Thanks but no Thanks

Wanna see the saddest Thanksgiving dinner ever?

Eight naked pumpkin raviolis, in a plastic tupperware, aggravated by jail-cell lighting. 

Let me just clarify that I ADORE pumpkin ravioli (when prepared swimming in sage and brown butter and sprinkled with amaretti biscotti and parmesan) as much as I adore the quintessential Thanksgiving dinner: thick slabs of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. I also adore a robust dinner table with laughter and loudness and a high people-i-love to m² ratio. 

Unfortunately, my very sad Thanksgiving encompassed three very thin slices of prepackaged cold-cut turkey from the Pam, said bare pumpkin raviolis, and a date with my esthetician who kindly pointed out that "i tuoi baffetti sono cresciuti" (my mustache was bigger than ever).

I've pretty much spent the last month zipping in and out of Tuscany, splashing in Chianti, eating fried white bread, white pasta, white pasta with fried white bread, pane dei santi, etc. Indulgent behavior regretfully comes with a price, which is just to say I am currently ingrassata (fatter) and on a diet, hence my sobriety on a day I ought be consuming 6000 calories in a single sitting. The fun has officially run dry. 

But as a matter of lightheartedness, on the same day, Giulio came home bearing an opportunity for novel experience:

the influenza vaccine!

weeeee!

So instead of probing a turkey rectum, I got to administer my very first injection, and I did awesome. He didn't scream, I didn't inject into a vessel, and two days later he's still alive, not to mention practically FLU FREE. 

I am envisaging Thanksgiving this year the prequel to Natale as Giulio will be fulfilling his humanitarian efforts in the hospital on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I was thinking of fulfilling mine by dressing up as naughty santa and smoking a cigarette on the sofa.

Anyhow, I hope you had a decadent holiday weekend, unraveling from your normal hectic lives while engulfed by the ones you love, and that you also got a little chubbier. 

Buon Ringraziamento!

Halloweena

When I moved to Italy I spoke only English, Spanish, and some raunchy Hungarian. My dad  tried to provide solace (bless him) by (lying) saying I would be able to get my point across if I just added a vowel to the derrière of every word.

Halloweena.

Now, I have a confession to make.

Last week when I told you about Dolce dei Santi and posted those photos of the chocolatey thingamajigs, well... I didn't actually buy them at the pasticceria as one is supposed to do. I bought them (discounted, even worse) at the grocery store. Unfortunately this photo evidences an Italian gold standard exception:

In case you can't figure it out, there are three major things wrong with this photo:

1. Enormous hangnail (since manicured).
2. WAY TOO MANY INGREDIENTS. 
3. partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

While I am bored at best but more reasonably scornful of those with overly rigid eating habits, one thing I will absolutely not budge on is hydrogenated vegetable oil. It's chemically engineered to extend shelf life- a property that doesn't stop at the level of your body where it sits on the shelves of your arteries for more years than you will be alive to appreciate.

Anyway, I more or less stopped reading ingredients lists when I moved to Italy because food is faithfully fresh and standardized to house minimal constituents. On this unfortunate occasion however, I ate the dolce dei santi and only realized after the fact that I had ingested those hateful hydrogenated oils of death. Giorno dei morti in sooth.  

There was only one feasible solution to being exonerated of this heinous act: I would have to go to Siena, allegedly famous for REAL dolce dei santi, and find something of the authentic variety.

So we got in the car and drove to Tuscany.

Landscapes tried (and failed) to distract me from the nature of my mission.

So when we got to Siena, I ignored every beautiful edifice or rolling hill in favor of staying focused on the task at hand. I dragged Giulio in and out of every pasticceria we passed but NOBODY, not even one stupid bakery, had any flippin' pane dei santi.

Just as I had surrendered hope and was beginning to formulate my temper tantrum, I saw these:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and as I continued my survey of the display case, I also saw these:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This HAD to be what I was looking for, it looked near identical to what I had eaten the week prior. I ran inside and interrupted the baker, panting, and with a tone that conveyed obvious desperation:

Me: "Mi scusi. Questi sono dolce dei santi?"  ["Excuse me, are these dolce dei santi?"] (avidly tapping on the display glass).

Baker: "No. QUESTO è pan co' santi". [No. THIS is pan co' santi"] (pointing at something entirely different, boring, comprising only fruit and nuts)

Blech!

[my thoughts: you must be joking/mistaken]
Me: "E queste?" ["And these?"] (pointing to original heroic chocolate/powdered-sugar thingies)

Baker: "Questi sono Ricciarelli"

Me: "Prendo tutti i due." [I'll take both]. 

In sum, the REAL pan co' santi bored me out of my mind. On the other hand, the Ricciarelli far exceeded both my expectations and my experience with the dolce the week prior. (Now I'm really not sure what that stuff was, but I do know that somebody got very confused). Ricciarelli and Pan co' Santi are indeed both Tuscan specialties; the latter is specific to Ognissanti, the former, to Christmas. Per my research, Ricciarelli is almond-based and was popularized in the 14th century by Ricciardetto della Gheradesca upon his return from the Crusades. 

Nevermind all that because, then THIS happened:

Let me introduce you to THE Fiorentina, more affectionately known to my fellow Americans as the T-Bone Steak. That slab of meat weighed almost one full kilogram, and Giulio ate every morsel down to the bone. The photo below was not staged to exaggerate either the degree of demolition cast unto that steak or the concomitant expression on Giulio's face.

Though there wasn't costume, trick-or-treating, or pumpkin carving, roadtripping through Tuscany on Halloweena could eventually prove a new, equally nostalgic tradition.