Gelato! Mele verde e cioccolata con amarena
Here are the links to see only pictures of Bella (55), Carolyn (47), or Jenn (13) photos from my two weeks trip with the ladies.
A bit of Flickr trivia – I was surprised to learn that I have about 171 photos of Bella in my Flickr photos altogether (so far), which is the same number as photos of Jenn! There are a total of 76 for Carolyn.
I’m nearly done uploading the photos from Colognora — so please go visit the Italy collection to review the 1500 photos I snapped (and I haven’t developed film yet, but there will be a bit of that, too).
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Posted 03 August 2007
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The one time i go out without my camera… and there’s a fire on the mountain! I left bella watching with the neighbors, drove home, got my camera and walked back down.
I found the short cuts down the hill and walked through the town of Cerreto, which Katya and I had driven through in October.
I guess Saint Gemma was in Cerreto too
This is the road I drove down with Katya out of Cerreto… it’s very steep and narrow and literally drops you onto the main road that we usually drive.
When I walked down, a few people were watching on the bridge, but within a few minutes traffic was backed up as far as we could see on the highway.
Bella watched with Giuliana and Sesto, just above this row of beehives.
Another neighbor, Ivano, drives a tractor and delivers firewood around town.
View from our village
50 buckets of water!
In our afternoon shopping trip to town we found beautiful zucchini with their flowers. So of course we had to have that for dinner! Bella also picked out tortellini at Self Service and cooked them up for me.
Can you believe how red those pomodori are? And if you could just smell how fabulous my fresh basilico is now…
My recipe for zucchini flowers
Rinse the flower, remove the pistils, dry gently
insert a slice of mozzarella (i used some from a fresh treccine we got earlier this week)
dip into batter made from:
farina di castagne Garfagnanina
1 piccolo uovo (delle gallini di giuliana)
latte
fry in olio di girasole, along with the rest of the zucchini (i threw it into the rest of the batter as well)
i fear i shall never work again…
On Wednesday, Bella and I took a break from work and started to walk toward Oneta on the road where the race ran. I’d never walked this part of the road so I had no idea how far it was, and since I had a call in 45 minutes, the plan was to walk 15 minutes, then turn around and walk back. Just 2 minutes later though, as we made it past the bus stop, our friend Nicoletta drove up and offered us a ride. So up we drove… for about 7 minutes, to the Oneta border. Got out and walked back… saw a couple other vilages down the hill and a busdriver sleeping in his tour bus. I also found this sign in the trees leftover from the race:
We made it back exactly on time for my call.
Today was a full day of work. No sightseeing at all. After my evening conference calls, we went to I Macelli for dinner, again. They know us so well that they bring our drinks before we even order. Tonight we had our old favorites: antipasto al tartufo and ravioli di castagne, with torta al formaggio for dessert.
Yes, they have Claritin in Italy!
the package is even in Braille
The best restaurant we have found in the Lucca area is Butterfly, which I had noticed the first time I drove out here (and which was exactly a year ago this week). We tried to go last November after thanksgiving but they were full. We finally made it in May with Amy & Joanne and the experience was incredible.
For Jenn’s last night here, she called and asked the chef to make her a vegan meal, which turned out very well. Unfortunately though, they were quite busy so it was dark when the main dishes arrived and the later photos didn’t turn out as well.
A most excellent chianti.
Tre pomodori… gazpacho, warm soup with a quail egg, and layered with mozzarella and rosemary. All of them were fabulous!
Isabella ate this entire plate of lamb chops covered with bacon and served with zucchini flower.
Jenn’s main dish: potatoes with mushroom sauce and blueberries.
Isabella’s dessert: wild strawberry and blueberry tart with a chocolate milkshake.
