Risotto e Firenze

Ponte Vecchio

view from the Duomo

Also from the Duomo

nice scarf, eh

also a nice scarf, and Santa Maria Novella in the background

Our local cinquecenta -- not the new model

Risotto e Firenze

We were invited to a special risotto evening with Beppe, Tecla and their daughter Martina at a
restaurant run by their friend. It lasted about 3 hours and included lectures on rice by a specialist and the cook. Apparently, there are well over 100 types of rice grown in Italy and of course each has different properties that must be suited to the dish. For example Santa Andrea rice is particularly good for soup and risotto.
We started with a crispy rice appetizer together with a rice-based beer. Several courses followed including: a rice salad with leeks, rice balls with meat inside (almost like a dim sum dish), thinly sliced vegetables deep fried in rice flour (like a very delicate tempura), minestrone with rice, risotto with osso bucco, and dessert was a rice panna cotta and rice gelato on a very thin wafer. Two white wines were served, one of which was Orvietto,  but the other was something from the north of Italy that I didn't know.
It turns out to my surprise that risotto is not just soggy crunchy rice!

On Friday, we took a day off work and caught a bus to Firenze for the day. The bus takes 2 hours and runs Monday to Friday at 7:30 am and returns to Perugia at 8 pm, just in time for supper. Makes for a great day trip. The weather was sunny and warm (about +15) and there were some tourists but not the droves that will appear later in the Spring. I climbed the Duomo to the bell tower (about 500 steps) and took quite a few pictures from up top. We had wanted to hit the Bargello gallery/prison for the cultural side of our outing, but it closes at 1:30, so we had to hit some churches instead. Walked all day and then came home and went out for supper at one of our favourite restaurants, Il Ghiotone, where the waitress is German and chatty, and the food is very good.