A pasta adventure

It’s a struggle to find a bad meal in Florence. It’s a struggle to find an ordinary meal. 

Italians are so accustomed to fresh ingredients and fresh preparations that meals prepared in restaurants, no matter how humble, are always good. The rule applies whether the meal is cheap or overpriced, whether the meal is served by uniformed wait staff or served by people in t-shirts who all look alike (because they’re all family members), whether the restaurant in mentioned in all the guide books or the restaurant is unknown.

A brief aside.   If you scan a menu in a restaurant in Italy you may find an item with an asterisk. The asterisk takes you to a note at the bottom with a mention of the term “surgelato” which means a “frozen food”. According to law, if a dish listed on a menu contains any ingredient - any ingredient! - that was frozen, then that fact must be divulged in the menu with an asterisk. Interestingly, you don’t see asterisks very often.

Can you imagine what our menus at home would look like if we had this law. Yes, the menus would be constellations of asterisks.

Stuffed pasta

We were shopping at the Central Market in Florence, the very large market in the center of the city. The market in our neighborhood is very good but it’s much smaller. The larger Central Market has many more merchants and a number of specialized shops. Some of the specialty shops sell prepared foods.

Varieties of pasta

We stopped at the fresh pasta shop. We’ve admired this shop many times before. There are glass walls on the side who you can watch the pasta being prepared in the machines that they use. The store front has glass cases with all kinds of pasta including pasta stuffed with all kinds of things. The choices are rich.

Sauces for pasta

Since it was just before lunch and we were hungry, we lingered longer than we would normally in front of the display case of ravioli and tortellini. Then we admired the green tagliatelli (marked with the yellow arrow) and wondered what kind of sauce would be a good match. Nearby in the same case were a number of freshly made sauces and we settled on the ragù alla bolognese, a rich tomatoey meat sauce (also marked with a yellow arrow.)

... and then there were tagliatelli

We asked for enough green tagliatelli and ragù alla bolognese for two people.

The person behind the counter surprised us. She lifted up a plastic sheet that was covering sheets of freshly make green noodles. Each sheet was about 16 inches by 16 inches.

She took two of the sheets to a machine that was just behind her and cut the sheets into tagliatelli. Done! Each little sheet became a serving of tagliatelli. The tagliatelli were dropped into a bag along with some coarse ground flour so the strands would not stick together. A container of ragù sauce was prepared and sealed. 

The total cost for sauce and pasta was a little over 6 Euro or about $8.00. 

She told us to cook the noodles for two minutes after we had dropped the fresh noodles in boiling water and the the water had returned to a boil.

Uncooked

Later at home we grated some parmigiano. We heated up the sauce. We followed the instructions and prepared the noodles. Drained the cooked noodles. Tossed the noodles in the sauce. Smelled the results. 

Ahhhh.

Cooked

The tagiatelli tasted of the fresh spinach that must have been used to make the pasta. The interplay of fresh flavors between the ragù, the slightly spinachy noodles, and the grated parmigiano was as good as any of the servings of meat sauce and pasta that we had had in restaurants.

Fresh is good.

Ahhhh.

Immediately before the application of forks

Urban canyons and private interior spaces

In the center of Florence the streets and the sidewalks are narrow. The streets are so narrow that there is little on-street parking. In the places where parking is allowed, there isn’t much room left for driving or walking. The sidewalks are so narrow that when people meet while walking in opposite directions, one of them often has to step into the street to allow the others to pass. On a rainy day walking on the sidewalks with umbrellas can be interesting. Who dips their umbrella and who raises their umbrella has to be worked out as people pass each other.

1 Via dell'Agnolo

Three photos show the streets around our apartment. The first photo shows Via dell’Agnolo. The address of our apartment is Via dell’Agnolo 47. This is a main thoroughfare for driving into the center of Florence and there is a steady stream of cars, small trucks, bikes, motor scooters, and motorcycles going into the center. As you can see there is no parking on Via dell’Agnolo. The street is mostly residential; there aren’t many active store fronts on Via dell’Agnolo.

There is a yellow asterisk over the door to the hallway that leads to our second floor apartment. By the way the green cross up the street marks the location of a pharmacy. This is standard in Florence.

