Eating a Florentine Lunch in Italy with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Eating a Florentine Lunch with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

Standing in front of the Trattoria da Giorgio, we saw that there were many Italians inside.  For 10,000 lira we were going to have a great meal.

For our first course, Laurent and I both had fettucine with tomato sauce.  I liked how the waiter corrected our Italian pronunciation and told us that Italian was not Spanish.

I wanted Italian to roll off my tongue and vowed to learn it one day after I got done learning French and Spanish.

I loved the flavor of oregano in this dish made with a sauce of chopped onion, green peppers, garlic, tomatoes, and red wine.

Laurent ate an equally appetizing veal scallopine.  The coating of breadcrumbs and cheese on the veal made me think it would be a little heavy in the heat, though.

Both meals came with access to a communal bottle of red wine and mineral water.  We did not have to pour wine for ourselves.  One of our tablemates did the honors of pouring the wine.

He asked Laurent where he was from in Italian.  Laurent responded in French, which delighted our tablemate.  He told Laurent in French that he had worked in the vineyards of Burgundy at one time.

They chattered away while I ate.  My French was still not good enough for chattering.

My shirt stuck to my back on the way to the hotel.  I knew Italy would be hot in July.  However, I had no idea it would be so humid in Florence.  The lobby of our building was cool, but we could not take our siesta there unfortunately.

I asked Laurent why we could not go sightseeing.  He said the tourist spots close for the siesta as well.

Our room felt like an oven that had just been opened when we walked inside it.  I left the terrace door shutter slats open thinking that cool, fresh air would blow into the room.

The air coming through the room was hotter than the air in the room, so I closed the shutter slats and the door to the terrace.

Despite the heat, I was sleepy from eating.  As we lay down to sleep, we started to get dive-bombed by mosquitoes.  I made a few futile swats at them, but I was drooping with fatigue.

My first experience with living without air-conditioning in extreme heat was making me limp as a noodle.

Three hours later my cool skin made me wake up.  The room was still warm, but not as hot as before. I immediately began scratching my arms, which had been the afternoon feast for a pet mosquito.

Laurent was still sleeping, but my moving around the room woke him up.

We ventured outside to do some grocery shopping.  We wanted to economize on food, which meant we were going to eat like the locals.  We bought mineral water, bread with raisins, pecorino and Swiss cheese, and yogurt.

I insisted that we eat the yogurt for dinner, since it would spoil in the heat.  We planned an itinerary for the next day and then would walk through the cool, humid air that felt like a storm was coming to look at Santa Croce Church and walk to the Ponte Vecchio and the Palazzo Pitti Gardens.

I dropped into bed, looking forward to our next day of touring.  I hoped to visit the Florentine Academy, which houses the original David statue by Michelangelo.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie