Allora! Italy cooks. It then eats. It then talks about what it just cooked and ate. It then begins all over again. This is why Italy has some of the best food on earth, and is also one of the worst performing economies in Europe.
 |
| Italy |
Nazz and I went to Italy last week. We each ate enough great cuisine to feed a hungry nation. Man. The food! Aubergines bigger than Greg's head.
Anyways - a little about our trip. Nazz's boetie Ivan is Italian and lives in Udine, up north. His partner Claudia lives in a little dot of a town called Palmanova, 20 minutes from Udine. Little dorpies in Italy are not kak like ours. They are ancient and beautiful. So we ate in these places. And saw some sites and learnt some interesting history from Ivan, who happens to be both an excellent cook and a fine tour guide. Grek, Ivan and your pops would get along well.
We also travelled to, and ate in, Grado, Monfalcone, and Cormons, three more little dots with great old buildings and big churches and rad little (piccolo) piazzas (squares). Monfalcone's food was particularly mad. Four antipasto (starters, one after the next), one primi piatti (pasta course), two secondi (usually meat but this was a seafood place, although I of course got special treatment as fish might kill me. I ate tripe for one of my secondi. And thankfully Dabide the blotto chef didn't have anymore carne dishes, so I got away with just one secondi. Then dolce, grappa and cafe. Awesome! Tummy hurt after that one. Not just from eating though. Turns out Dabide likes to entertain his guests with poor taste jokes, much gesticulating, and a deep passion for Deep Purple (and air guitar). Best restaurant night out ever.
We then hit Trieste, a rather more substantial town right on the Slovenian border. It was the major port for the Austro-Hungarian empire, and thus has a strong Viennese streak. The meats are more often served warm, the beer is better, and the wines are just that touch sweeter. The coffee and ice cream are the same - fucking good. Ya so three nights here, lots of walking, old buildings and history, and food.
We did Venice for the day on the way out of Italia. Venice suspends belief. It looks just like Montecasino! Jokes. But ya it was super cool to finally see up close what Venezia is all about. Ancient buildings, teeny alleyways, no roads anywhere, only boats to get around (or feet - we used feet mostly cos we were poor and dirty by this stage), annoyingly few bridges across the main canal, great little shops everywhere selling all sorts of arts and crafts, and so on etc. Venice is full of artists. Talyas everywhere!
So ya, go to Italy, stay with Ivan, and get fat. Onetime.
The Doctor (and Nazz!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment