// Market Tour & Farmer Dinner//

Tuesday, June 4 - Today was  a complete immersion into the farmers market world. We started off the day with a few hours in the San’t Ambrogio Market and an assignment to purchase a single item for our afternoon picnic. I love walked through the market, smelling the fruit and smiling at the farmers. We met a Kosher butcher in the market:

I came across the fishmonger cleaning a swordfish and he started putting on a show for the camera:

After our market morning the group gathered for a picnic:

We took a tour of Villa La Pietra’s house and garden: 

The grand finale was a beautiful dinner at a farmer’s home. This family has been farming for generations but years ago the government “took” most of their farmland for “social purpose.” They have had a challenging few years but are still extrememly proud of their home and farming practices. In the past few years the city has encroached on their region and Warner Brothers build a tremendous entertainment area and Hilton Hotel right next door to their farm. The view is insane, you look left and you see an old farm. You look right, you see huge buildings and Hilton. Unreal. The son sells produce at the mercado each day and we had the opportunity to sample some of it tonight:

// Eating & Drinking our way through Montepulciano //

Monday, June 3 - We enjoyed a day in Montepulciano, a medieval and Renaissance hill town in the Italian province of Siena in southern Tuscany. The morning was spent at a cooking class with Pamela Sheldon Johns, author of 17 cookbooks in traditional Italian regional cooking. She and her family are originally from the States but currently live in a beautiful home (with chickens, olive trees, and a nice size farm) near Montepulciano. She writes, appears on TV, produces olive oil and teaches cooking classes in her perfect kitchen. Pamela was a funny, lovely woman who named her fridge “Sam.” This was the first reason I liked her.

A few other Pamela-isms:

“Tuscan cooking is not complex techniques, it is about the ingredients.”

“Celery has become crunchy water.”

“Tuscan bread is not stale, it is just dry.”

“Food at home doesn’t taste the same same. Our food has no taste.”

We learned a touch about her life in Tuscany, regional dishes and her olive oil production. We helped Pamela prep and cook and then eat lunch.  My favorite part of the day was learning how to make Pici Aglione, the handmade pasta of southern Tuscany. Beautiful long strings of dough coated in cornmeal.

Enjoy a tour of today’s lunch:

Frittura di Primavera (Deep Fried Elderflower)

Feta and pesto spread with fava beans

Herb salt

White bean spread

Pici Aglione, the handmade pasta of southern Tuscany with a spicy tomato-garlic sauce.

Pamela’s olive oil

Salad with fennel and oranges

Roasted chicken

Pork sausage

Olive oil cake (the best ever!) and strawberry gelato.

After lunch, we drove a short distance to take a tour of Salcheto L’Enoteca, a beautiful winery in Montepulciano. The wine was really special and the winery itself was built with numerous energy saving technologies. It was really interesting to learn about how environmentally friendly the wine making process could be. It was even more interesting to taste the final product.

After a monsoon we spent an hour wandering the streets of Pienza, a historic town in the province of Siena, in the Val d’Orcia in Tuscany, between the towns of Montepulciano and Montalcino.

I came upon a small leather shop with a man working on a small leather purse. The shop has been there since the early 1980s. I started to chat with him about all the different leathers used in his trade. He was wearing an apron with the Slow Food logo on it so I asked what he thought about Slow Food. He said, “I love this Slow Food movement because it appreciates all the small food that is special and all the regional products.”

// Mercado, Formaggio and Discothèque//

Saturday, June 1- I gave my feet a good work out today. We had a whole day free in Florence so Jenny and I walked through two markets, the city center, over the Fiume Arno (river) and Pinte Vecchio (famous bridge), through Santa Spirito and then all the way back home. It was an epic 6-hour walk-athon and I loved every minute. People watching and strolling the streets are my favorite way to experience a city and its people.

We started our day at the Mercato Sant’ Ambrogio, where many locals do their daily food shopping. Beautiful produce, breads, cheeses and meats.

Wild strawberries. GMO FREE!!

Jenny and I bought bread, cheese and cherries for an afternoon snack and sat on a bench in the piazza. An older woman with bright red lipstick and an 8 month old puppy (that looked like a teddy bear) sat next to us and immediately became our best friend. We chatted about her market habits, New York, our husbands, and life.

