Italian Dinner Out Plus French Fries

So I finally got my Italian Dinner.  It's difficult to go out here because most places don't even open for dinner until 6:30 or 7!  And if you know Emily at all, that girl likes her dinner at 5.  Promptly at 5, sometimes a little before 5, but absolutely NO LATER THAN 5!  Here she is eating french fires aka pape fritte at our Italian Dinner.  They love french fries here.  Every place we've been to (except the exclusively pizzaria) has had french fries on the menu.  Their french fries are just the way I like them too.  Big steak fries that are crispy on the outside and nice and potato-ey on the inside.  They are also gluten free so a safe bet for the kids.

We ended up going to Citta Cooperativo, a local cooperative that gets local food and changes their menu regularly based on what is in season and what they can get.  They also have local beer and wine which I love.  Here is my "medium" sized beer, a local Belgium style ale that was very tasty.  Nice and light and great for a summer evening.  Aaron put Ryan's 6" Darth Vader action figure next to it for some perspective.

I decided to try and do a very "local" menu not just with food from around here, but choosing items that are from this region.  First we started with the Antipasta.  A selection of local meats and grilled polenta.  Polenta, apparently, is a northern Italian speciality and one that Bergamo likes to claim.  There is a "fast food" polenta place down the street where they will pull you a bowl of polenta out of a machine that looks a little like a soft serve ice cream maker and then they put your toppings of choice.  Salsicca, funghi (mushrooms), cheese, chicken, beef, and lots of other stuff.  This plate had three different kinds of meat (which of course I did not write down so I do not remember) a salami and two kinds of prosciutto.  There are many different kinds of prosciutto here.  I could do an entire blog post on just the different kinds of prosciutto.

Then we had some Casoncelli.  This is also a very typical Bergamo food.  It is a pasta kind of like a ravioli only it is folded over in half.  It has cheese, meat, and vegetables inside but also something sweet that kind of pops in your mouth at the end.  We've had two versions of it now and they were both good, but a little different.  In this version it was served in butter with prosciutto, sage, and Parmesan cheese on top.  The other one had fried basil on top that was AMAZING.  Casoncelli is also found in just about every restaurant in Bergamo.

They also served us bread.  Everything here comes with freshly baked bread.  And they don't give you a slice or two per person.  Here they gave us a heaping basket of freshly baked bread.  And when we got close to finishing it?  Replaced with another basket of freshly baked bread.  I thought I didn't miss bread.  All I can say is, Paleo is dead to me.  Bread is delicious.

For the main course, I had rabbit and buckwheat polenta.  I have never had rabbit before, but it was delicious.  They are cute, but they are also tasty.  It tasted like it had been slow cooked because the meat just fell off the bone.  There was no gaminess to it at all, but it had a unique taste to it.  Paired with the creamy, cheesy polenta brought out the meaty, savoriness of the meat.  I would totally eat rabbit again.

Aaron had a pork loin sliced super thin with a balsamic vinegar reduction.  He said it was incredibly tender and tasty.  I was too busy with my rabbit to steal a bite.

Ryan stole the camera so that he could take a picture of his dinner.  Peanut Butter and Jelly on gluten free bread and french fries.  I have to say, as a culinary commentary on his meal, the jelly here is amazing.  I don't think it is quite as sweet as our jelly and it has more of a fruity taste to it than a sugary taste.  And the peanut butter isn't too shabby either.  We'd been eating Trader Joe's unsalted, unsweetened peanut butter for a few years now, and to have peanut butter with both salt and sugar (not too much though) made my taste buds do a happy dance.

And what is the perfect finish to an Italian Dinner?  Tiramisu of course.  This version is not gluten free (we did find one that is and it was delicious too.  I posted a picture of it half way through our dessert destruction) so Ryan had a big bowl of chocolate gelato.  Emily and Aaron helped a bit, but Ryan was happy to dig in.

I wish I had taken a picture of our server.  He was probably 6 and a half feet tall with dark hair and a fantastic dark beard.  He completely fell in love with Emily.  She would bat her eyes at him and give him a coy smile and he would laugh and say adorable things in Italian to her.  After dinner, as I was paying the check and Aaron was getting the kids ready to go, he came all the way out to the front of the restaurant to say "Ciao".  It was really cute.

All in all, it was a successful night.  They are doing a Paella night on Thursday and I'm hoping we can get the kids to behave again.  I will bribe them with french fries.

