Category Archives: Uncategorized

M.I.A

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Ciao ragazzi! I know, I know and I feel really bad about being Missing-In-Action. But I have some pretty good excuses 😉. First off, I have had, and still am having issues with the website. It is down intermittently and this makes it hard to make updates. I am still working with my ISP. They are pretty inept.

Then, I got a mean virus that was going around. Not COVID. But that is going around here too. I ran a high fever, 102F or 38.9C. That is higher than most fevers I have had. I had a headache and intestinal upset. I took ibuprofen and checked in with my medico who said it was going around and she had many patients with the same symptoms. After 3 days the fever and headache subsided but the intestinal upset lasted a week. The worst was that, unlike most weekends, we had a lot of plans for this one. I, sadly, missed our entire Otto Cento festa. I had, planned to meet new residents and friends to show them around. Luther had to be my stand-in. But they got me some pretty sunflowers to cheer me up. 🙂. Then, Sunday, we had plans for lunch with our lunch bunch, the gang o six in Montefalco at our favorite restaurant, L’Alchemista. That, too had to be canceled.

Anyway, all that is past and since then we had our annual street fair which is non-stop vendors from the train station past our house. Probably 10 blocks. I watched from our aerie. And once I got over my malady I began to cook again. I had had no appetite during the illness. I grilled a few times outside on the wood fired BBQ. A whole grilled fish one night and I got very adventurous and made a Lebanese dinner. I made home made pitas which cannot be found here. They were good enough for my first try. And with them we had tzatziki and fresh tomatoes with sliced new onions and a kebab of spiced ground beef and pork. It should’ve been lamb but well, that’s not easy to find. I grilled the kebabs and it was a yummy dinner, and different!

I worked a shift at Books for dogs and someone donated some art which I really liked, so I bought two. I love them.

I always grow a pepper plant or two. This year I tried Tabasco. Tiny little heat bombs. I’ve been tossing them into stews etc and they really perk it up. The photo is after I harvested most of the ripe red ones, which were many. My tomato plants are still producing but have slowed down. The Sicilian one gives lots of small tomatoes. The beefsteak gave a lot of big juicy tomatoes but now it has stopped. There are a number of still growing green ones that I hope will mature. Our weather is the terrific autumn weather we always get here. Our fall season is long and perfect.

Last week we attended the annual silent auction that is held by Books for Dogs every year. They get donations all year and save the best ones for the auction. It was combined with a wine tasting. I had not been to one before. They published a catalog so I had picked out a couple things I was interested in and I was successful. I bought a pretty agate and glass vintage necklace, and a contemporary carved stone rhinoceros. It weighs 3 kilos. I have another soapstone collection of Inuit soapstone carvings and this reminded me of them, but much larger.

We have a few things planned for the future. We rescheduled our lunch with the Gang for the 21st. And we will finally get to Calagrana with other friends we haven’t seen in a while. Tomorrow we are trying a restaurant nearby we have not ever been to. We will enjoy this gorgeous fall weather. I hope you do too, wherever you are! Ciao amici!

Otto Cento in La Fratta

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Umbertide, previously known as La Fratta, is gearing up for our big festa— Otto Cento. 28-29-30-31 August. It’s a great festival which reenacts the creation of Italy in 1862 called the Risorgimento. Entertainment, competitions, music, food all in keeping with that era. Stilt walkers, street grinders, dancing, cannons! Garibaldi, the briganti and the ladies of the night! Our town produced an excellent video of the festa. Here is a link. Hopefully it will work for you.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1283586796745728?fs=e&fs=e

Now that I am back home with all my cooking things and spices I have been trying some new recipes. I’m sorry to say I didn’t take photos. One night I made my own tostada bowls out of flour tortillas. In the oven. It was a bit finicky but it came out nice. Brown and crispy. I used them as bowls. I made a mix of tomatoes, thinly sliced onions, avocado and a can of tuna. The sauce was made of lime juice from a whole lime, garlic, spicy peppers, mayonnaise. I tried out our peppers that I grew this year. Tabascos. Wow, they are hot. When I minced and mixed the two I had harvested into the mayo, lime garlic it was perfect. Spicy, but not too spicy. I tossed the other ingredients with this mix. It was really tasty, and pretty too. I wish I had taken photos! I also made ceviche which was nice.