As she stood up to leave, she handed us two chocolate hazelnut Biscotti and said, “When you told me you were from New York, my heart just opened.” How beautiful.

After our snack, Jenny and I strolled through an antique market then across the river over Pinte Vecchio (famous bridge) and through Santa Spirito . We found like hipster, vintage glasses to make into sunglasses at home. Turns out the fella selling them is some kind of glasses aficionado and has been featured in magazines. Only in Italy…

Pistachio and melon gelato - delicious. 

The next few images may not be appropriate for young children.

On one of the bridges we met this man who is painting rocks, shells and small pieces of wood.

Could this lady be more Italian?

We walked over the Ponte Vecchio.

It was such a beautiful and romantic view. This young couple was oblivious to the rest of the world and I thought it was really romantic under the heart graffiti. Then they started sucking face like their lives depended on it.

This puppy desperately wants some gelato.

Some other friends took a wine tour in the Chianti region and made some Italian friends who took us out for dinner outside the city where “real locals” go. We went for dinner at Da Tito at 10pm, danced at a discothèque and strolled back into our rooms at 3:30am. Just like real Italianos.

Salmon bowtie pasta.

The lightest mini gnocci with crab claws. Pasta with octopus.

Mixed seafood plate - insane!

// A Day in the hills of Tuscany//

Friday, May 31 - Today was a magical day. I sure can’t get across how special today was but I hope some of these images do the trick and convince you that Tuscany is one of the most beautiful places in the world. We left the classrooms for a day trip to Radicondoli, a Tuscan Hilltop town about an hour outside Florence. The Porcu Family hosted us on their sheep ranch for the day. They raise sheep and make beautiful sheep cheeses to sell in the town. The family emigrated from Sardinia generations ago and has made a life for themselves in Tuscany.

The diversified farm is home to sheep, pigs, chickens, a million cats and 2 beautiful sheep herding dogs. There is also a small grain mill for personal usage and of course the cheese making buildings and cheese caves. Join me on a tour of the farm:

After we worked up an appetite, they conducted a cheese making demonstration, cheese tasting and cooked us up an incredible lunch from their farm.

With full bellies, we hiked into the center of town and enjoyed a pizza making demonstration and tasting at Il Granio Restaurante:

Even more full (are you seeing the pattern?), we had some time to wander through Radicondoli, a picturesque town on top of a mountain.

While strolling through Radicondoli, we met this wonderful man who invited us into his home. His family has been practicing mechanics since 1681 and the home is full of tools and old machines. He is the last one to do this type of work but wants to turn his house into a museum. Facinating. 

// “Wheat, wine and olive oil is the foundation of Italian agriculture.” – Nancy Harmon Jenkins//

Thursday, May 30- Today was all about olive oil. Nancy Harmon Jenkins, a food writer and historian and olive oil expert, spends half the year at her home in Maine and the other half in a beautiful Italian home. She grows olive trees and produces her own olive oil. In the morning Nancy told beautiful stories about the town she moved into and the changes it experienced over time.  We saw photos and learned about her life in Italy. In the afternoon she gave a lecture on olive oil history and production and then guided us through an olive oil tasting. I learned all the olive oil we get in the States is “shitty and fusty.”

Later in the afternoon we were lucky to meet David Travis, a Italian Historian. He gave an intelligent and engaging introduction to contemporary Italian lifestyle and a brief lecture on the current political situation. We got the full scoop on crazy Silvio Berlusconoi. He is currently being charged with both tax evasion and his involvement in a prostitution ring with underage prostates. His favorite was one named Ruby, clearly her “artistic name” according to David. I never realized just how screwed up the Italian political system is and the depth of corruption. Makes Chicago look like a nunnery.

Tonight was really special because we had a dinner party were we cooked dishes from on Nancy Jenkins book, The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: A Delicious Alternative for Lifelong Health. It was a nice change of pace to spend time together in a social situation. We ate, we drank and we sang.

Sari, the birthday girl!

Nancy Harmon Jenkins and I surveying the dinner. And of course we ended with some sing-a-long.