Our Culinary Journey - Part 2

We arrived in Lucca on a Saturday evening and of course after settling into our apartment we went in search of a restaurant. Our first meal was good with a standout entree of "farro" made as an entree salad. I mention it because it is a typical food of the region and it comes from the north of Lucca. It looks like barley but it is actually spelt and absolutely delicious. In winter there is a typical soup "la zuppa frantoiana" which now I am completely over as I have had so much of it. Wild boar is on every menu as is "tordelli" which are plump handmade ravioli with a meat stuffing and served with a ragu sauce.

I quickly learnt my way around the delis and shopped every morning for fresh food for lunch and dinner. Our sit down lunches and dinners have continued and we particularly enjoy the almost nightly toast made by someone in the family.

We have eaten at many local restaurants and I find that whilst the food is good it is all very "lucchesi"....very local. There are a small handful of restaurants that whilst local do things a little differently and we are doing our best to find these restaurants as we are sick of the sameness of the cuisine. There is one restaurant only which is outside the walls which apparently does Asian food but we walked past one day and it looked very very dodgy so we'll just have to wait till London for our Asian fix!

We live next door to a butcher and his meat is fantastic. We discuss the cut of meat and then he prepares it ready for cooking. He even jots down exactly how to cook....I will miss him. My chicken shop makes the best schnitzels.....cuts, pounds, crumbs in front of me. (I obviously have a lot of time on my hands)

Within days of arriving the boys had researched gelateria's and had to shortlist favourites. They now have 3 on their hit list, with one of them being outside the walls and on the way home from tennis. "Bonta" is a gelateria and yoghurteria and some of the extra weight can be blamed on my 4 times per week yoghurt topped with dark chocolate and whole hazelnuts. I am completely addicted and the highlight of tennis days!

During our time here we have also become tuna snobs....I will never buy a canned tuna again. Italians eat heaps of tuna and most of it is in fillets in glass jars. It tastes so much better than canned stuff and most of my lunches consists of a tuna salad.

My local bakers are 2 very friendly women who not only bake fabulous bread and pastries but insist on filling our bag with produce every day....again, this accounts for the extra kilos. We buy everything there by the weight and I just love buying a small bit of bread rather than the whole loaf....as everything is with minimum preservatives it doesn't last more than a day. Mind you, within days of arriving we invested in a 10E toaster and are still enjoying vegemite toast !

It is now Monday lunchtime and our last week here in Lucca. We are now on a mission to eat at all the restaurants on our list but just haven't made it to.....such a pity we are returning to summer and we may have to get into bathers. It's a frightening thought!

Ciao e buon appetito xx

Our Culinary Journey starts in Otranto - Part 1

After more than 3 months away I feel like we are eating and drinking our way through our Italian adventure. What and where we eat is of the utmost importance. It shapes our day. It makes our day.  Unfortunately it accounts for the extra kilos that both Glenn and I are wearing and surely it is the reason why I find it so hard to fit into the gorgeous Italian clothes that I insist on trying on!

One of the most wonderful memories I have of our time in Otranto is our daily lunch on our "terrazza".
Every morning Glenn & I would go out to our favourite little stores to buy fresh bread, local cheeses, local "salumi"( cold meats), salad ingredients and other little treats along the way. Wednesday mornings in Otranto were extra special as the local market was on and at our favourite butcher come rosticceria"rotisserie man", we would choose our rabbit, chicken , shaslick and come back at lunchtime and collect cooked! Delizioso!

Our terrace was on the top floor of our apartment and as there were no other tenants we had the large space all to ourselves. We would take all our food upstairs and sit in the glorious sunshine and have a delicious lunch. Simple food that tasted magnificent and how rare to eat lunch together. After lunch we would head to the beach with a little stop along the way at the local bar that made its own lemon granita. Deliziosa! After the beach, a trip to Martinucci, a fabulous gelati bar was a daily occurrence. Whilst we cooked at home, we also enjoyed some sensational fish & seafood dinners in the local restaurants. Our most memorable was quite unexpected and unfortunately for Max, he missed out as he fell asleep at the table. There was no menu and I was unsure of what the waitress was suggesting but we went ahead anyway. We had ordered a whole fish and what they do is use part of the fish to make a fish soup with a type of past and then you get the rest of the fish cooked in a sauce. It was a sensational meal and I'm salivating now thinking of it.
On our last evening there, we went to a restaurant that was owned by the mother of a gorgeous manicurist I had just met......We enjoyed a similar dish and in chatting with the mother she invited me back to the restaurant for her to teach me how to cook the dish. I was so disappointed that we were leaving because i would have gone back in a flash.