August is winding down. The days are noticeably shorter 😔. Enjoy what is left of summer!

Austria to Italy — wrap up

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We spent the final days taking it easy. We had used up all the food and we went out to eat a couple times. The last Friday we had a very nice lunch in a lakeside restaurant called Jilly Beach. We had a really nice time and had some good food. Beef for a change. It was good.

We left Austria at about one PM Saturday. We had reservations in a hotel just north of Bologna. We wanted to break the trip up since it was a big holiday weekend with lots of anticipated traffic. It took four hours. The only traffic we hit was getting on the Italian toll road just south of the Austrian border. What a mess. We had a very long backup. When we got to the toll plaza they had reconfigured the gates to give more booths to the northbound cars. This made us southbound cars have a real backup. Ours was much longer than the northbound one.

I had tried three different hotels for this overnight, all with their own restaurant. It would be easier to stay and eat in the same place. BUT I was thwarted all three times in that the hotel was open but the restaurants were closed for the holidays. So, we decided we would find a place to eat nearby. The hotel was nice enough. It had air con which was important because it had gone up to 40C on this day (104F).

The restaurant was called Pippi. It was definitely a local basic place, but hey! We were in the Emiglia Romagna which purportedly has the best food in Italy. So they don’t allow bad restaurants. It was very plain, almost cafeteria-like. The people were so friendly. You would have thought they had been expecting us all day! Something told me we weren’t in Austria anymore 😉 We had the seafood antipasto to split and then we each got the fried sardines. Delicious. Picture of the dining room full of locals.


We got up and went down to breakfast. We seem to be the only guests! Maybe because the Trattoria is the big draw here, so no one would come just to stay. We left about 9:30. I happened to be awake to see the sunrise. Pretty.

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We are back home in lovely, friendly and messy Umbertide. Our wonderful house and cat sitter said she had a great and relaxing time. And guess what, we still have tomatoes coming in. A LOT of them. So I am happy. We have settled back in. Grocery shopped, worked in the garden, did laundry. So nice to be home.

My thoughts about our trip. We stayed in Werzer Strandcasino Hotel. It is all apartments. The ground floor ones, of which ours was one, are the biggest. Beautiful landscaping. Lawn going to the lake was lovely. Views were nice. The apartment was austere. Not one piece of art or decor. Kitchen OK with minimal pots and pans. Nice Austrian glassware. Austria is known for its crystal. The place was all families, which is not my preferred thing. The guests were all Austrian or German. Not warm people as a whole. We saw a few cars from the Netherlands. Only met one group of Americans in a restaurant. One family lived in Barcelona, the other lived in Portugal. Unusual.

Big issue was parking. The lot had the narrowest places with a wall opposite making it hard to maneuver into the space. The last week we were unable to use our spot because the new vehicle in the spot next to us was so big and he had parked barely within the lines but way over on one side making it possible for us to park but not possible for the driver to exit. We managed to squeeze into the car and drive out. But it is easier to get into that low car than to exit. So we parked the last few days in the area in front of reception, with permission.

After all is said and done, I wouldn’t do a trip as long as this again. We did have fun but I missed friendly people and good food, and, of course, my home. We did have great wines, all Austrian. They make wonderful wines un Austria.

The party’s over…it’s time to call it a month

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We are winding down our vacation. We will leave here Saturday and drive south to just north of Bologna to break the trip in two, mainly because I erred in my planning and am traveling on about the busiest travel days in Italy. Feragosto. The main holiday in a month that is one big holiday here. So I figured I couldn’t avoid the traffic, but I could make each day trip shorter. We shall see if that works!

Sturgeon moon

We took a trip around the lake to a fancy restaurant that was not worth the cost in my opinion. I’m not going to inundate you with food pictures but I’ll include a few. There are captions.

The view was nice of the lake.
Loved these little flamingo tables to hold your purse
My first course – goose liver pate.
Second course
Loved the dessert box. They bring it closed and then open up all the compartments. They were yummy but we were stuffed

Here, we pretty much hang in our town of Pörtschach. The weather is hot, hazy and muggy. I can no longer see the Alps 😕 We also visited the next town towards the Italian border, Villach. And then we picked a typical Austrian place for lunch on the way back called Gasthaus Fruhmann. That was fun. I had my first and last Schnitzel of this trip there. Yummy. Tonight we visit a typical Austrian place here in town that we’ve been to before. We have eaten at most places here in town. These pictures are from Gasthaus Fruhmann.

