Bill and I caught an 11 o’clock train to Florence, and that’s where we spent our Indpendence Day afternoon – looking at Italian art and eating pizza and risotto. We only spent a couple of hours in Florence because it was very, very hot and humid, and the heat simply wore us out. But we did manage to find our favorite gelato place in all of Italy – Vivoli’s.
Have I talked at all about the gelato in Italy? I think it’s something I should have mentioned in yesterday’s post when I talked about things we will miss in Italy when we come home. To make gelato, they use milk instead of cream, but it is mixed slower so that not as much air gets into the mixture. The result is a texture that is creamier than American ice cream. In addition, they have all sorts of interesting flavors,
like peach and banana. At Vivoli’s, they even have a riso (rice) flavor that I assume is much like rice pudding. Like much of Italy’s food, gelato flavors are simple and delicious.
We fixed baked beans and hot dogs for dinner. Well, the beans weren’t really baked, because we would be insane to turn on the oven in this heat. Plus, I had to be sort of creative to make the beans. I used cannollini beans, Italian catsup (hmmmm), mustard, onion, and some peperincino. The result? I better not quit my day job. (Except that I don’t have one of those!)
We found a package of wieners at the market that actually ended up tasting very much like American wieners. However, as you can see from the photo, they are extremely small. That's Bill's hand holding them. I measured them. Three inches. We put two in each of our buns,
which I softened up by steaming them a bit. So add some tomato, a chopped onion, and some little pickles, and we had a bit of a July 4th meal.
Bill brought out his computer and we played music from American artists. We listened to the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffett, John Denver, Creedance Clearwater Revival, and many others. We concluded the evening with Lee Greenwood’s I’m Proud to Be An American, which, of course, made me cry.
Have I talked at all about the gelato in Italy? I think it’s something I should have mentioned in yesterday’s post when I talked about things we will miss in Italy when we come home. To make gelato, they use milk instead of cream, but it is mixed slower so that not as much air gets into the mixture. The result is a texture that is creamier than American ice cream. In addition, they have all sorts of interesting flavors,
like peach and banana. At Vivoli’s, they even have a riso (rice) flavor that I assume is much like rice pudding. Like much of Italy’s food, gelato flavors are simple and delicious.We fixed baked beans and hot dogs for dinner. Well, the beans weren’t really baked, because we would be insane to turn on the oven in this heat. Plus, I had to be sort of creative to make the beans. I used cannollini beans, Italian catsup (hmmmm), mustard, onion, and some peperincino. The result? I better not quit my day job. (Except that I don’t have one of those!)
We found a package of wieners at the market that actually ended up tasting very much like American wieners. However, as you can see from the photo, they are extremely small. That's Bill's hand holding them. I measured them. Three inches. We put two in each of our buns,
which I softened up by steaming them a bit. So add some tomato, a chopped onion, and some little pickles, and we had a bit of a July 4th meal.Bill brought out his computer and we played music from American artists. We listened to the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffett, John Denver, Creedance Clearwater Revival, and many others. We concluded the evening with Lee Greenwood’s I’m Proud to Be An American, which, of course, made me cry.
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