Strawberries, Funicular, and Citta Bassa

Lots of pictures today.  This first one is of Emily eating strawberries.  I wanted to share this one because the strawberries here are very tiny and sweet.  If you've ever bought fresh, California strawberries, then you know that the smaller ones are the sweeter ones.  Well, I learned from a friend that we have actually hybridized (a natural form of modification) the strawberries in the US to make some of the huge strawberries that someone in America decided we liked.  They aren't actually the tastiest or the sweetest and sometimes I find that they have little to no taste to them, especially the super big ones, no matter how red they are.  These strawberries Emily is eating were approximately the same size as the raspberries and some of the biggest blueberries we had in the container.

On a side note, my children love berries and in California would go through about a pound of strawberries a day plus whatever other berries I had around.  It's not that much different here except the grocery store is two bus rides away so we have to ration them a bit longer.

 This is the funicular.  You can kind of see how steep it is.  We were in one car going down and I turned around backwards to catch the other one going up.

 Emily has come to love Leroy the Dinosaur.  I tried to take his picture a few times, but he was busy being slobbered on by the baby.

A few pictures of  Citta Bassa Bergamo.  The building with the green dome is actually a bank (you can see the same pink scooter riding across the road).

This building is actually the bus transit authority building.  There is a twin building across the road that houses a flower shop and a restaurant (I think).  This plaza we are in is a main shopping area in downtown.  It's also right on the route to the airport so its full of restaurants and shops that cater to tourists.

 Cookies!  I bought these from a restaurant here in Citta Alta for lunch.  They have three ingredients.  Hazelnuts, sugar, and egg whites.  I didn't purposely buy gluten free cookies, I simply bought something that looked tasty.  I thought they would be soft, but they are very crispy and terribly addicting.  I really like that they have just three ingredients.  No preservatives or "stuff" in them, just cookies like grandma used to make.  If your grandma was an Italian Nona, that is.

 This was dinner tonight.  I got to use a grill pan (I don't have one at home, but I will now!).  Those are each one chicken breast from normal sized chickens.  I sauted up some garlic and onions in (Italian!) Virgin Olive Oil and then added some little zucchinis (although they had speckled skin so maybe they were something else?) and diced up some fresh tomatoes.  Threw it all together and topped it with fresh basil and some kind of (Italian!) cheese.

I'm still very excited to be in Italy.  I'm going to have to figure out some way to make the kids behave long enough to check out a few restaurants around here.  There is an Artisinal Beer Bar just around the corner, not to mention all the restaurants just here in Citta Alta.  I was reading a tour book that the touristy places tend to charge more and we are definitely living in a touristy place so I may be able to wait on the very nearby places until its not tourist season anymore.

I think we are going to try the gluten free pizza restaurant again soon because Ryan really loves his pizza and I'm not sure he can live off of gluten free pasta with butter and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, or french fries all the time.

Pizza, Pasta, and Bureaucracy

Aaron's Proscuitto i Funghi Pizza (ham and mushroom)

Even though I'm sitting here listening to American music and cooking an "American" meal (meatloaf and cauliflower. I wasn't feeling Italian tonight?) I am enjoying the rest of that fizzy Italian red wine and listening to the bells of Bergamo.  Because I am in Italy!  We haven't been here a week yet so a lot of things are still really new, but also still exciting.  Riding the bus around town is still a novelty but finding a place to eat lunch that doesn't cost 40€ and also has a gluten free option is still difficult.  These things may change in time.

Today we set out early because we had a few errands to run.  We wanted to get our bus passes so that we didn't have to keep buying tickets.  Yesterday when we were on our way back from the grocery store the transit police got on the bus we were on.  Our tickets were only good for 75 min from the time we purchased them so when they inspected, we were 7 min past expiration.  Luckily he took pity on us either because we couldn't speak Italian or because it was too much trouble to write us a ticket, but either way, we learned our lesson.

Pizza with ham, artichokes, capers, olives, mushrooms and anchovies

The second thing we had to do was go by Ryan's new school to get him registered.  He was a bit shy, but we talked to the registration coordinator and hopefully we will be able to get everything handled in time for him to go to school on September 7.  The hardest part is going to get him "certified" as a celiac. They test nearly all the children here and apparently in most of Europe.  When the coordinator asked for his certificate and we told her that they don't do that in the US she was pretty shocked.  The fact that the US doesn't test children for celiac disease at all surprised her as well.  Since we don't have a certificate for him, we are hoping that a letter from the pediatric gastroenterologist will suffice.

Emily's Gluten Free Pasta with meat ragu

The third thing we had to do was get a prepaid card so that Aaron could get paid.  Many Italians do not like dealing with the banks so many get a prepaid card and just have their paychecks loaded on to them.  It has turned out to be pretty difficult as most things have been involving Italy.