I have been cooking in the apartment maybe half the time. It has been eye opening. The ingredients are just not up to the standards I’m used to. But also, I don’t have much to work with here. I bought thyme and oregano. That’s the extent of my herbs. I brought good Umbrian olive oil and pepperoncino, spicy peppers I cannot live without those. I always bring knives. The pots and pans are minimal. It is pleasant to eat on our terrace, because it gets very quiet at night, and by that, at six PM everybody disappears. There are a lot of families and that means a lot of children. Daytime is noisy with them.

I will do a recap of my feelings and observations about this trip once I’m finally back home in my beloved Umbertide.

Ciao! Or tschüss! as they say here.

Look what I found!

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For those of you who know me you won’t be surprised at my excitement. I found sweet corn! And in Austria of all places. I freely admit I am a corn snob and connoisseur. I adore sweet corn and I miss it a lot, living in Italy. They grow a lot of corn for animal feed and to make polenta, It is the same in most of Europe. They only grow it as animal food. But not for humans to eat. When I have seen any it has been picked for so long all its sweet juices have turned to starch. I don’t normally even try it if I do see it anymore.

One year I borrowed a friends land to try to grow my own. I had brought seeds from the US, three different kinds. I was moderately successful. Here is the culmination of my quest that year in my post called Corn. That same year I also tried “container corn” on our terrace. Sadly that was not so successful. Post on the Terrace Corn.

Anyway, yesterday we made the trip to the farmers market and there was corn! I took a chance and bought three ears. As everything in this country, it was the neatest, tidiest corn I have ever seen. Not a tassel in sight. Here are pictures.

My report is positive. It was very fresh, sweet and juicy. Maybe not “quite” up to US standards, but close enough and we devoured it with our meal las night
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Starting to head into the homestretch of this, too long, stay in Austria. I miss my home and my messy Italy. Next week we head back.

Weekend in the Bergenland

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Last week in Portschach was pretty quiet. There were several days of rain. I did take some walks along the promenade and took some pictures of the interesting architecture. We ate out a couple times.

On Friday we were off on another excursion. This time our destination was the Bergenland in Styria. This is a wine region. We drove along the very good roads that are in Austria. We haven’t found a bad road yet, not even the small ones. The first part of the trip after leaving Klagenfurt is some of the prettiest scenery I have ever seen. The alps are just to the south, then it becomes rolling hills, farms and dense forests. A very, very lot of forests with straight pines towering into the sky. You can see nothing within after the first fifty feet or so they are so dense. I loved driving through that part.

About 12:30, we decided to find lunch. I put in Google maps “restaurants” and there were many in towns off of the Autobahn. I randomly picked one which got a score of 4.8 and figured it would be a nice Gasthaus. We got off the highway and drove down pretty roads with great views across a large valley. The GPS took us to a village called Ligist. It was the quintessential Austrian village and the Restaurant Wörgötter was right on the main square.

There was a covered porch and we found a table outside. The locals looked very curious. The waitress was a beautiful young girl, slim with porcelain skin. We got some wine and the menus. Luckily I still remember a lot of my German and can read menus in German without any trouble. I decided to get more adventurous and I ordered two things I wasn’t familiar with. The appetizer is hard to describe but it had beets and kohlrabi as main ingredients. It was delicious. Then I ordered a braised veal shoulder dish which also was very good. Luther got the salmon sashimi and the cod. The plates were beautifully presented. It was not your typical Gasthaus! Sehr gut. I didn’t realize at the time it was actually a Michelin one star restaurant! 😳

While in the restaurant a couple came in. I couldn’t help marvelling at her outfit. It was a very short, flouncy dress and red knee socks and shoes. Austrian fashion I guess.

We drove onward past Graz and the countryside got uglier. Eventually as we entered Styria and drove further it began to get prettier but remained very flat. When we got near our apartment we stopped at a vinotek and bought some wine and sat outside with a couple glasses in the pretty, well manicured lawn area with many small buildings alongside it. Two had thatched roofs which I never saw here before.

