Day 6 Monday June 9th 2008

Buon Giorno. I think I finally remembered enough Italian to get by now. I’m sure my accent is horrible, but it’s all in the effort, right? We all woke up lazily today. We had no plans, Brit and I were just going to do whatever people wanted.

We had our lunch and dinner guide so we felt we could go anywhere and find something good to eat. Mom kind of wanted to make dinner every night, but that would mean grocery shopping, dishes for 14 people and all that goes along with that. Being in Italy we all wanted to experience Italian food and we’re on vacation, so we told her that wasn’t what we had in mind.

Or as the quote goes in Italian…
"Nutrisi di cibi prelibati e trasformare una necessita in estasi" which translated it means "To nourish ourselves with delicious food turns necessity into ecstasy"

With five kids under 5 years old, I knew we wouldn’t be getting out of the house anytime soon that morning. We ate the grapes we bought yesterday and they were so good. We were still hungry so Brit, Josh and myself drove into town to the bakery to get some morning bread. You needed to get there between 9:00 and 9:30 the lady that we rented the villa from said, otherwise all the good bread will be gone.

The name of the store is called Il Fornaio, which is basically the name of every bread store you walk by in Italy. I know it means “the oven”. I guess it is just like calling every store that sells bread the bakery. It’s the “di Salustri Fabrizio” , the owners name, that distinguishes them from each other. We got some pastries and some pizza. Josh already has powdered sugar on his lips trying to taste everything. The éclair was full of pudding.

There is a grocery store right next around the corner and so we picked up some fresh mozzarella, mortadella, and fruit there too. On the way home I saw another pastry stopped and pulled over to see what they had. Around the corner I could see another food type store. It was a butcher and they were hand making their sausage in the back. I took a picture of a guy eating his morning pizza by his truck. This is real Italian life, happening everyday. The trucks are so small but cute. I think that we’re going to get something like this for my brother Ben who works for us.

We brought the bread back and everyone dug in. It was a type of rosemary fociccia with olive oil and seasoned perfectly with coarse salt. They actually make it in large sheet and then cut however much off you want with scissors. Their pastries were just okay, nothing fabulous.

We said family prayers and then got started. Luckily someone prayed that we’d all get along. Caravaning with four cars would be interesting, especially when one car wants to go really fast and others don’t. Also with a nursing mom and lots of kids who need to use the bathroom a lot, it is going to be a fun road trip. We decided to go to the Dunnroba Fossil Forest. We think the kids will really like it so we program in to the GPS and head to it. It’s not easy to find. We missed the signs but when we got there it was closed anyway.

We forgot that almost everything is closed on Mondays. So then we changed plans and went to Todi to see the city and all the views. Dad is already falling asleep in the car. Brit wants no more pictures taken. By the time we got there, people were hungry for lunch so we found the restaurant. The best way is to have it programmed into the GPS so you have the name you can show someone. That way to don’t have to try to say it in a bad Italian accent.

The piazza was classic, and looked like an Italian one should, but only served bar food and we wanted pasta. Trying to find a place that will hold 13 people also is not an easy task. Especially if they see you have kids. They generally act like they can’t accommodate you. Then, when you tell them no wine, it is way worse than in the US. We ate at Pane & Vino and boy was it good.

While we were waiting for our table we went across the street to look at the views. They were gorgeous. Rolling hills and fields in bloom and harvest. It was a beautiful day. It was amazing how far you could see in the distance. Pane & Vino was such a tiny place, but they had a large back room that sat us all perfectly. They even had high chairs.

Since this was our first meal all together it was going to be interesting to figure out how we were going to do the ordering. We ordered the house appetizer, which had smoked duck breast carpaccio, deer, wild boar and goose salami, spiced lardo di Colonnata served on wardm toasted bread, honey and Roquefort cheese served on toast, a “Gioconda” bacon with balsamic vinegar, fresh Pecorino Fossa with honey, and savoy cabbage roll stuffed with ricotta and Roquefort cheese. Everything was so good, but my favorite was the duck carpaccio and the salami. I wish the lardo had been melted more, I think I only like that when it is really thin and melted.