Then we ate.  Breakfast was a cappucino and another Brioche which I still forgot to take a picture of because I ate it entirely too fast.  I promise tomorrow, I will take a picture.  This is a very typical breakfast for Italians, usually eaten on the way to work.  That's me.  A typical Italian.

For lunch we ended up going to the same restaurant that we went to yesterday mostly because we knew Ryan would eat the gluten free pasta there with butter and cheese.  Emily had gluten free pasta with meat ragu yesterday and today was pasta with tomato and basil.  Both of them were very tasty.

Ryan's Gluten Free pasta with butter and cheese

Yesterday I had a pizza with ham (proscuitto), artichokes, olives, capers, mushrooms and anchovies.  I discovered I don't like anchovies.  Aaron had a pizza with ham and mushrooms (funghi).  Today I had an amazing salad called a Medeteraneo with tuna in oil, buffalo mozzarella, corn, olives, and tomatoes.  They give you Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil for a dressing which is really quite perfect.  It was one of the best salads I've ever had.  I totally understand why my friend Wendy said that Italy spoiled mozzarella cheese for her.  It's very different over here, much moister and creamier.  Everything tasted really fresh and at the end I used the bread to sop up all the extra dressing.  I may have added a bit more vinegar because it is so delicious.  It's much sweeter than most Balsamics I've had in the states and much less of that vinegar-ry tang to it.  The bread also has a bit of a yellow tint to it because they don't process their flour or bleach it.  So their bread isn't perfectly white, but it is delicious.

Medeteraneo Salad

Then of course it was gelato time.  We went back to the soft serve place but decided we liked the gelato better from an actual gelataria where they scoop it.

Then we came back to the apartment.  Yesterday, Sunday, on our way back from our errands the Citta Alta was totally packed due to the tourist season and there was an event here.  Today was much nicer and we didn't have to fight through throngs of people for our gelato or for a way home.

Questing for Food and Coffee and Fizzy Red Wine

Getting these kids on schedule is tough.  Last night Emily woke up about 2 o'clock and wanted to be held.  So Aaron did what any good dad would do and held her.  So when she was back up at 7 am, it was my turn.  We played with the mirror for a while, but then it was time to go shopping!

Friday we took our first trip to the Supermarket.  Here, when they say super, they mean SUPER.  It has everything!  It is like a Super Target crammed into a regular grocery store size building.  It was a little over whelming shopping for a completely empty kitchen.  We got a few staples and a few things to try, but one of the goals was to get ingredients to make Ryan's banana chocolate chip pancakes.  You would think that wouldn't be difficult because the recipe is relatively simple, flour, sugar, bananas, chocolate chips, etc.  However, the four things I forgot were sugar, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and baking powder.

We had been told that we could get most everything near where we lived so we thought it might be a fun adventure to explore some of the stores in search of these ingredients.  About half way through our search, Aaron commented it was a lot like a WoW (World of Warcraft for those non geeks out there) quest where you have to go talk to the villagers and they send you on to another place and so on until you get all the items that you need.  Only this quest was in Italian.

After a quick look up of how to say "baking soda" (yes, I know, I really needed baking powder but I totally had a brain fart and ended up getting soda instead) which is bicarbonata di sodia for those that wondered, vanilla extract (estratto di vaniglia) and cinnamon (cannella) we wandered into a frutteria and was told that a Pharmacia would have the baking soda and a Latteria would have the cinnamon and vanilla.

Unbeknownst to us, we had wandered into the Latteria the first day we were here in search of water.  There is no sign out front, you just know it is a latteria because it sells milk, cheese, yogurt and other milk products along with just about everything you need to bake.  It also had cookies, cereal, water, sodas, and fresh eggs.

Unfortunately for us, we did not know that was a latteria until Aaron saw the charge on his credit card statement.  After finding that out, I knew I could find the place again this morning.  Sure enough, they had cinnamon and vanilla.  After some difficult translations, the kind woman who owns the place told me that they did not have extract but only vanilla beans.  I guess beggars can't be choosers.  I also picked up some cheese for Ryan's eggs, some cheese for sandwiches, and sugar.  All in all, a successful trip.

On the way to the Pharmacia, Emily and I stopped for a cappuccino.  Tempted by the delicious pastries (called brioche even though they look like croissants) I went ahead and got one because I hadn't eaten yet and I had heard that they were basically made to go with coffee.  The one I chose had some sort of heavenly apple filling that was perfectly sweet and cinnamon-y.  The dough was light and flaky with a few nuts sprinkled on top.  It really did go perfectly with my coffee.  Emily made a few friends there, mostly older women who thought she was just the cutest thing ever.  A few people have asked if she is a boy or a girl even though, to me, she is wearing obviously girl clothes.