2 Borgo Allegri

The second photo shows the side street, Borgo Allegri. There is parking on this street for both cars and motor scooters. The sidewalks are narrow and the sidewalk on the side of the street where parking is allowed is difficult for pedestrians so people commonly walk in the street.

3 Via Ghibellina

The third photo shows Via Ghibellina, the street parallel to Via dell’Agnolo. This is a main street for driving out of the center of Florence and, again, there is a steady stream of traffic. There are more active storefronts on Ghibellina and proprietors dump water and sweep the sidewalks at least once a day. The sidewalks in front of the stores are clean and the windows are always perfectly clear.

A parking solution

The scenes in these three photos are typical of the center of the city. Streets are narrow, parking is jammed or is not permitted, buildings are built aggressively toward the streets so sidewalks are very narrow. When it is absolutely essential to park their car, Florentines hit their flashers and pull two wheels up on the sidewalk. But parking tickets are expensive.

The plan for the center of Florence was not really a plan; the streets, the sidewalks, and the buildings developed organically. The streets the city form urban canyons with buildings that are only three, four, and five stories tall but the buildings come very, very close to the streets and precious little space is left for pedestrians. Fortunately, many of the streets in the center are closed to traffic and traffic is aware of the presence of pedestrians (despite the undeserved poor reputation of Italian drivers.)

But there are a lot of open spaces and even green spaces within the blocks of buildings that make up the center of Florence. Click on this link 

Via dell'Agnolo 47 Florence Italy 

to view a Google Earth map that is approximately centered on our apartment. Check the screen capture to the right to see the actual location of our apartment at the yellow asterisk. The yellow arrows labeled 1, 2, and 3 show where the photos of Via dell’Agnolo, Borgo Allegri, and Via Ghibellina were taken.

Notice that there are interior open spaces and even green spaces among the urban canyons. Just to the south of our apartment is jagged open space that runs east and west parallel to Via dell’Agnolo. You'll get an better view with the Google Earth view from the link above.

Chasing pigeons

No dogs!

A few of these open spaces are public parks such as the Giardino di Borgo Allegri shown by yellow letter A. This is rare in Florence, a gated park operated by the neighborhood for the benefit of children, their parents, and their grandparents. For obvious reasons, no dogs are allowed in the park (“Vietato l’accesso ai cani” = Access for dogs is forbidden.)

The park is locked and closed at night. After dark the park does not attract teenagers or broken glass.

Many green spaces such as those on either side of the yellow letter B are purely private. You must live in one of the buildings to have any access. We’ve never seen these interior spaces. We certainly are curious, however.

The green space labeled C is a park with a high wall. The park is open only in warm weather and all we can see are the tops of the trees as we walk by. Again, we are curious.

From the back window of our apartment we have a view of the non-green open space just to the south of our apartment. It is an interesting sight.

Open space behind our apartment

The view out of our apartment window is of the backs of a number of buildings with washing hanging to dry on the lines. (There are no dryers in homes in Italy. Electricity is very expensive and there are never sanctions, social or legal, for drying your clothes on a line outside a window or on a terrace.)

Looking down the open area is divided into a number of private areas. We see at least four such private areas in the photo, two of which are immediately below our apartment window.

Patio with plastic furniture

Looking down to the right is a small patio of sorts with some plastic furniture, some plants, and an old bike. (All the bikes in Florence are well used. The only time you see new, flashy bikes is on the weekends when weekend warriors put on their colorful gear and take their expensive bikes out of hiding.) The patio is not in great shape but it is March and the people who live below us are beginning to clean up from the moist, cool winter that is just now passing.

In the air photo of our neighborhood above there is a bright white area to the south of our apartment. This area is the concrete floor of this small patio. 

Work in progress

The second area below us is to the left and looks more like our garage at home. Stuff is piled up haphazardly, some of the stuff probably long forgotten. Projects have been begun and then abandoned.

A quiet space

Still quiet

What signs of life do we see? 

People regular show up at the windows and stare out at the open space or down at the space below. It’s a quiet, private space in a city that is otherwise full of people and activity.

How do you paint the Ponte Vecchio?

