It’s a late Saturday afternoon in September and the streets of Florence are crowded with tourists. The temperature is beginning to rise and it’s just best to stay indoors.
A morning at the central market was busy and hectic; packed with many weekend shoppers, some only sightseers snapping pictures for their vacation albums or food blogs. There are little Italian nonnas teetering through the crowds, painfully slow, a couple Japanese gentlemen trying the best cheeses at each venders stall, a man with a huge camera snapping pictures of hanging prosciuttos, people with dogs greeting each other in the aisles, and tourists standing dazed and transfixed by the confusions of it all.
A morning at the central market was busy and hectic; packed with many weekend shoppers, some only sightseers snapping pictures for their vacation albums or food blogs. There are little Italian nonnas teetering through the crowds, painfully slow, a couple Japanese gentlemen trying the best cheeses at each venders stall, a man with a huge camera snapping pictures of hanging prosciuttos, people with dogs greeting each other in the aisles, and tourists standing dazed and transfixed by the confusions of it all.
When we first arrived to Florence there was no cheese grater in our apartment. Although we could have picked one up at little cost, our landlord told us to let her know if we needed anything in the apartment. After about a week we had the few items we had asked for. In the meantime we purchased a small package of pre-grated Grana Padano to tide us over. So now with a grater in our possession, we decide today we will buy some Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Our usual cheese vender has huge chunks of Parmigiano-Reggiano Classico already cut and wrapped for €14.90 per kilo (equivalent to about $9.35 a pound) the only problem is you must buy the whole one kilo chuck of cheese. Can we eat 2.2 pounds of Parm before we leave for Rome in a little over six weeks? With all the luggage we will have to transport to Rome, we don’t need added weight. We decide to go for it, throw caution to the wind, and buy a kilo of “the undisputed king of cheese”.
To go with our luscious Parm, we also splurged on a small bottle of 9 year old balsamico, a bunch of ultra-sweet grapes, a crisp green apple, and a crusty baguette.
Our usual cheese vender has huge chunks of Parmigiano-Reggiano Classico already cut and wrapped for €14.90 per kilo (equivalent to about $9.35 a pound) the only problem is you must buy the whole one kilo chuck of cheese. Can we eat 2.2 pounds of Parm before we leave for Rome in a little over six weeks? With all the luggage we will have to transport to Rome, we don’t need added weight. We decide to go for it, throw caution to the wind, and buy a kilo of “the undisputed king of cheese”.
To go with our luscious Parm, we also splurged on a small bottle of 9 year old balsamico, a bunch of ultra-sweet grapes, a crisp green apple, and a crusty baguette.
For lunch, Vic has a sausage sandwich with onions and peppers and I have a large salad of mixed greens with wonderfully ripe tomatoes dressed with a freshly made balsamic vinaigrette. Sometime after our lunch we have dessert; a little wine (for me), a little cheese, some fruit, and crusty bread.
It was a delicious and decadent experience. The salty, buttery cheese with the sweet, yet slightly acidic, balsamico on a lovely round of bread was heavenly. The sweet grapes and tart green apple paired nicely with the cheese while giving the palate a little cleanse. We had a wonderful afternoon in our Florentine apartment sampling our captivating block of light, golden cheese and dark, bitter-sweet balsamic nectar far away from the throngs of tourists baking under the hot Tuscan sun.