We also picked up a couple of freshly made baguettes at the bakery, some roast beef at the butcher, and then finally got our bicarbonata di sodia at thee Pharmacia.  By then it was time for Emily's nap and time to see if we could make some kind of pancakes out of this mess.

The pancakes turned out quite delicious.  The gluten free flour I purchased must have been made of tapioca or rice flour because they were a bit stretchier and gummier than usual.  I had to actually cut up a chocolate bar because I cannot find chocolate chips here. This made for larger than normal chunks of chocolate that kind of oozed out of the pancakes.

Ryan ended up enjoying a few and then when Emily woke up from her nap she had three pancakes for lunch.  Mission Accomplished.

Then, finally I got my wine.  Only, I didn't read the label so I ended up with a very dry, very fizzy red wine.  It is not one I would buy again but its not bad.  The fizzy sort of threw me for a loop.  It was on sale for 3 Euros so I can't complain too much. Plus, you know, its wine.

Home-cooked Meal and Gelato

I have pictures!  First, I would like to share our first home cooked meal in Italy. I managed to only blow out the power once!  Apparently I can only use 2 burners at a time.  I haven't even tried the microwave yet or the oven.  Our landlord just installed a brand new induction stove top in the kitchen so its been interesting cooking on it.  It heats up really fast and evenly and so far has been fantastic to cook on.

So I made some chicken with tomatoes, gluten free pasta and green beans.  All bought fresh from the market that day!  It was about a 6 ingredient meal (without counting salt and pepper) and it came out pretty darn delicious.

Earlier in the day, we went for gelato.  In the afternoon from about 2-5 everyone is walking around the streets with gelato.  So I have officially declared that "Gelato time".  So far we are 2 for 2 for fulfilling the daily gelato requirement.  Emily very much enjoyed hers and may have eaten about half of the cup I had.  I have included pictures because words cannot describe this scene.

We actually found a place that serves frozen yogurt, sorbet, and gelato out of soft serve machines and they have self - serve toppings just like at home!  I tried some little meringue drops that were very interesting and sort of popped in your mouth when we ate them.  I also put coconut, strawberries and almonds on my chocolate gelato and it was perfect.

Ryan got his candy selection, but I talked him into trying my chocolate and I think I have finally converted him because today when we went to get gelato, he ordered a cup of chocolate, no toppings and ate the whole thing.  Gelato, I learned, is made from milk, not cream like American ice cream so it is lower in fat.  However, there is a much lower amount of air in gelato so it is still very creamy.  The other nice thing is that they serve you just a little bit.  It's enough to take care of your sweet tooth or chocolate craving, but not so much that you can't be ready for yummy Italian dinner in a few hours!

We also took the funicular down to Cita Bassa or the lower city.  We had some errands to run and wanted to explore.  Ryan likes the funicular because it is basically a train.  It runs up and down a very steep hill and is very convenient to get from Cita Alta (Upper City) to Cita Bassa.  Bergamo is the only city to have two funiculars, one on the western side of the city and one on the southeastern side.  They are made of two cars so that back when they were first built, they would counter-weigh each other to pull them up and down the hills.  Now its motorized, but still pretty cool.  We also get to take it every day when Ryan goes to school since his school is right at the bottom and we live right at the top!

Once we were down the hill, we took the bus to the downtown area.  Aaron and I had lunch at a hamburger place and it wasn't bad.  They also had a bakery and coffee (of course) and Ryan got to have a chocolate gluten free muffin and potato chips.  This kid lives a hard life.  He did have to share his muffin with Emily though.

Then we took the bus back up to Cita Alta.  I'm really not sure which part Ryan enjoyed more, the bus or the train.  I think he really likes the big windows so he can look out and the fact that neither Aaron nor I have to drive.

Then it was gelato time once again.  It was also raining most of today so we got a bit wet while standing outside eating our ice cream.  Ryan decided he did not like rain that much because it made him wet.  He still managed to finish all his gelato so it couldn't have been that bad.

All in all a good day.  We got to explore the city a bit more running errands and just exploring.  You can tell a lot about the people who live here by looking at the store fronts. Living in an actual metropolitan city is also very different from Atascadero.  I really like the public transportation here and an so glad we did not try to get a car.  Driving is confusing and then add that all the signs are in a foreign language and I would do nothing but get lost.