We had a nice weekend in Florence. A cold front moved through the area dropping the temperature a bit and giving us some rain late Sunday afternoon. After Friday night’s dinner at Bistrò Del Mare we spent the rest of the evening at home with me on the couch reading the last of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Cinzia at the table using the computer to put together a couple scrapbook pages. We woke up later than usual on Saturday morning and made our way to San Lorenzo Mercato Centrale, a.k.a. the Central Market. They’re opened Mon-Sat from 7am-2pm, so we would need to shop for Sunday as well.
For lunch I decided to pick up some coppa and bread to make myself a sandwich. Cinzia bought a bunch of mixes greens and a couple tomatoes to make herself a salad. (That reminds me, later on Sunday we passed a restaurant advertizing Il Insalatone with the English translation next to it reading “The Big Salad”. I guess there are Seinfeld fans everywhere.) We also decided now was a good time to buy a huge hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. They had two types: Classico, aged 26 months, and extra-vecchio, which was aged for 7 years. I’d never heard the later type before. It was a caramel color and priced well above the Parmigiano-Reggiano Classico we ended up purchasing. To go with the cheese we also picked up some fruit and a small 40ml bottle of 9 year old balsamico. You can read more about that on Cinzia’s blog titled: Afternoon Delight with a Kilo and Some Acid.
For dinner we decided on fresh pasta with homemade red sauce. We went to the pasta shop in the market and ordered 3-persons worth of linguine. The lady at the counter cut 4 sheets of egg pasta into tagliatelle-sized strips. This was a sheet more than we needed, usually it’s one sheet per person, but for some reason the lady at the counter decided this was the right amount for 3 people. She also must have decided that we would have preferred tagliatelle instead of linguine. Who were we to argue?
For the sauce we stopped by one of the many meat stalls. We bought a two-foot length of thin pork sausage with finocchio (fennel seeds) and some “assorted pork pieces” for the sauce. (Yes, when we pointed to this pile of pork when we made sauce last time and asked the guy what it was he just said, “pork, pieces of pork”.) We also wanted a couple chicken cutlets to make chicken Parmesan on Sunday night. The guy behind the counter knew a little English. I told him I wanted “due pollo…scallopini”. He grabbed a full chicken breast, both side intact, and said, “non due, tre”. I didn’t want three, just two. He again wanted me to get three. I was at a loss to understand what he was trying to get across to me, so I relented. He then cut the breasts apart, put one on the cutting board and butterflied it into two thin slices. He looked up and said something that sounded like baton, making a motion to pound the cutlets. We said yes, of course, and he pounded away until we had two perfect chicken cutlets. Later it dawned on me what he was trying to say. To him, a proper chicken fillet is thinner, so each breast should be cut into three pieces. Cutting only two pieces would be too thick. I had noticed someone getting three cutlets pounded earlier in the week. So we learned something new today: 1 chicken breast = 3 cutlets for chicken Parmesan.
We also picked up an assortment of tomatoes to make a tomatoe salad to go with the chicken. In addition to the super sweet little red ones (see Cinzia’s blog titled: Sweet Tomatoes) we got some cherry tomatoes, a couple plum tomatoes, and one cuore de toro. Now, if you translate this last item you’d think we purchased a bull heart. We didn’t, although I’m sure we could have found that in the market too. This is the name given to this oddly-shaped tomatoe. I’d seen them several times in the market and wanted to try one. We picked up a few other items for the weekend too.
For dinner we decided on fresh pasta with homemade red sauce. We went to the pasta shop in the market and ordered 3-persons worth of linguine. The lady at the counter cut 4 sheets of egg pasta into tagliatelle-sized strips. This was a sheet more than we needed, usually it’s one sheet per person, but for some reason the lady at the counter decided this was the right amount for 3 people. She also must have decided that we would have preferred tagliatelle instead of linguine. Who were we to argue?
For the sauce we stopped by one of the many meat stalls. We bought a two-foot length of thin pork sausage with finocchio (fennel seeds) and some “assorted pork pieces” for the sauce. (Yes, when we pointed to this pile of pork when we made sauce last time and asked the guy what it was he just said, “pork, pieces of pork”.) We also wanted a couple chicken cutlets to make chicken Parmesan on Sunday night. The guy behind the counter knew a little English. I told him I wanted “due pollo…scallopini”. He grabbed a full chicken breast, both side intact, and said, “non due, tre”. I didn’t want three, just two. He again wanted me to get three. I was at a loss to understand what he was trying to get across to me, so I relented. He then cut the breasts apart, put one on the cutting board and butterflied it into two thin slices. He looked up and said something that sounded like baton, making a motion to pound the cutlets. We said yes, of course, and he pounded away until we had two perfect chicken cutlets. Later it dawned on me what he was trying to say. To him, a proper chicken fillet is thinner, so each breast should be cut into three pieces. Cutting only two pieces would be too thick. I had noticed someone getting three cutlets pounded earlier in the week. So we learned something new today: 1 chicken breast = 3 cutlets for chicken Parmesan.
