Happiness in a Cone

I’ve lived here for 3 months. You might think I’m sick of Tuscany and it’s rolling hills and vineyards and awe-inspiring landscapes…all that beauty must get overwhelming and old, right?

Nope. Loved every single second. And I’ll love all the seconds that are yet to come.

You might recall our first pilgrimage to San Gimignano, a medieval hill town in the Siena province. We went for one reason, and one reason only: gelato. And not just any gelato. Oh no. We’re talking the World Champion gelateria. Oh yes.

Our first trip in February was a huge disappointment when we, with tastebuds fully prepared for some cold, creamy amazingness, were met with a closed door and a sign that read: Closed until March 7^th. ‘Let down’ doesn’t even begin to describe what we felt. [It certainly didn’t stop us from having a great time anyway!]

Now obviously, having developed into full-blown gelato connoisseurs during our semester here, this was not something Alaina and I were missing out on. Armed with a restaurant recommendation for lunch and 3 euro umbrellas, we ventured off…and got on the wrong train. Whoops! That’s the first time this has happened, which is pretty darn good for 3 months, right? [Humor us.] We did not miss a beat, hopped off at the next stop, and got cappuccinos while awaiting the right train to come along. One [correct] train + bus ride later, we were back in San Gimignano:

We found the restaurant relatively quickly, which our stomachs were greatly appreciative of 😉 It was a little fancy-schmancier than we expected – the guide book that recommended said it was a “local favorite” and it seemed more like a hotel restaurant with nice tablecloths and multiple forks and all that high class business, but hey, we were up for anything.

I ordered bruschette miste, mixed bruschettas (toasted Tuscan bread with different toppings):

From left to right: Prosciutto (a darker kind than usual?) and melted cheese — I’m 90% sure it was pecorino, roasted pepper/zucchini on melted mozzarella, and the classic tomatoes with olive oil, garlic and basil. The prosciutto-pecorino one was my fave (I know, you’re shocked). I really just love bruschette – it’s like pizza but more fun 🙂

I also got a side dish of roasted veggies – I was feeling like some fiber, I guess 😉

A tad heavy on the oil, but it’s Italy, so at least it’s really good olive oil they’re bathing in. Roasted eggplant is one of my favorite foods. If you haven’t  tried it, you must! It’s perfect in the summer – just throw some on the grill, drizzle with a little balsamic, S + P, and you’re good to go. I especially like the burned pieces, which is BAD because (as I learned in my cooking class) burnt foods contain free radicals that can cause really icky stuff in your body. So, if you’re like me, up your antioxidant intake – they pretty much kick free radicals’ cancer-causing butts!

After a lovely lunch, it was time. You know what for.

GELATO.

On our first attempt, the gelateria looked like this:

Today:

Ah, the fruits of tourist season.

After we elbowed and kneed our way into the teeny tiny store, we tried our best to scope out all the flavors – and there were a lot! Typical ones, like nocciola (hazelnut) and fondente (dark chocolate), but fun creative ones too, like raspberry with rosemary and pink grapefruit-champagne! After much rushed internal debate, I made my selection. I was not disappointed.

Dark chocolate, mint, and zabaione al vin santo 

That last one was an egg nog flavor spiked with Vin Santo, the sweet Tuscan dessert wine traditionally served with little biscotti. I had a Vin Santo gelato before and really liked it, and when I saw the eggnog flavor added, my choice was made. Mint and chocolate for me are no-brainers; when I was little my hardest decision at the candy store was between Junior Mints and York Peppermint Patties. Definitely one of the most wonderful flavor combos ever.

Now, as for the gelato? It was good. Even great. One of the best I’ve had in my almost-4-months here. The cone itself was wonderful – made with almond extract that went perfectly with the eggnog flavor. Come to think of it, they make pumpkin egg nog – I think almond egg nog would be to die for! Culinary innovations aside, this was good, but I must say my gelato-lovin heart still belongs to Perche No. Vestri has by far the best dark chocolate – the rich flavor and creamy texture is exactly what gelato should be; but Perche No has more flavors, uses all-natural ingredients that you can taste, and have the best soy gelato ever. But, this vin santo-egg nog was definitely one of the best flavors I’ve tasted. We were happy, happy ragazze! 

We did some shopping – San Gimignano has some great pottery places that are perfect for gifts! We made it back a liiiittle later than planned due to finicky train schedules, but we’re pretty used to that.

We made reservations at Trattoria 4 Leoni, a restaurant recommended to my mom by one of her real estate clients as their “favorite restaurant in Florence.” (Clearly they have not been to Sergio’s.) Because my parents were held hostage in America in April because of that evil Icelandic volcano, they took my roommates and I out to dinner from across the Atlantic! Being the good college kids we are and always up for free food, we were pretty excited.