The Ponte Vecchio

The Ponte Vecchio is the oldest bridge in Florence and crosses the Arno River at its most narrow point. There has been a bridge at this location for many, many years. The first bridge at this site was probably built by the Romans. 

In the past floods have swept many of the bridges over the Arno including the predecessors of the Ponte Vecchio. A flood in 1117 destroyed the bridge at this location as did another flood in 1333. In 1345 a new bridge was built and that bridge has survived the floods that have occurred in the intervening years, including the great flood of 1966. The Ponte Vecchio has stood for almost 700 years. 

Ponte Vecchio labeled

The bridge has always been lined with shops. In the past leather tanners and butchers set up shops on the bridge and used the river below to dispose of materials that they could not use. The river was convenient as a sewe.

In the 1500s Duke Cosimo de’Medici I, the ruler of Florence and Tuscany, had a passageway built from the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of government, to the Pitti Palace, the residence of Duke Cosimo de’Medici I. The passageway was built through residences, churches, and around defensive structures so the Duke could travel from home to work and not have to pass through the crowded streets. The entire enclosed passageway is about five-eighths of a mile long.

In the late 1500s the Duke decided that the butchers and leather tanners were unpleasant neighbors because of the mess and the stench associated with their activities. The Duke banished them in favor of goldsmiths. The tradition continues and today the bridge is lined with jewelry shops and tourists.

Some of backs of these shops need to be painted

The jewelry shops are cantilevered over both sides of the bridge. To my eye the shops look precariously balanced but they have been in their present state for many years. There are even second and third floors to the shops. None of these upper floors are accessible to the public. It’s not clear what these upper floors are used for; perhaps they are used for storage.

Despite the exotic location of the shops, they still require maintenance. On the sides that face the walkway on the bridge, the stores are glamorous and beautifully lit. On the sides that face the river, on the other hand, there is work that needs to be done.

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A brief aside

The two of us taught for many years and, like all teachers, we had three months off in the summer. The three months were July, August, and ... well, I’m not sure what the third month was.

Those months were free of students, lessons, deadlines, and pay checks. That last item was always something that had to be dealt with. Many of us painted houses during the summer just to keep our cash flows positive. Painting houses often meant working in some unusual locations, high on a ladder, stretching to get at the sides of a dormer, whatever was necessary to get a job completed. 

But I never had to swing off a rope while a river rushed below.

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Painting without a ladder

We saw this painter finishing up the back of a shop on the Ponte Vecchio. His assistant was inside on the second floor of the shop while the painter’s rope dangled in view of the actual shop windows. 

We didn’t see how the painted got out to his work. 

Do more shops need to be painted?

Painters, including the painter, work from top to bottom so the drips can be dealt with as you work you way down. But how did the painter get back up after he’d worked his way to the bottom. Again, we didn’t get to see that either.

There are some neighboring jewelry shops who backsides need to be painted. I have a friend in Syracuse with whom I’ve painted before. I’ll suggest to him that we put in a bid to paint the back of the rest of these shops. If we get the job, we’ll flip a coin to see who gets the ropes and who gets to stand in the window and watch help.

Limonaia

What is a limonaia? Please read on.

Pitti Palace limonaia

We visited the grounds of the Pitti Palace this morning with a plan to visit the limonaia, a building that is part of the sprawling collection of buildings that are associated with the palace. The Pitti Palace is grand; it was the home of the Medici rulers of Tuscany from the mid-1500s and the limonaia on the grounds of the palace is also grand. The limonaia is open only for a few hours on Wednesday mornings this time of year. When warmer weather comes, the limonaia will be emptied and will then close until cool weather returns in the fall.

Partial view  of the inside of the limonaia

A limonaia is a structure that is found attached to well-to-do Tuscan homes. The limonaia is a sort of greenhouse for storing citrus trees. Such trees are greatly prized by Italians but the trees themselves cannot take the winters if they are left outside all year long. Florence is on nearly the same latitude as Syracuse, NY, and every winter brings at least one killing frost and, most likely, many more.

