September 6th, 2010

I truly love being in Italy, however the process of getting there is something only to be endured.  The trip from San Diego is a series of wait and sit and sit and wait.  Wait for the shuttle from home.  Sit at the airport, wait for the plan.  A progression of less tolerable waiting followed by more sitting.  If all of this sitting and waiting wasn’t difficult enough it seems to be always punctuated by the procession of 20 something women who love to carry on a non stop conversation about something insipid while doing this loud enough so that everyone within 20 feet of them can hear every word.  As if anyone cared.  Then there are the ill behaved children whom I admit to already having a low tolerance to.  There was one particular little angel on the plane from London to Pisa, who chattered non stop.  The majority of the babbling was just that.  Non-sensical speech, off tune singing, simply so that she could hear noise come out of that little angelic pie hole.  Most of it made absolutely no sense even thought the child was clearly capable of conversation.  All of this from at least 5 rows back on the plane and the parents never once tried to silence my little tormentor.  As we got closer to Pisa I became more and more hungry and I soon realized what I wanted to eat.  This child braised in a nice Chianti over some tagelitelli, or maybe roasted with some potatoes, carrots and onions.

I’m looking at this trip as I think all travel is as a learning experience.  It’s a chance to practice our Italian which admittedly is better but still not good.  It’s chance to understand and experience the simplicity of Italian cooking and dining.   Most importantly a  chance to experience the people, the culture and the great Art, and ability to enjoy life that this country possesses.

We finally arrived in Florence at the train station about 10 PM tonight.  We were staying at a place in the old part of Florence just off the pizza where the “Fake Davie” is.  The place is a restored 16^th century building just off the pizza.  It came highly recommended by both Fodors and Frommers.  It has a huge name “Residenzia d’Epoca  Inpiazzadellasignoria”, which Linda and I had been practicing the entire plane ride out her, in anticipation of having to speak the name to the cab driver who picks us up at the train station.  I have had experience with badly pronouncing Hotel name before so I had the forsite to type the name and address out in a large font and put that in my pocket before we left San Diego.  So the moment of truth comes when we get into the cab at the train station in Florence.  Linda who’s Italian is admittedly much better than mine takes the lead when we get in the cab and instead of trying to bust out our best pronunciation of this hotel name simply wips out the paper that I had dutifully typed out before we left San Diego.  The cabbie takes one look at the paper, completely ignores that Hotel name and looks at the address   and says “ah via Mazzine 2”, and we were off.  Got settled in the hotel quickly as it was now getting late about 10:20 PM.  We were worried that we would miss dinner service altogether and be relegated to fig newtons and granola in our room.  We stumble right next door and end up having a great little meal at “dei Frescobaldi”.  We kind of had to beg them to seat us as the chef was just about done for the night and ready to start his cleanup.  We convinced them that we would order quickly, so they decide to feed us.  He hands us menus and I asked for the waiter for a recommendation.  He asked if I like tuna.  I said yes but asked him if the had any porcini.  This is something that I had been looking forward to for months anticipating the porcini would be starting just as we got here.  The waiter says yes, with taglitille, I said perfecto.  It turns out this was something that wasn’t even on the menu, which makes me love it even more.  I love things that are not on the menu.  It makes me feel like I got something that no one else did.   Linda quickly orders some pumpkin ravioli.  Both dishes turned out to be terrific. My porcini taglitlle was perfect, just what I was hoping for.  Linda’s pumpkin ravioli cooked in brown butter with sage, was incredible.   There was a little amaretti cookie on top to provide some crunch and sweetness.  It was perfect with the richness of the browned butter.   I’m vowing to make this for my Christmas dinner this year.   It was sooo good.  We happily slurp up our pasta, down a couple of glasses of some good local wine and crash and burn.