The restaurant is on the other side of the Arno River (Oltrarno), where I almost wish I lived just because the minute you get to that side it becomes so much quieter. Fewer tourist attractions. 

4 Leoni was in a little piazza off a main road. The decor was very cute – teal stucco with uncovered bricks artistically placed. Very upscale, too. So far, so good!

We started with an antipasto plate of – what else? – mixed pecorino!

Pecorini misti

There were 3 different types of pecorino with a little bowl of honey for drizzling and pear slices. Pear and pecorino is another stellar flavor combo – and honey just puts it over the edge! The fruitiness works with the softness of the cheese and the honey accents the strong taste that I can only describe is cheesy – it’s Finals week, give me a break 🙂 All I have to say is, I better be able to find pecorino at home. I might cry…or just move back here.

And then, dinner was served…

Insalata 4 Leoni

This salad, served in a huge cabbage leaf, was arugula, emmenthal cheese (a kind of mild swiss), avocado, and pine nuts drizzled with arugula pesto. Yes, you read that right – pesto made with arugula instead of basil! I saw that and had to try it. I think I have mentioned my arugula obsession – I never tire of it. It just makes such a flavorful salad! It’s got a very strong, peppery flavor that’s perfect with balsamic vinegar. The pesto was good, but a little too salty – I wish they had offered a pasta dish with it, I think the fact that the salad itself was arugula-based made the pesto’s flavor get a little lost. But really, I adored this – the pine nuts were a great addition, and the mild emmenthal matched the strong arugula really nicely. Might have to recreate this at home.

Since we had already had gelato, we went a different direction for dessert…

Tiramisu. Can’t go wrong with a classic.

I think the best I’ve had was the one we made waaaaay back during our orientation week here (pre-blog – say what??), but really, tiramisu is hard to screw up. It’s just such a good combo – coffee, cocoa, marscapone; creamy, cakey…mmm. Tiramisu is one of my favorite desserts in general; it’s hard to for me to speak badly of it, ever.

All in all, a very culinarily-satisfying day. Aren’t those the best?

Thanks Mom & Dad!!!

San GimignanOMG!

Sorry for no post yesterday – my internet was not being cooperative. Sometimes it’s like a small child; it gets cranky if it doesn’t get a nap in the afternoon.

Friday was super exciting because it was my cooking class field trip to an organic farm in San Gimignano, a town made of little hills in Siena and what I think is one of the most beautiful places in the world. 

Exhibit A (and then some):

The farm, San Donato, dates back to 1001!!! How cool is that??? They mostly produce wine, olive oil, saffron and spelt, but they grow other crops as well, and just a couple years ago became an organic farm. In fact, they recently bottled their first organic wine product in 2009. We were there to taste the wine and the olive oil, and taste we did! They produce Vernaccia wine, which comes from a grape introduced to the San Gimignano area dating back to the thirteenth century. The Pope’s cellarmaster declared it the finest white wine in Italy! It was also the first Italian wine to be given DOC classification and was later upgraded to the higher DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) , which is basically the highest award of quality insurance possible for a wine to receive. 

We got off the bus, the farm owner gave us a brief history of the farm and the vineyards, and then it was on to the eat/drinks!!

There was a spread of olives (of course), picked peppers, Tuscan bread topped with salami or prosciutto, and garlic bread bathing in olive oil. And wine. Lots and lots of wine.

I swear I was not in any way inebriated when I took this picture. But I think Frida may have been…

I started with the white – the Vernaccia (you are supposed to start with white – see, I’m learning!) OH MY GOD even I could tell this was good freaking wine. I actually had seconds! (And by seconds, I mean I poured myself a 2nd tasting portion, so like 2 oz) It was delicious. And because we were at the farm it was produced at, they sold it there for 5 Euros a bottle. I bought 2 and a half! Cha-ching!!

There was also a blush wine and a red wine, which were nice. I liked the blush a little more than the red. I wish I could use sommelier terms to describe them, but all I can tell you is I liked them. Baby steps, people.

On to the food! 

Salami isn’t really my thing, but I’ve been feeling like I’ve not been getting enough protein, and I wanted to try at least a bite of everything. I have, however, discovered my love for prosciutto….

Italy just knows how to do food right.

There were also bite-sized pieces of bread spread with fresh ricotta cheese mixed with the farm’s saffron (hence the yellow color) – I was a little disappointed, I really couldn’t taste much after 2 or 3 tries. I love saffron; perhaps ricotta is just the wrong vehicle for it? Or maybe my tastebuds just weren’t awake yet. 

