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Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of our Spanish "adventure". This one takes place in Italy where it is all about the food, all the time.
Well, there was also a little bit of hair involved but we will leave that for further on. We arrived in Bologna from Bilbo (the Basque name for Bilbao) after a short 7 hour trip involving many planes, automobiles and buses. Slight digression, if you ever have the pleasure of flying through Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris be prepared to spend a few minutes on buses going from plane to terminal and vice-versa. If you are then lucky enough to change terminals, well the fun's just begun! Anyway, back to our story ... so we arrive in Bologna and we are starving, but not to fear as of course a certain side of the family always has a good restaurant handy. So we went to "Roma Antica" a family restaurant somewhere outside Bologna where we feasted on crescentine (a deep fried type of bread), all manner of cold cuts, cheese and marinated vegetables. We have taken a few pictures, shown below ... if you are hungry you may want to go get a snack before continuing.
Now back to the hair bit. Annmarie decided to go get a new hairdo (and haircolor) from the town's renowned hair dresser/sausage/coppa/salame artist. Yes, Renzo is a good hairstylist but much better at working with all manner of pig parts to make great stuff (we've tried them so we can vouch for him). In any case I took a shot of the master at work. Yep, she's blonde again ...
Okay, back to food now and specifically home made food. The night we arrived we had tripe which was very good (although AMC did not like the texture) and home made cheesecake. Interesting combination! The second day saw us eating lunch at Mara and Roberto's where, after a small aperitif, the highlight of the meal was wild boar (cinghiale) with tigelle (yet another type of bread). Needless to say we ate way too much, but how can you refuse wild boar? Just when you thought you were done out come the sausages, the ever present prosciutto and an interesting cheese called "burrata". This is basically mozzarella with heavy cream inside ... yeah, its yummie!
Finally for our last night we went to a place called "Pietre Cavate" a restaurant sitting on mountain in Montecatini Terme, not very far from Florence and Pistoia. I had to take a business call while I was there, so as not to disturb the other patrons, I walked outside and sat on a bench. The photo below is a (poor) representation of the view ... if only all my meetings had a view like this.
Anyway, back to the food. The restaurant is interesting for 2 reasons. The first is that it offers an appetizer consisting of the four typical tuscan "minestre", i.e. first courses: penne with mushrooms and meat sauce, farinata, ribollita and pappa al pomodoro. The first one is obvious, the second is a thick soup made of a specific type of coarsely ground grain, the third is a soup of about 10-15 types of vegetables with bread boiled for quite a long time and the fourth is a spicey meat and tomato based soup. Of course we had to try them! The second reason this restaurant is interesting is that, although it offers a menu, the waiter will actually come up to you and tell you what he has as "raw materials" and then you can pick something and he will suggest a preparation or you can suggest one. For example, you can pick lamb and he will suggest either grilled or fried and then offer vegetables to go with it, of course all prepared to your liking. Quite interesting and it brings new meaning to "made it your way". Along with Sora Lella in Rome, Gianni and Betta's in Ponte Della Venturina and of course Mamma's and Mara's this is definitely one of our favorite places in Italy, if you're ever around Montecatini we will gladly give you the address.
And last but not least .. a perfect ending to a perfect meal! Yep it's grappa, Italian for "are you man enough"? Seriuosly, it's an acquired taste but after a while it goes down pretty smooth. Whatever you do don't buy the cheap one or you will be burning in several different places for a few days ... Levent once "shot" a glass of aged grappa when he was with us in Italy, I thought he was going to die ... then again some of you know Levent and this should not come as a surprise!
Afterthoughts ... I know what you are thinking .. wild boar? Where do you find wild boar ... surely not in overpopulated Italy. Wild cat maybe, but wild boar? Surely you jest. Not quite, wild boars in Italy are so prevalent that they are actually a pest. Wild boars are basically your average pig on steroids, they are mean, strong and can run a lot faster than you (don't care who you are). We took Annmarie on a little Italian Safari and found a 150 lbs beast (that was the consensus in the car) right in front of my cousin's house. The shot below is fuzzy (1/10s, f2.8, 1600 ISO) but we put it here anyway to show we were not lying.
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