Worlds colliding. And truffles.
No but seriously. The Tuchler clan plus Aunt Joan were in Bo last week! ALSO, Laura and Robert visited last Saturday... I guess I'll start there. It was a packed week that included a HEFTY dose of delicious food. Andiamo!
Laura and Robert arrived the same day as my family, but a few hours earlier, so we spent the morning walking around the city, showing the sites and such. We also went for pizza... I opted for straight up funghi (and ate the whole thing.)
Fam landed mid-afternoon, and everybody was quite overwhelmed... I by them, them by the city... it was just a whole thing. I escaped back to my lovely friends (it's a tough life being so popular, all these visitors and such...), and we went for a walk before dinner. Dinner: trip back to Osteria dell'Orsa. It's just so reliably good! This time, we got 3 crostini to split- Orgasmico again (because duh), a vegetarian one that was just delicious roasty veggies, and an incredibly Bolognese one- squacquerone (a super creamy cheese unique to Emilia Romagna) with mortadella. Delicious. For dinner, I got short pasta with fennel-y sausage and tomato sauce. I hadn't really had any sausage yet here, and this pasta was just so delicious. Also, nice respite from long noodles. I am getting much better at twirling my pasta but sometimes a girl just needs a break...
After dinner, it was time to go out! And oh man, I'm quite sure that evening was the most joyful of my life. Out with home/childhood friends + Duke friends + program friends + Italian friends + sister... basically I had all my bases covered! I was, in Italian, a mio agio. So much fun!
Next day, I tackled some of the remaining.. uh... fun from the night before with pizza, because pizza. We went to Pizzeria Spacca Napoli, a place a pass like 4x a week but had never tried. The five of us each ordered a massive pizza, and they were all incredible. Mine was spinach and ricotta-- the ricotta was included in big globs, and it was so rich and salty and perfect... pizza will never betray me.
For dinner on Sunday, Mary and I cooked. Mary made her unfailingly spectacular puttanesca, and I put together a spinach salad with apples, gorgonzola, almonds and honey-balsamic dressing. Solid meal! Go team!
Unfortunately, I couldn't spend the whole week with the fam, what with class and being an actual student and such. So most of our time together was spent at meals (no complaints from this girl). For the next big meal, I suggested Trattoria Belle Arti, the first restaurant we went to as a program. This was probably the best decision I made all week... I had been craving truffles, and told myself if I found something with white truffles, I'd go for it. Lo and behold, Belle Arti was featuring a separate menu dedicated to white truffles. So I got... truffle tagliatelle. Seriously, truffle oil with shaved truffles on top. I don't realllllly think I need to say much more... when you combine homemade pasta with truffles in 2 forms, YA CAN'T REALLY GO WRONG. May have shed a tear of joy or two there. My dining companions' meals were also spectacular. Sarah got a fantastic carbonara and dad got incredible, juicy grilled calamari alongside grilled veggies. I love food ack. For dessert, we got little sampling platters of dessert... amusing that my family was planning on splitting 2 desserts between us and we ended up with a plate of four mini-desserts in front of each of us. Whatever, though. Pistacchio panna cotta, zuppa inglese (apparently a Bolognese special. Not a huge fan but obviously I ate it anyway), tiramisu (honestly, so much better in this country. Usually not a huge fan in the states but oh baby), and some form of fantastic creamy pine nut tart. And then they brought us two types of alcohol FO FREE! Some form of yummy, sweet, dessert-y sherry, and then limoncello. And like my mom wasn't really into hers so I took one for the team and helped her out. Where is my medal for being the best daughter?
Tuesday: Firenze! We walked around and saw the touristy things, and Sarah and I also stumbled upon a Gucci museum, which had old Gucci pieces, photos of the man himself with celebs of the time, and (the best part, secondo me), Gucci dresses worn by Cameron Diaz, Blake Lively, Salma Hayek and more. So stunning. I love sequins, man.
For lunch, I literally googled "i migliori panini firenze", and was directed to a hole in the wall (almost literally.. I think the entire place was like 8x8 ft) where they made each sandwich to order, cutting the cheese and meat by the slice for each sandwich. Mine was artichokes, spicy salami and pecorino. All about that.
Another perk of Florence- I met up with Becky, Amanda, Cortnay and Ben for a delightful little freshman dorm reunion! It's such a fun feeling to be in a beautiful European city with a group of people I'm used to being with on campus in Durham.
While in Firenze, the fam and I also explored Mercato San Lorenzo, which was basically a giant edible playground where I sampled (and purchased) truffle oil and ate fried calamari and marveled at fresh fish and meat and fruit and veggies and got really hungry. Day in the life.
For dinner, feeling obligated to immediately make use of the truffle oil, I made mushroom risotto using dried porcini and fresh other mushrooms and topped it all with parm and truffle oil. It was edible.
As our final family meal, we went to Trattoria Battibecco, an adorable restaurant hidden a few steps away from Piazza Maggiore. This. meal. was. fantastic. In fact, I think I'll save it for a separate post...
That was the end of my family time :( But, to ease the pain of their departure, I made a day trip to Padova with Alison yesterday! Such a charming town-- we explored the markets, bought some chocolate, and saw the absolutely spectacular Cappella degli Scrovegni. Quite a humbling experience. Oh, and for lunch, we went to a paninoteca that, according to our best count, offered 176 different combinations. I opted for porchetta, zucchine and fontina. It was a stressful experience, scanning the colorful notecards and struggling to weigh my culinary priorities before I reached the counter, but it was worth the ordeal.
To cap off the exciting week, Alison and I winded down by watching Toast- a movie I had never heard of with Freddie Highmore and Helena Bonham-Carter, based on the memoir of chef Nigel Slater. Very interesting, and it was British and about food so I was predictably content.
Phew. EXCITING, NOMMY WEEK IN ITALY. I'm really going to try to blog more frequently so I can produce shorter, more legible posts as opposed to this monstrosity... but no promises. Buona domenica!