We also picked up an assortment of tomatoes to make a tomatoe salad to go with the chicken. In addition to the super sweet little red ones (see Cinzia’s blog titled: Sweet Tomatoes) we got some cherry tomatoes, a couple plum tomatoes, and one cuore de toro. Now, if you translate this last item you’d think we purchased a bull heart. We didn’t, although I’m sure we could have found that in the market too. This is the name given to this oddly-shaped tomatoe. I’d seen them several times in the market and wanted to try one. We picked up a few other items for the weekend too.
We would have plenty of leftovers for Sunday’s lunch, so we didn’t worry about that meal.
I can whip up a pretty tasty red sauce here. The pomodoro passata in the market comes in a jar and is nice and thick. After sautéing some garlic, sausage, and the “assorted pork pieces” in extra virgin olive oil, I removed the meat, gave the garlic to Cinzia to eat, and added the pomodoro passata, basil, and salt. I let it cook for a while, returned the meat to the pot, and continued cooking it for about 1.5 to 2 hours. Cinzia actually likes it better than the sauce we make at home. I cooked about two-thirds of the fresh pasta and we had a nice dinner. There was only a slight panic earlier in the day when we went to get our wine bottles filled and found they were close on Saturday – go figure. Cinzia settled for a bottle from Supermercati il Centro, our local grocery store. That night we watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. All their episodes are on the Comedy Central website. We put the computer on the ottoman, sit back on the couch, and each plug in our headsets. Works like a charm. We catch up on news this way too.
I can whip up a pretty tasty red sauce here. The pomodoro passata in the market comes in a jar and is nice and thick. After sautéing some garlic, sausage, and the “assorted pork pieces” in extra virgin olive oil, I removed the meat, gave the garlic to Cinzia to eat, and added the pomodoro passata, basil, and salt. I let it cook for a while, returned the meat to the pot, and continued cooking it for about 1.5 to 2 hours. Cinzia actually likes it better than the sauce we make at home. I cooked about two-thirds of the fresh pasta and we had a nice dinner. There was only a slight panic earlier in the day when we went to get our wine bottles filled and found they were close on Saturday – go figure. Cinzia settled for a bottle from Supermercati il Centro, our local grocery store. That night we watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. All their episodes are on the Comedy Central website. We put the computer on the ottoman, sit back on the couch, and each plug in our headsets. Works like a charm. We catch up on news this way too.
Another late start on Sunday. We emerge from the apartment around 11am and try to find a couple of lunch spots that were recommended on-line. (We abandon the "left-overs for lunch" option.) Both places were closed and we were now quite a bit away from the center of town, so we make our way back and settled for a pizza place just outside the train station. The outdoor tables are typical – a long rectangular platform constructed right on the street (not the curb – the street) with panels or potted plants screening out some of the passing traffic. I wonder how many diners die from auto accidents while eating this way? Cinzia ordered pizza and I went with a calzone (a folded pizza). It was huge! We spend an hour or so talking and watching the passing cars and people out for a Sunday stroll.
We had spotted a gelateria earlier in the day and headed that way for dessert. They had a nice looking canella gelato (cinnamon). I had mine with caramel and Cinzia had hers with dark chocolate. (Click on the Gelato-A-Day link above to track our flavors.) We sat in the piazza outside Santa Maria Novella while we finished our cones. This is one of the 4 main churches in Florence.
We popped into a bookstore as it started to drizzle. I picked up the sequel to the book I had just finished, called The Girl Who Played with Fire. Books in English aren’t cheap in Italy. This one was €9,80. The book was originally written in Swedish. There are 3 books in the series with the last being The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The first book I read I picked up in the States, so it had an American-English translation. This copy had a British-English translation. When Italians learn English they’re taught proper British English. So when the book references any measurements it’s in meters or kilos, bodies are in the boots of the cars instead of the trunks, people go on holiday instead of vacation, and stuff like that. The main character also seems a lot different in this second book too. I don’t know if it’s the translation or the author decided to make changes. Oh well.
We got home well before the rain started. I plopped down on the couch with my book and Cinzia booted up the computer to check her e-mail, catch up on Facebook, and surf the Web. Around 7pm I decided I’d start getting some items ready for dinner. We didn’t buy any breadcrumbs (I don’t know if the small grocery store even carries them), but we did have left over bread that was nice and hard. So I got out the grater and made a batch of breadcrumbs. Some were a little chunky, so Cinzia rolled one of her wine bottles over the larger pieces and sifted the pile into a bowl. Nice job. I reheated some of the sauce from last night and cut up our last ball of mozzarella di bufala. We had a sack of double-zero flour in the cupboard and bought a few fresh brown eggs at the store (almost all of the eggs sold are fresh and not refrigerated). Cinzia added a bunch of freshly grated parm to the breadcrumbs, double-breaded the chicken cutlets, and fried them in some extra virgin olive oil. I washed and cut the tomatoes, made a simple dressing of extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt, and tossed them together in a bowl. By 8:15pm dinner was served. It was the best damn chicken Parmesan ever!