These other pieces were spread with a very soft and creamy cheese, and I think it was bleu cheese – this I adored. Usually bleu cheese is too stinky for me and I really don’t like it, but this was incredible! Very mellow, but with just enough bite to it to satisfy. I kept thinking my mother (bleu cheese’s #1 fan) would have died. I’ll have to ask my teacher what it was! 

Ok, these olives are probably the best. I’ve. ever. tasted. And I am quite the olive connoisseur – when I was a tyke I ate an entire can (and then some) of black olives for breakfast. It was unreal how good these were. I left quite a little collection of pits behind.

With olives that good, the olive oil must be drop-dead amazing, right? 

YEP! 

They brought plate after plate of toasted Tuscan bread slices that had been salted and baked with garlic, drowning in pools of liquid gold, aka the best olive oil my taste-buds have ever had the pleasure of meeting. The aroma was so fruity and fresh and the flavor was just out of this world!! I just…I can’t….no words. Ohsogood.

After our “light lunch” (HA!), we wandered around the farm. What a life. I could so live here.

My kind of stone lion – napping in the sun.

Limone!

Farm=Animals!!!

And vineyards=wine cellar:

And get a load of their backyard:

The wine I drank at lunch came from these exact vines. It is pretty cool to see the actual vines that went into my glass. Pretty freakin cool.

I  got back around 2:30 to pouring rain in Florence. The sun came out bright and shiny not 10 minutes after I had gotten back to the apartment….love ya Florentine weather. I went to the grocery store and got OATS!!! because they finally restocked them, and then Alaina and I ventured off to a chocolate store I had heard about to look at the Easter goods!

Benvenuti a Vestri!

In Italy, instead of baskets, each child gets a BIG hollow chocolate egg that has a little present inside. I considered it necessary for my cultural assimilation here to partake in this tradition…and bought myself a big ole dark chocolate egg. Don’t worry, you’ll see it…I can’t wait to open it!!!

Alaina and I had planned on getting some gelato after our chocolate quest, and whoda thunk that the chocolate store would have gelato? This we had to try!

Mango + dark chocolate

OH.EM.GEE. This is quite possibly the best gelato I’ve had here yet – the mango was just perfect (I’m a little mango obsessed – it’s just so dang delicious!), and the dark chocolate was so…so…completely satisfying. Rich  and dark, but not overwhelmingly so. I enjoyed every last bite.

Quite a gastronomically successful day, I would say. My favorite kind of day.

~Namaste~

Bad Umbrellas in Poggibonsi

The title will make sense, all in good time.

Today was a very exciting day: visit to the World Champion of gelato within the walls of a beautiful Tuscan medieval hill town? Yes please.

As usual, our travel day was a rather gray one, but we were prepared and have come to expect it. Got up and whipped up some oats to hold me over through the various modes of transportation we would be taking to reach the coveted gelato:

I made this morning’s bowl with this:

Pear sauce! Mott’s makes some but it’s not unsweetened and tastes rather syrupy to me. Yes, I am an applesauce snob.

It tastes just like cobbler, which is funny because I’m really not a cobbler/fruit pie fan at all, but I like this because the flavors are simple and I love the texture of the oats. Try it sometime!

We cut it a bit close getting to the train station, but we made it with only a few seconds of jogging involved. The train system here is super easy and pretty cheap, and it’s fun. I like trains because you can get on and just chill out. In Tuscany there is never a lack of beautiful views! But even if you’re on a train going into Boston or anywhere where the outside is not so picturesque, it’s a great place to people-watch. You can tell a lot about someone based on how they act on a train ride. And if you’re an anthropology geek like me, it’s great!

Once at the Poggibonsi (a.k.a best town name EVER) train station, we had to take a bus to San Gimignano. Buses here are also easy – you can get the tickets at pretty much any tabaccheria, which is just a general convience store. There are usual multiple on a single street.

The bus ride gave us a taste of the beautiful landscapes:

(I will try not to overload you with pictures, but if you want to see more, just go to my photobucket album: http://s32.photobucket.com/home/NorbertsShiksa)

We arrived to this:

Btw, San Gimignano is often called the “Tuscan Medieval Manhattan.” Love it.

After that tempting bus ride, the first thing we did before entering the town was hop off and snap some pictures:

San Gimignano is in the Chianti region, best known for its – you guessed it – wine! We passed SO many pretty vineyards.They make for gorgeous landscapes.

After the photo-op, our next mission was, of course, food. It’s just over an hour-long train ride and the bus is about 20 minutes long, but that doesn’t include the “hurry up and wait” time in between. We were hungry signorinas!

