kale, green beans, zucchini flowers all interspersed with dollops of various sauces. Alex...what did you have? I was so busy I can’t remember.
After sadly packing our stuff back into our 3 very small bags (even including all of the fun Christmas presents) we went out for one last fish supper right around the corner from the BnB. Some radicchio orecchiette and risotto, fried octopus and sautéed fish, spinach and zucchini, panna cotta and fruit (it was the menu del giorno)...we figured we’d eaten enough and should go back to San Marcos. The picture above is our parting shot of the sunset reflecting off of Santa Maria Maggiore from our window.