Every evening in Otranto we went for a passegiata in the main piazza and there we met Renzo and his wife and daughter. Lovely local man who ran the lolly store that sold roasted chestnuts. After the first few nights  of buying a few lollies and some castagna, we would stop and chat to Renzo and his wife. Days later he brought along a bottle of his home made white wine for Glenn. Then would come the home made red wine and the home made grappa one night nearly finished Glenn off....I couldn't even get close to it . We got to the stage where we would take a longer detour to avoid Renzo and his home made offerings as they were mostly lethal! When we get home to Australia we are going to send him a bottle of good Australian red and he will probably hate it.

In summary we have eaten some wonderful fish & seafood and drunk some decent inexpensive (actually very cheap by Glenn's standards) wine.

Now onto a completely different culinary experience in Tuscany......

Buon Compleanno a me, Buon Compleanno a te, Buon compleanno a noi

 Thank you to Bev, Leonie, Lisa, Mel D, Melinda P, Donna

 At Buca San'Antonio for my birthday dinner

 At the Piazzale Michelangelo in florence for Glenn's Birthday Weekend

 He had to buy shirt & tie for dinner at Enoteca Pinchiorri

 As did the boys

The 14th course - handmade chocolates

 Max's turn

 Breakfast the morning of Glenn's birthday - a view from the hotel terrace

 Its either this or they're punching each other!

 At "Il Feriolo" for Glenn's birthday lunch

 Says it all

Birthday week for us was certainly different this year as there was not a horse in sight! The morning of my birthday I woke up to heaps of email, text and phone messages which was wonderful. At 9.30 the doorbell rang and a florist was delivering a gorgeous bunch of flowers . When I read the card I burst into tears....thank you Bev, Donna, Mel D, Melinda, Leonie and Lisa....what a fabulous surprise!
I then had a bit of a Melbourne birthday morning, a manicure followed by a blow wave and lunch was followed by a cake that Glenn had organised. The afternoon was spent bike riding and then we had dinner at Lucca's best restaurant (supposedly). Special thank yous to all of you who had extra bubbles on Oaks Day with the excuse of toasting my birthday.......Lisa D, your italian message was hysterical, were you still at The Stokehouse with the girls? Kate S.......that singing was a sensation, grazie.

The big birthday for the week was Glenn's as he was celebrating the big 60! On the Friday night after dinner we each gave him a clue to the events of the birthday weekend. He was told to pack and had no idea of anything else. Not a good thing for him. He tried to blackmail Daniel into telling him where we were going but his lips were sealed. He didn't sleep very well at all. At 9.30 we were picked up by our driver Angelo who inadvertently let it slip that we were off to Florence. The weekend was to include Saturday dinner at  Enoteca Pinoccheri which is a 3 star michelin restaurant and supposedly one of the best in Italy, a birthday lunch on the sunday in a converted monastery about half hour out of Florence and lots of shopping just for Glenn (with his credit card of course) .
In order to look my absolute best I went in search of a hairdresser, found one with a cancellation and sat and waited in a very impressive waiting room. As I am waiting I start reading a newspaper article and realise that its about the place i am at and the owner Gianluca is hairdresser to the stars when they are in town. Photos of Johnny Depp, Cameron Diaz were listed as his clients. At this point I start to panic at the thought of the cost of this blow wave but now too late to leave as I am taken to meet my hairdresser...yes its Gianluca the owner who kisses me on both cheeks and asks me why I have not been for so long! At this point I tell him I have not been to Florence for 10 years! The blow wave is the longest of my life and of course I spent my entire holiday blowave budget in one afternoon....but it was a great blow wave!
The family is dressed and very nervous about going to this very flash restaurant.
Our arrival by cab was met by about 4 doormen, a welcome from the owner and a very over the top maitre d'.
Menus arrive - one for wine, one for food and one for water! 10 waters to choose from with the description including the source and the exact mineral composition!!! I admitted I didn't know any and let them bring the most popular. We settled on an 8 course degustation which by the end of the evening when we could not move, we had counted 14 courses, including all the "amuse bouche" and other "freebies"!
The boys were extraordinary trying and eating almost everything. We rolled out at midnight, almost the last guests there and realising  that the Melbourne birthday party budget had just been blown by the 5 of us.
It truly was a magnificent dinner and experience and most importantly Glenn loved it.
We were still very full on Sunday, the morning of Glenn's birthday but we were off to lunch to another secret destination....this time a restaurant in an old convent in the florentine countryside, just past Fiesole. It was a 40 minute cab ride to this restaurant and it was in every way the exact opposite of our Saturday evening experience.
Good local food and wine in a very convivial family atmosphere. Once again we rolled out,  got back to Florence and managed to find the energy to visit The Accademia dell Arte.  Max upon seeing  the statue of David, very loudly and clearly said "gee, David's got a little dick"! I walked away and pretended he wasn't with me.
With birthdays over for another year we were all very happy to take the train home to Lucca the next morning and we all vowed to do a lot less eating and a lot more exercise for the week.

