Most people coming to Florence, will be hopefully be looking for “authentic”, non-touristy food. Chances are that if you are looking for “authentic” food, you may not realize that what you should be looking for are: places that do traditional food of their region well. Continue Reading →
It’s been a gluttonous year in this tiny city- and I’ve only scratched the surface. Florence is a TINY city, but there are nearly 3,000 eateries! I want to stay within normal BMI and cholesterol parameters, here! I’ve done my best to eat at as many places as possible, to meet the chefs, to see what was worth the almighty buck and also what was worth our time. Continue Reading →
By a fateful accident of texts exchanged between me and a pal we ended up dining at Coco Lezzone for what should have been a no-nonsense weekday lunch date. I suggested Coco Filippo and said pal replied “oh, you must mean Coco Lezzone!” Since I never heard of this trattoria before, truth be told, I wrote off Filippo and said to Lezzone we go! Continue Reading →
La Ribollita…this dish has been haunting me the last few months as I have been trying in every way to understand it. Before I get too wordy, let me explain what Ribollita is for those who may not know.
Ri-Bollita literally means -re-boiled. I want to cry in hysteria every time I see a poorly translated English menu’ boasting “re-boiled bread soup.” It is almost impossible to translate this dish while making it sound appetizing to the foreign masses. In Tuscan cuisine, which I harp on quite often, is based on peasant eating and not leaving any scrap behind. Tuscan bread is made without salt, for a slew of historical legends (feuds between port towns, high salt taxes, etc) and as a result it goes stale quicker than salted bread. In order to not toss out unused bread, it was then re-purposed to many iconic dishes we eat today such as Panzanella. Continue Reading →