picnic at pieve di cerreto

Filmed by Isabella on the N95

insalata

Pura e semplice… con olio d’oliva, aceto balsamico, basilico, pomodoro, cipolla, aglio e gorgonzola

Inviato d’italia via il nostro n95!

l’ultima birra

Mi piace questa birra.

Inviato d’italia via il nostro n95!

viareggio

A nice day at the beach… although finding a spot was difficile! It seems 99% of this beach is owned by resorts. A tiny strip at the south end (near the marina, where we parked) was “libera” … although completely full. We asked a few lifeguards if we could pay for a spot, but only one had anything available and it was at the back of the sand, nowhere near the water, for 15 euro. I didn’t mind paying, but we wanted to just lie on the sand, not sit in a tent next to the bar. So we walked all the way to north end and finally found the larger spiaggia libera, and by then there was a bit of open space. We hung out, played in the beautiful water and refreshed our tans for a few hours. When we walked out to the boardwalk, we saw we had actually walked further than Viareggio!

The beach resorts all seemed to be named after towns, and the one we were next to was called Abetone, funny enough, which is the ski resort near our apt.

Funny swinging clown…

Interesting beach town church:

On the way back to the car, we stopped for churros!

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torta cioccolata

In four weeks, I haven’t eaten much chocolate. This, despite being in one of the major fine chocolate countries of the world, and reading David Lebovitz, who writes about European chocolate factories at least once a week. But this one was too good to resist. I think this is the closest I’ve ever come to following one of his recipes. Although I had difficulty finding some of the ingredients. And since I only had one pan, I halved the recipe.

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Probably due to the baking soda substitution it didn’t rise as much as I thought it would… So, instead of a chocolate pancake, I cut off four chords and bisected the resulting square to make a little double-layer rectangle.

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And I admit, I have never been very good at frosting a cake, despite having worked in a bakery in high school.

Tuttavia, questa torta รจ squisita!

Conversione:

350 F = 175 C
1 cup flour = 100 grams
1 cup sugar = 200 grams
1 oz = 28 grams

avanzi

Working on three customer upgrades today plus playing with my new phone didn’t give me much time to cook. Although we did make a cake today… when we frost it I’ll post the photos ๐Ÿ™‚

So leftovers for dinner… I wanted to share but I won’t take a photo because it doesn’t look very appetizing. I made frozen gnocchi with gorgonzola and the aglione sauce we got at bompano; fried zucchini with onion and garlic and a mozzarella-stuffed flower; and sliced percoche. It’s all in one bowl. I’m debating opening my last birra, but with all this work tonight I’m thinking maybe not. I’ll stick with succo di arancia, e caffe.

One more week of la vita italiana this summer… next saturday we’ll be on a plane to Amsterdam, and then Boston. I’d hoped to spend more time actively learning italian, although i have been going through my textbook and remembering more. And doing pretty well in the stores. Even managed to buy a new cell phone yesterday and the salesman was impressed! Bella is playing really well with the neighbor kids, Jamilah and Johny, and their grandmother Giuliana loves her — calls her Bellisima every time she walks out.
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di sopra

Pieve di Cerreto from Andreole

Sent from our n95!

animali

Today on my walk to Andreole, this puppy started following me. When I started to take a picture of him, he sat down and posed for me!

Then I saw these goats on my way back, so I walked around to get a better view of them.

After getting these two, I went down a bit closer, and this other fellow walked out to see me!


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treni

Twice this week we took the train from Borgo a Mozzano to Lucca and to Florence. Fun, fast (usually) and convenient. All kinds of different trains too.

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fiesole

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