For our first course we ordered all the pastas they had. We got ravioli with cheese, so good, strangozzi pasta with black truffles, delicious. Taglierini pasta with fresh tomato and lemon, a very refreshing flavor, chickpea and porcini mushroom soup, kind of boring and not very flavorful and risotto with yellow pumpkin and saffron that was so creamy and excellent. We got the kids lasagna and that was the best dish of all.

For our second course we ordered the black truffle omelet, the smoked pork chop served with porcini mushrooms and black truffles, and the spiced lamb shank with black truffles. We couldn’t believe how many truffle shavings were on everything. At $295 dollars a pound, we thought they would be used sparingly but they were all over every dish.

For our side dishes we got roasted potatoes, the mixed salad, grilled eggplants and the cooked green vegetables which ended up being cabbage. We ordered every dessert to try them all and loved the wild berry mouse, the crema catalana with caramel, biscotti with dessert wine, chocolate mousse, the amor polenta, which is a maize flour and almond cake served with warm cream and wild berries, and pineapple with vanilla, ricotta cheese with chocolate on top.

Seriously everything was so good. I loved the pineapple with vanilla and it ended up being a clear vanilla that they soaked it in. Yum, and the way the cut it was so clever. I asked the lady if I could get the vanilla but she said no they don’t sell it around here. I asked her if she could show me the bottle and she did. She told me they buy it at Metro and I asked her if she could write it down for me on their business card and she did.

Brit loved the cream catalan. I think that is what his grandma used to make a type of flan like that. My dad liked it too and was even licking the dish with his fingers. Josh had Braeton acting like a dog and chewing on the bone. He was telling him to suck out the marrow which was making Amber sick. Brateon is very charismatic.

We rolled out of there and decided to walk around town. It’s amazing all the little alleys and stuff that are behind all these doors in the city. We walked down this one since it looked so cool. Everything was so pretty and I love the little terracotta pots that are all over the houses. We stopped at a food store and bought a strangozzi pasta roller and some other items. They had a really cool book there that I tried to buy but he wouldn’t let me. I’m not sure why. I tried to find it on-line but I couldn’t at leperledelgusto.it

We got gelato and everyone walked around the town. It was funny to watch the ladies watching us walk down the street. The patterns in the stones on the street and on the paths are very intricate and are designed so beautifully. Their planter boxes are usually always curved too. In one of the shops I found these cool water urns that I like, but there was no way I was taking it home. Maybe if I still really like it in a year, I’ll have them ship it to me. It started raining really hard, and I mean really hard so we decided to go home.

We went back to the house since Todi is only like 10 minutes away and tried to plan out the week. When we go home there was no electricity and the entire floor where you come in was flooded with water. We called the lady’s friend that runs a B& B in a few towns over. We weren’t sure if the electricity went out because of the flood and shorted the computer wires on the floor, or if both were out because of the rain. She called her friend and told us to look for candles. She called us back and told us that all the electricity had been out in the town since 3:00 and she didn’t know when it would be going back on, maybe 1 hour, maybe 1 week, you never know she said.

Now that was a nightmare, not only trying to figure out the flood situation but every one wants to do different things this week so how are we going to decide? We finally made a list that everyone wanted to do and we were set. Brit & I decided to go to dinner and Josh & Hiedi, and Amber & Wendel decided to go find the pizza place down the street that the lady said was good.

We didn’t want pizza so we decided to go by ourselves to dinner. It was like 8:45 by that point so we headed to eat. At least this time we weren’t the first people in the restaurant called La Mullennia. We’ve always been the early birds. Even when we left at 10:00 and people were still just starting to arrive. To me that is so weird.

They brought an appetizer that was pane fatto, fried bread with spinach. We had tagliatelle with truffles, gnocchi with greens and a mushrooms sauce, ravioli with pink sauce, and lasagna. Everything was so delicious. For dinner we had “Stringhette di maiale” which was like a carnitas style pork. So good! We had the semifreddo della casa which was made with mangos, biscotti, crème, and panna. We need to come back here so yummy.