We had read about a lodging option in the wine region with many of the old winery buildings being converted into cottages you can rent. They are called Kellerstöckl. Ours is the Kellerstöckl Andrea and Walter Mittl. Pretty little place. Tiny inside with a kitchen living dining area and a small bedroom and bath. Nicest part is the covered porch with grape vines, laden with grapes all over it. Nice big table and a view of the vinery grapes.

Saturday morning around 10:45 we planned to go and visit some wineries and the have lunch. Luther did some research and found 4 places he liked and off we went. It was cool and overcast. None of the places were more than 15 kilometers so not far. The roads were good. Some were very narrow. For the most part the land was flat except for the best wine area and there was a large hill on which were planted many vines. Here are pictures of some roads and also views from that hilltop.

We visited all four of Luther’s picks and, although TripAdvsor said they were open…they were not. So, by this time it was lunchtime and since our choice for lunch was ALSO closed I got on google maps and found a few in a town 17 kilometers away. The town was Grosspetersdorf. It had two choices. We decided on the Gasthaus. It was good enough. We sat outside and each had fish.

We stopped at a grocery store and bought some meat for our picnic this evening, and then we went to a winery we had visited that morning which showed they were open after two. It was a nice place. Luther bought nine bottles. We will take them back to Portschach to enjoy. We may be able to squeeze in some bottles when we return to Umbertide but the Porsche is pretty packed so can’t bring many.

Sunday. Another overcast day. We had a lazy morning and Luther researched places to eat. He found Restaurate Ratschen. It is an interesting enterprise with spa and sauna and 24 small cabins 24 square meters each arranged in a circle around a common area where they serve breakfast. I would have stayed there had I ever heard of it. Anyway, the restaurant was lovely. it was situated up on a hill with great views. Lots of glass ad wood.

The people were very nice. Lots of young people and an apprentice who was very young and eager to learn and the owner/manager was super kind to him and seemed happy to have him for 3 months. Our meal was very nice and the Austrian wines were spectacular. I had a appetizer of watermelon with cheese. it tasted more like tomato than watermelon and the cheese was imperceptible. It was still good if not as expected. Luther had beef tartar. We both had trout for an entree.

We decided to forgo dessert and have an after lunch drink. I got a sweet local wine which was much like port which I really liked – it was very creamy. Luther got Schnapps.

Tomorrow we return to Portschach. We will leave early-ish and drive straight through. It was a nice visit but I doubt I will return. It is so quiet here.

Random Observations
* Very little is old here except some of the farmsteads. Most of the cities were bombed in the war so they are rebuilt. Things were damaged in Italy, but not like here.
* The towns, except for the biggest ones, have no services at all. No stores or shops or restaurants. They are only residential towns with homes shuttered from the street so it is all very stark and empty. Uninviting.
* After Italy, this place is irritatingly tidy. 😁 Will it be hard to go back to messy, untidy Italy…nah!
* There are more bells in Austria than Italy.
* Both apartments have an abundant selection of egg cups of all things!
* Maybe not so surprising is that the glassware in both apartments is high quality crystal. Austria is known for its crystal. I have an entire set I bought years ago in Vienna. It was a gift from my Mom and Dad.

Weekend trip to Graz Austria

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Graz is only two hours from Portschach and we had never been. So we decided to take a weekend trip there. It is the second largest city in Austria. We stayed in the Schlossberghotel. Just at the north end of the old town. The building dates from the 1500s and was originally an artisan wood workshop for the aristocracy. Now a boutique hotel known as the art hotel. The owner has commissioned over 100 works of art specifically for places in the hotel. Our room has several. Here are a couple hotel pics.

Gift on arrival
I got a suite. it is the biggest room we ever had. But not expensive.

After we arrived we checked in and went for a walk. We stopped for a glass of wine in a plaza near us but it was also home to the amazing staircase up the Schlossberg to the clock tower and where the castle used to be. There is a lift and a funicular if you don’t want to do the stairs.

We decided on a place for dinner. Schmidhofer im Palais. We had a nice time. We enjoyed the ambiance. Not fancy. Good people watching. I had fried burrata with tomatoes and watermelon and branzino.