Pear shaped lemon

If you must have a lemon tree or many lemon trees, then you must have a place to keep your tree(s) over the winter. That is the purpose of a limonaia. The Medici had a lot of lemon trees including some lemon trees that produced unusual looking fruit.

Lemons with "fingers"

The Pitti Palace limonaia faces roughly south and has a huge expanse of glass that looks onto an open courtyard. The windows have been speckled with white paint, presumably to keep too much sun from entering and heating the space excessively. 

We were on the Pitti Palace grounds on a sunny, cool day and the inside of the limonaia was quite warm despite the partially painted windows. The inside contained perhaps as many as 150 small and medium size lemon and other citrus trees as well as many other plants including some orchids.

Orchids

In March the limonaia is full of little trees but when the weather warms, all of the trees will be moved to spots in the park land on the grounds of the palace. The grounds are called the Boboli Gardens and a must-see on a nice day when you are in Florence.

Orangerie at La Foce

It wasn’t just the Medici rulers of Florence who prized the little trees. Some years ago we visited La Foce, the estate that was developed by Antonio and Iris Origo in the 1920s and is still kept in the family. Antonio was an agricultural reformer. Iris was an Anglo-American biographer of literary figures. The La Foce gardens are noteworthy and the grounds include a building that they call the Orangerie, a building that has a similar name and with the same function as a limonaia.

A few years ago we visited family members in Basilicata, the largest and least densely populated region of Italy. Basilicata is also one of the more disadvantaged regions of Italy economically. 

Lemons wearing socks

We stayed with a relative in Basilicata who kept his lemon tree on a cart in his garage. There was no greenhouse but the interest in the little citrus trees was the same as with more famous Italians. When we arrived in April that year, the cart and the lemon tree had been pulled out into the sun. The nights were still cool, sometimes cold, so the lemons need some protection. The family put old socks on some of the lemons to protect them from the cold.

Sad day

If you’ve visited us in Florence, you probably remember our morning routine. In the morning we go out for cappuccino, stop at the Pagnotta bakery for bread and biscotti, and then shop for fruit and vegetables, cheeses and cold cuts at the Sant’Ambrogio market. It’s a pleasant routine and we’ve made good friends at each of these stops over the last 12 years.

The bakery is the work of two sisters and their father. Sadly, their father became ill recently and died last Thursday afternoon. On Saturday the funeral service was held in the Sant’Ambrogio church across the little piazza from their bakery. The church has been in this location for a thousand years.

The steps to Sant'Ambrogio church on Sunday morning
with the Pagnotta bakery across the little piazza

There were no calling hours (and Italians may not have such a custom.) The funeral mass was set for 4pm. Family and friends, however, arrived before the service and greeted one another. Condolences were offered to the sisters in the piazza in front of the church and, later, in the church. The scene inside the church was a mostly a social scene until the church bells rang. The collection of friends and family quickly became a congregation as the priest and his assistants lead a mass.

The ceremony was less ritualistic and more personal that we thought it might be. The priest celebrated the life of the master baker and the kind and generous way in which he lived his life. The congregation was well aware of the life of the baker since the congregants were all either family or people who lived or worked within a quarter mile of the church and the bakery that stand across from each other on the small piazza.

Afterwards we waited in the piazza as pall bearers placed the coffin in a hearse and the sisters said good-bye.

It was a sad day.

Riposa in pace, Giancarlo.

Saturday night the same little piazza held the overflow from the popular bar and club that is also in the little piazza. Life goes on.

Refreshments at the movies, Trattoria Mario

The forecast yesterday was for rain. We made plans to go to a movie and to see 12 Years a Slave. The movie was in English with Italian subtitles. The story was well told, the actors were terrific, but the details of the story were very, very disturbing. 

The refreshment stand at the movie theater

The details were very disturbing but probably very accurate. The wounds that our country has inflicted on itself over the issue of slavery and all that has followed the Civil War have not been healed. Though I taught American History at various times, I would have had a hard time using this film with minority students. Slavery involved brutality and the movie is unflinching in its portrayal of the brutality. 

The movie made me angry. I can only imagine the effect of the movie on young minority students.

On a lighter note we took a photo of the refreshment stand at the theater. We are in Italy and the refreshment stand includes candy (on the left), chips (on the right), and variety of adult beverages (straight ahead.)