Birthday photos for you to enjoy (oops, back the front)

Lucca Comics & Games Festival

As all of my Aussie friends were planning, buying, borrowing outfits and fretting over the weather for  Racing Week, on the other side of the world a significant number of Italians were doing the same and judging by the outfits, I think the planning possibly started many months ago.

On exactly the same weekend as the Derby and Melbourne Cup, there is an annual comics & games festival held right here in Lucca. When we were booking our accommodation earlier this year I was having trouble finding something for the entire duration with absolutely nothing from Thursday 26th to Tuesday Nov 1st....155,000 people, 95% Italian from everywhere descend on Lucca (normal population inside the walls is 5000) to attend and participate in the Comics Festival. All the locals were talking about it yet we still couldn't work out what it was all about. We were getting organised to leave town reluctantly, when miraculously we heard of an apartment which had become vacant earlier than expected and needless to say we took it. A few days later we moved into our 2nd address in Lucca.....up 4 flights of stairs with no lift, carrying a shitload of luggage and so happy we were going to see what all the fuss was about.

Friday was Day 1 and at 9am  there were already heaps of people dressed up and a real buzz in town. What we now know is that The Comics Festival is an annual comic book and gaming convention (as in electronic games on every conceivable piece of equipment imaginable). (2nd biggest in Europe and the biggest is in Tokyo). It is a celebration of all things animated and everyone dresses up in their favourite "Comics" character. At the ticket booth instead of just dipping our toe gently with a one day pass, we were so caught up with the hype we buy passes for the 4 of us for the whole 5 days!

Day 1 we were quite mesmerised by the costumes. Quite quickly we learnt that it is ok to ask for a photo and in fact that seemed to be the main purpose of dressing up - to get stopped and photographed. When stopped he person would get into character pose. I think it says a lot about italians!!!

The boys spent hours in the Electronic Games pavilion and were able to play every conceivable electronic game. There were card tournaments (YU GI YO cards and Pokemon cards etc) and board games and trading....it was completely over the top given that 90% of the audience was adult! There was a rock concert on the Sunday night and the crowd went crazy for 2 performers who are THE GURUS of themes for the animated movies....the Fieldings were able to join in when the girl sang "You gotta catch them all" (the Pokemon song)!!!

We were all over it by Day 3 and the last 2 days didn't get a look in.

So, as you can see there are many similarities with the Spring Carnival, especially Racing Week. Lots of preparation, lots of money, lots of fun but by Emirates you have had enough and can't wait to put the hats away!

Check out the photos.

There were quite a few Luigis

   These guys ran a medieval sword fighting competition everyday

 Strike a pose!

 These smurfs ran the fruit shop next door to our appartment.

 The boys in the Red Bull tent

 We thought he was real first time we saw him

 Card games

 Fantastic Noodles were the food of choice....the queues were miles long for a plastic cup of crap!

  He is my favourite

 How good are the Flintstones and the Rubbles!

 not sure what happened to this photo

 The marching band as Dalmations

Typical crowded streets for the five days