Friday was a fun day! I met Megan deAngelo at the Piazza della Signoria. Megan is a 30-year old woman orignally from Western Massachusetts who had been living in Florence for 7 years. She recently married and they are moving to Boston in April. She was a very delightful companion for a day of too much eating! Again!

We started by walking around the corner from my apartment to a little cafe, Verrazzano’s, for a pastry and capuccino. It was before 11:00 so it is okay to still have a capuccino. They have ‘rules’ here for drinking them! We chatted a bit and got to know one another a little before heading to the Mercato Centrale San Lorenzo.

I had been a little worried that it might be the kind of ‘tour’ that took you to places to sample olive oils, basalmic vinegars, etc. and then were expected to purchase something. Since I only have carry-on luggage this would not be possible. Luckily, it wasn’t that way at all!

We stopped at a Mozzarella shop on the 2nd floor of the market and she purchased 2 different types of bufula mozzarella, one smoked and one not. She told me about visiting a bufula farm in the South where the farmer believes that the happier the cows are the better their milk. He has massage machines, plays classical music for them, and I don’t know what else. She said he refuses to export his products and the only way you can get them is by going there. He doesn’t have any problems selling all his products to people.

We didn’t spend much time at the market since I had already been there. Besides helping do these tours, she also works for one of the owners of a huge winery conglomerate. They have multiple wineries in Italy and one in Napa, Antinori. We stopped by there so I could see the building and she picked up her mail.

Antinori also owned a little cafe and wine shop down the street. The cafe sells little sandwiches mostly made with truffle paste, Tartufo. She bought six of the sandwiches, 3 different kinds, and we each had a glass of prosecco. It was the kind of place I would have never wandered into by myself. The tartufo was excellent and if they would have had a 3 ounce jar of it I would have definitely bought some!

Next we went to another sandwich shop, Ino, where she had arranged for a cheese tasting. There was a plate of cheese and one of small open-faced sandwiches with a variety of toppings like anchovy, ricotta, and olive and truffle spread. This was at 12:30 and we had lunch reservations at 1:30! I am sorry to say that we ended up leaving quite a bit on the plates. As we were leaving a couple of Italian women that were just sitting down by us were quite jealous and thought the place only sold sandwiches. Megan explained that if they asked they would do the same for them. She offered them the rest of ours, but I don’t think they took her up on it.

This area is more known for their sheep cheeses, especially pecorino romano, as the cows raised here are beef cows. The platter had a couple of kinds of pecorino, parmesan, a pistachio cheese and saffron cheese. I tried all of them, of course, I love cheese and they were excellent.

We headed to the trattoria where she had made reservations for lunch. At that point, I didn’t think I would be able to eat much of anything. Vini e Vecchia Sapori is a family run, very small restaurant. Mama does the cooking, dad is usually at the counter making salads and slicing meats, and two sons do the waiting. I am sorry to say I forgot to take any pictures!

Megan ordered an artichoke salad for us to share. It was raw artichoke on arugula with olive oil and thinly shaved cheese. I had never had raw artichoke before and it was very good.

I ordered the papparadelle with duck ragù. Papparedelle is wide pasta noodles and these were homemade. The duck ragù was very tasty, but I couldn’t eat it all, not surprisingly.

She had Baccalà in tomato sauce. Baccalà is salt cod. Very common here on Fridays and a dish that she favors.

It was a fun lunch and the people all were enjoying themselves and the ‘staff’ were all laughing and making jokes. Great place! The restaurant is very hard to get into without a reservation and they always have a sign on the door saying no tables. Megan has been coming there regularly for years and was on a first name basis with the brothers.

After lunch we walked to get gelato at Carapina – always room for dessert, right? This is a very small one where the owner makes it himself and tries unusual flavors. We sampled one that was made with mozzarella cheese. He also pairs non-traditional flavors like pecorino and Vin Santo, gorgonzola and strawberry (which I might have tried if it was available that day.) It also isn’t one where there are huge mounds of gelato piled up all day.

I ended up being fairly traditional and got coffee and pistachio. I am sure I will go back again before I leave to try something else and to get pictures, since, once again, I forgot!

We parted at the piazza where we met. She wants to make a West Coast trip at some point so I told her to contact me and I would show her around Seattle.

It was a really fun day and Megan was an interesting, easy
to talk to person.