Schnaps

We woke to pouring rain. it was predicted. But it was a deluge. We had breakfast and stayed in for a while. We finally donned our raincoats and went down the street to the Graz museum. Mostly history of Graz but a special exposition had some art too. It was interesting. Graz was bombed during the war by the Americans. 30% of the city was destroyed. I delved into it a bit and found that Austria is a neutral nation. The Russians liberated them and in order for them to remain independent they agreed to that. They are not members of NATO.

Rainy morning

After the museum it had cleared so we went for a walk to check out the Murinsel. Built in 2003 in conjunction with the European Capital of Culture celebrations. They have an outdoor arena where they screen movies.

Then we walked into the altstadt where we explored a shopping street and visited the main square. There were some exquisitely decorated and painted buildings. The sun had come out and so had the people.

Door to an old bakery
Decorated buildings

Time for lunch! Luther chose Steirisches Wirtshaus, a very traditional restaurant. There was a great outside garten but it was very wet so we stayed in the outside, undercover area. I had forelle, which is trout served whole. One of my favourites. So good.

This concludes my trip report on our short trip to Graz. I really liked the city. Tomorrow we head back to Portschach. Our home away from home. Our house sitter sent us pictures of what we are missing. I miei pomodori.

Back to Portschach tomorrow. Ciao for now!

The excellent adventure begins…

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Well, here we go! We have embarked on our excellent adventure. We left pretty early on Friday and the google person said it would be a 6.5 hour drive. It ended up being more than that because of what looked like the removal of a burned out truck. It sure slowed us down. This was in Bologna. The traffic there is always bad. Then we continued north, passing Ferrara (one of my favourite towns) and Padua. Then Venice and finally Udine. The alps were now visible ahead, the traffic sparse and the air clean. ahhhh.

We checked into the Werzer Strand Casino. It is apartments that are part of a hotel. Despite the name it is not a Casino. We have a one bedroom apartment with a nice terrace right on the lawn that slopes down to the lake.

There was a mishap in the underground garage. Luther scraped the Porsche against an Audi parked in the spot next to us. He met the owner and they have worked out an agreement without getting the police involved. I felt sorry for the German guy who was just trying to enjoy his Urlaub in Austria. In fact he lives in Aschaffenburg very close to where we once lived. Cars can be repaired so no real harm done.

We had stopped for groceries before we checked in so I got us all unpacked and by then it was near dinner time. So we went to the closest place which abutted the property we were on. It was a beach restaurant called Werzer’s Boothaus Café. It was right on the lake next to the boat landing. We sat outside and watched the world go by. A family came up to the dock in a beautiful solid wood oversized rowboat with electric motor. it had a nice table aboard.

Here are views of the lake. It is just north of the the Alps so some mountain views too.

I can’t say the dinner was amazing. I did like my appetizer. It was sliced beets with feta and grilled octopus. A nice combination.

Since Austria is still very old fashioned and nothing will be open on Sunday we went looking for a wine store and a farmers market on Saturday morning. We were successful on both fronts. The wine store was amazing! It had so many Austrian wines which are among my favourite wines. We bought a lot. They also had more spices than I have ever seen. Maybe more than Penzeys!

Then we navigated over to the farmers market which turned out to be very nice. Not huge but nicely varied. There were two vegetable stands, a couple selling fresh and cured meats, at least 3 cheese stands and a wine stand. I bought some pork chops for dinner and we bought cheeses and meats for our lunch. It is open on Saturday and Wednesday mornings. Excellent find.

It was a laid back day. We enjoyed the nice weather and watching all the activity on the lake from our terrace. I cooked the pork chops which were good. We ate them with fresh tomatoes which are quite nice and new potatoes. Ciao from Österreich. Until next time…

Upcoming trip

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We have been madly getting ready to go for a whole month to an apartment we rented in Austria. When I made these reservations last fall it seemed like a good idea to plan a trip to the mountains to beat the heat. The memories of the summer heat wave were fresh. I reasoned we could close up the apartment here and bring the cats along. The drive is about 6.5 hours.