Today we had lunch at Trattoria Mario. We may have bored you already with stories about this tiny restaurant in Florence but if (or when) you visit us in Florence, this is probably the first place we’d take you for lunch.

Zuppa di fagioli with a signature in olive oil

Today I had zuppa di fagioli, bean soup, a simple soup that tastes of beans (of course), onion, and olive oil. It is served with a drizzle of high quality olive oil. If they’re not too busy, the drizzle of olive oil on the bean soup forms their signature.

The restaurant is located across from the main, central market in Florence. Once this was a neighborhood restaurant that served the people who worked in the market. Now the restaurant gets its fresh ingredients from the same market and serves lunches to people from all over the world.

Here are some customer reviews of Trattoria Mario from Trip Advisor and Roadfood. Check here (select page 94) and here for some reviews by professionals. There is always a line of locals, students, and tourists waiting to be seated for lunch because the food at Trattoria Mario is so good and the prices are so reasonable. 

The menu is handwritten and is posted outside where diners line up and inside on the wall. There is no printed menu. When they run out of something, the item is crossed out. When they run out of everything (or something like that), they close for the day.

The menu is traditional Florentine. Small signs remind diners that 1) “There is no ketchup”, 2) “There is no mustard”, 3) “No pizza”, 4) “Porterhouse steaks are only served rare”. Thick cut porterhouse steaks are a specialty of Florence.

In 2013 Trattoria Mario celebrated 60 years of business. There was a week of celebrations and they produced two videos. The first video is about five minutes long a shows the party in the restaurant and out in the street. The second video is about 23 minutes long and tells a more detailed story of the restaurant.

Note that Fabio Colzi, the person who greets you on the way in and the person you pay on the way out, wears a sweatshirt that says, “Odio La Juve” or “I can’t stand Juventus”, the soccer team from Turin that has the highest payroll in the Italian league. The Florentines really don’t like the Juve.

Some thoughts about our team

We took in games Saturday night and Sunday night with a pair of friends. Saturday night we watched Syracuse play Virginia on TV while we had a bite to eat at the House of Sizzle, a watering hole for college kids in Florence. SU lost 75-56. Sunday night we were in the stands as Florence hosted Lazio at Sergio Franchi, the local soccer stadium. Florence lost 0-1.

Not a great weekend for our teams.

There were some things that mitigated the loss by our team.

1) Our players were tired. They had played a too many games in recent days and our players were worn down physically and mentally.  2) Some key players were not available.  3) Our fans are in an uproar over a referee’s decision in a recent game. Everyone agrees that the referee was wrong but there was nothing that could be done.  4) The big games in the upcoming tournament had to be on every player’s mind.  5) The team played very well defensively but the team lacked the offensive punch needed to take a victory.

Florence fans “on strike” by refusing to take

their seats for the first 10 minutes of the game.

From La Repubblica, March 3, 2014

Of course, I’m referring to the Florence team and the Florence-Lazio game. (Live links are in boldface below.)

Florence fans holding up red cards
and demanding respect (Vogliamo
rispetto) from Braschi, the official
in charge of judges.
From La Repubblica March 3, 2014

1) This week Florence played difficult games against Parma on Monday and Esbjerg on Wednesday. Both games ended in draws.  2) Giuseppi Rossi, Florence’s key offensive player, is injured and will be out until late April. Also, Borja Valero was suspended and unavailable as a result of the Wednesday game.  3) Florentine fans were in an uproar about the suspension and carried out a 10 minute strike at the beginning of the Lazio game. Yes, I know, the link is in Italian.  4) Florence has advanced to the final of Europe Cup but faces multiple games with Juventus, their arch-rival and the current league leader.  5) In the contest with Lazio, Florence had lots of opportunities but just couldn’t get a score.

Oh, by the way, we wore the team colors for each game, orange on Saturday, purple on Sunday. That didn’t seem to help.

No, I wasn’t thinking of Syracuse-Duke, Tony Greene, Jerami Grant, Syracuse players who sometimes seem searching for their game. No, I wasn’t thinking of that all.

Yeah! Sure!