To both to the South and to the North of Florence are these amazing, seemingly endless fields of sunflowers. It makes for a spectacular sight. D informs me that they are probably used for oil. I guess I never thought too much about how sunflower oil might be harvested before. Pamela of Red, White and Grew gave me the heads up to look out for this. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We had a fabulous time this evening. On Thursday we found out that one of D's colleagues who arrived from Spain in April, happened to be accompanied by his partner and their 2.5 year old child. How D & J managed to go for 3 months without mentioning their toddler children to each other is beyond me, but wahoooooooooooooooooo! You know, just a month before we leave, but still. Cool people. In fact, this weekend has been pretty much a social whirlwind relatively. Last night, we went to a lovely birthday party for a terrific two year old, the same one we had a playdate with last weekend and D & I got to meet and talk with really interesting people to boot! Sometimes it just takes a little time to meet people you connect with. Six months is a difficult length of time. It's a long time to be away from dear friends and perhaps too short a time to connect to many people here. I'm thankful for those friends we have met here though.
We've been fortunate to have plenty of visitors to save us from loneliness though. Last week it was my dad, Auntie C and Tio Pepe. Fabulous to see all. A little birthday celebration for my dad at Quattro Leoni. A bit of a stroll to the bridge my father describes as heaving with pubescent hormones because of the abundance of Italian teenagers making out on it. At least they have good taste with regards to the view. And, because it was a birthday after all, a little gelato.
Ponte dell'ormone
Bistecca Florentina
This is THE dish. Every restaurant offers it and no it isn't really cooked at all. I'm purposefully making this a small image as it might be a little much for some.I will share that it was extremely tasty and we had difficulty stopping Ila from reaching over and grapping it. She has become a serious meat fiend.
Alas, if I could only photoshop a little more cooking time into that bistecca... I'm sure it was delicious though. I never tried it as my student budget wouldn't permit it (only the mystery meat dished up at the university cafeteria). Jonah is a total carnivore - last time we went to an Argentine restaurant I wasn't cutting pieces of meat fast enough for him, so he reached over and grabbed an entire short rib and sunk his teeth into it. Yep, that's my boy!
ReplyDeleteAhhhh, we shared it between the two, scratch that, the three of us. It is the first time we've had it. It was surprisingly raw. I mean I knew it was supposed to be raw and it wasn't bleeding, but...
ReplyDeleteI think that the way meat is matured here makes a huge difference.