Now that the time has actually arrived I had second thoughts about bringing the cats on such a long trip. I would have been bringing them for me and not thinking about them and the stress it would bring them. So in the end I engaged a cat/house sitter. She is an American who lives in Rotterdam. She has three cats of her own. I know I will miss my boys terribly and I hope they will be healthy during our trip. They turn 16 in August so I know they won’t be with us all that much longer.

We will stay in Wörtersee. It is a pretty lake surrounded by mountains. We will do some short trips to other spots in Austria while there. Two nights in Graz and 3 nights in the Bergenland which is a big wine producing area. We will stay in one of the old buildings the winemakers used while working. They have been repurposed as rooms. We also will do a side overnight into Slovenia. Anyway, the time will pass and I am hoping I don’t get too homesick. I am always happiest in my home.

Our friend Vera came last week and brought me some globe zucchini and some cucumbers. She told me to stuff the zucchini with ground beef and rice. So I took her advice and did just that but I added some tomato paste, garlic, onion and thyme. Plus a good amount of grated pecorino. I parboiled the zucchini and sautéed the rest. Stuffed and baked them. Luckily we have had about a week of cooler, nicer weather which allows for some baking. Here is our dinner.

I also bought a new MacBook Air so I could bring it along and post about our trip while gone. I am doing my first post using the new Mac right now! Stay tuned for some posts from our Austrian retreat. Ciao!

Luther’s birthday

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We are still dealing with heat but we did have some people over lately. Our friend Karen from Toronto came for lunch Wednesday. It was great to see her, and then Thursday our newest friends Don and Sarah came for aperitivo. The terrace has a decent breeze most of the time.

Saturday was a busy day. I had books for dogs at eleven. But I needed to go earlier to get tomatoes and also to take pictures of the biggest field of sunflowers (girasole) I have ever seen. But even more important was to leave in time to get home and change clothes because I was taking Luther out for a birthday lunch.

Not the best pictures but you get the idea. It was very hot today. It is high summer in Umbria.

I drove to a place to park but had a ways to walk. Then the market had been moved out of the piazza because of a basketball event with a court set up there. So I walked to find the vendors. I did finally find them and bought a few tomatoes and then headed back up into Centro. I stopped into Bar Mary for a bottle of water and then sat out at the tables until my shift. But by this time I was sweating copiously. 😳 I worked my shift and I left a bit early to go home and try to make myself presentable for a fancy lunch.

When I got back to the car the car thermometer said it was 40C. That’s about 105F. When I got home and walked up the 61 steps to our apartment (did I mention our elevator died?) I was dripping. I got in a cold shower. That helped some. I put on my new linen dress and got all ready but my hair was still very wet, from sweat. Is this TMI? If it is, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to paint a picture of living in this heat. Anyway. Off we went to our Birthday celebration pranzo.

Luther had always wanted to go to Reschio. It is the enclave of the rich and famous in this part of Umbria. They say the rooms are €1,500 a night. It is hard to describe. It has evolved over the years we have been here. The first things they did was to sell lots, build houses and restore all the old out buildings and dependencies. Some of these are rented out to families for vacations. They constructed a huge barn and arena and outside horse rink for their equestrian center. They began renovations on the castle and then opened it as a hotel. There is a LOT of money invested in this place. I don’t know who is doing all that investment. A lot of movie stars come and stay here. And many other notable people. It is where Meryl Streep stayed for her birthday party a few years ago.

There are two restaurants. One, in the castle, called Ristorante al Castello, the other, more casual, near the equestrian center called Ristorante alle Scuderie. Only this last one is open for lunch. Here are pictures from their terrace where we dined, and also of the food we had.

Overall we liked it quite a lot for a splurge. The food was good, not great. There were many families there having lunch. The wait staff was very nice. The pacing of the dishes was too fast for me. A little time between the first and second courses would have been better. We had some of the Reschio wines and their own olive oil. Both of these were super. I am glad Luther enjoyed his Birthday.

Here is Rocky, trying to keep cool. He knows how to do it. I also harvested my first big tomato from my plants. I’m glad I got to do this before we left for our summer vacation. My house and cat sitter will be the beneficiary of many others. I do hope there are some left when we come back home in August.

I call him Moby Pomodoro. He got more ripe and I cut him from the vine today. We will have him for dinner. Stare fresche! 🥵