We walked into the city walls and did a bit of window shopping…

We stumbled upon a cute little taverna nestled in a corner of the wall and decided it looked good enough.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? When in Chianti…order some wine with lunch! And we did.

Even I wouldn’t say no to a taste. I’m certainly no connoisseur (yet?), but this was notably tastier than any other wine I’ve tasted. Sorry I can’t be more helpful on that front – I’m working on it. I decided several years ago that I would not drink, mostly because there’s a bit of family history that shows it as being a tad, er, over-used, and also because I’m just not a fan of the taste (with the notable exception of Prosecco!). But, I do like and understand the concept of wine as a complement to a certain type of flavor on food and I would like to learn how to “taste” it, because it is very interesting. So, hold the Green Apple Martini and the kegger – bring me the sommelier!

I have so far really enjoyed choosing the most interesting thing on the menu, because even if it’s not good, it always makes for an interesting story (and none of them have yet to disappoint). So today, I chose zuppa di farro – literally translated ‘soup of spelt.’ Many who know me also know that I am not a big fan of soups, but in the past year or so I have been able to specify that I love thick, stew-like soups, which are quite popular in Italian/Tuscan cuisine. And like I said, I’m having fun ordering the weird stuff!

It is full of black-eyed peas and another kind of bean (not white enough to be cannellini, around the size of kidney beans) with (what I assume were) gnocchi-like balls of spelt pasta. Topped with good olive oil. It was so tasty! Especially with good Tuscan bread as a spoon 🙂

After we got some “real food” in our bellies, it was gelato time. Out we wandered to find the central piazza…

And there it was. The sign, the door…right in front of us.

You might notice a small white sign on the door. Spelling our doom.

Closed for work/vacation until March 7th. Yup.

Now, I thought this was hilarious. I mean, I was doubled over and crying I was laughing so hard! We came to this gorgeous medieval hill town for ONE thing…and it’s closed! My companions were, er, less than amused. But come on, you gotta laugh at these things people!

We turned around (literally, pivoted in our spot) and there was a gelateria in front of us, waiting with the consolation prize:

Maybe it’s not the world’s best. But it is very difficult to go wrong with tiramisu gelato. I also got the yogurt flavor, and together it was like tiramisu cheesecake…mmmm. 2nd best ain’t so bad!

After our let-down and pick-me-up, we decided to just wander. It was a cold and blustery day! It is such a beautiful place to be, I enjoyed trying to catch my breath from the landscapes all around:

I loved this completely random stop light. We saw maybe one car actually driving through the streets. I was amused.

[These 2 pictures courtesy of Alaina]

Roomie love!

Lunging back up the street. Gotta get that work-out in somehow!

We followed a sign pointing to a “panoramic point” down a secret passageway!

Alright, maybe not so secret, but I can pretend.

More beautiful views ensued…

At this point, those threatening grey skies started to spit on our camera screens, and we decided it was time to do our shopping and head on home. Hand-painted pottery is BIG in San Gimignana (if you’ve ever been to Lucca, you see very similar stuff there), and it was fun to walk around the shops looking at all the pretty dishes and olive oil carafes and what-not. Someone’s getting a present from me – but sshh, it’s a secret 🙂

We also stopped into an artist’s store who does watercolors of San Gimignano & Tuscan scenery. I fell in love with one of the original, but 25 euro was a little too steep for me. No worries, I fell just as hard for another print:

SO pretty. It’s just like a photo on first glance. I could stare at it forever!

By the time we walked out, it was, well, rather miserable. Cold, almost hurricane-like winds and raining. So, I finally broke down and spent the lousy 3 euro on an umbrella. Red, of course! It took about 5 minutes outside  for this to happen…

Yes, that would be a couple of inside-out umbrellas. But, it was probably worth it for the laughs!

Cold and wind-blown (and ripped-off by an umbrella store), we stopped into a cafe for cappuccinos while waiting for the bus. Good espresso + foam  makes everything better!

We hopped back on the bus happily, and on the scenic route back, mostly decided that we could live here, like, tomorrow. Start a farm, sell some wine. Sounds good to me.

Our train was, of course, delayed, so we got back a little later than hoped for. Dinner was an egg thrown on top of some veggies and various munching afterwards. Nothing too photo-worthy.

Some might say our day was less than spectacular, but I had a great time. Beautiful scenery, good food, lots of laughs. And it may or may not have ended with me translating Josh Groban’s Italian songs. Sometimes I’m such a geek, even I laugh at me. But it was fun 🙂

Oh, and if I didn’t make it clear in this post…go to San Gimignano when you get the chance. You won’t be disappointed.

~Namaste~