Thursday, March 24, 2011

Well, first, some food talk...last night for dinner, Chris didn't want pasta and was feeling a little "Italian-food" out. I had passed a Lebanese restaurant a few days ago, so we decided to try that. I was a little worried about the kids not trying stuff, but I sure didn't need to. Liam tried everything, Grace tried almost everything and the Triple Chicks tried about 60% of everything! And it was sooooo good! For dessert they gave us just a little taste (because we were so full!) of some baklava - one of my favourite desserts and it was some of the best I've ever had.

Pizza count: 32 (seriously! May I just reiterate that while the girls often share a pizza, it is an individual meal for the rest of us! They do the crust very, very thin here and you don't get gobs of cheese.)



It was just a spectacularly beautiful day today. *** WARNING**** Certain geographic regions of readers may want to skip this part...It ended up being 26 degrees today!!!

So to today...John and Dianne wanted to get out into the country side and do a wine tour, so I had booked something for them with a company that was recommended to me -

If you are in Tuscany and want to do a wine tour, do it with Tuscan Trails. They are FANTASTIC!!!

- So that morning, Chris and I were musing about what to do, and discussing the fact I would like to go on a wine tour, but Chris had no interest, so I called to see if I could tag with John and Dianne. Turns out there was plenty of room - we were the only 3 on the tour!

So Chris had the kids for the day, and the three of us set off to meet Todd, the guy from Tuscan Trails at the bridge nearest to our apartment. We were to tour 2 wineries nearby with lunch in between.

Todd was awesome. He's a Californian who married an Italian and has been here in Florence for 9 years. He trained here in Italy as a sommelier, which is a 2 1/2 course here, so he was pretty knowledgeable!

I really enjoyed it. I have what I always call wine amnesia - I can never remember anything about what I've had or where it's from or what it's called. I truly do understand a bit more about Italian wines, well, Chiantis anyway, now. We had so much fun!

Olive oil pot (it's about 4 feet high)

Those are lilac bushes in bloom!

Chris and the kids walked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo because he hadn't been there yet and it was such a beautiful day. Grace was supposed to document it for me on her camera, but she mostly forgot to take pictures! They had lunch up there...I'm a little worried what we've done to our kids as in, "How's your ravioli, Katie?" "meh, I've had better." See?!?! We've created little foodie monsters!