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

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Visiting Shirley Plantation on the James River (Hampton Roads Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Shirley Plantation on the James River (Hampton Roads Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My mother came to visit Florence and me right before our family moved to Monterey County (California).

I drove out to Charles City, which is the main town for visiting James River Plantations.  My mother took us out to lunch at the Berkeley Plantation, and then we were off down the road to the Shirley Plantation.

Shirley Plantation is the 18^th century structure and had a 300-year-old tree in the front yard, which Florence played on while we visited for the tour to begin.

The tour participants interested me more than the house.

A German family asked, “When do you plan to hold your next furniture sale?” they asked.

Three African-American ladies asked, “How many slaves were there?  Are the slave ledgers kept with the family books?”

“The slave ledgers are kept in Williamsburg,” our guide answered.

They might be digitized today for easy access and protection of the original ledger, which is probably written on fragile paper. 

I have not seen slave ledgers for plantations, but slaves were treated as merchandise and examined for sale at slave ports as well for people locating African ancestors.

I liked reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon in high school and know that it is important to have some roots.  Alex  Haley's book and television series Roots was very good, too, I thought.  Spoiler alert - I did not like Beloved by Morrison, because if you kill your kids, your culture will die.

I am a 15th generation American.  My Jamestown relative did not survive.  However, Isaac Penington did survive "with issue."  He was the founder of the Society of Friends "Church" or Quaker Church. His son settled in Pennsylvania and various branches of the family settled the Appalachian states. 

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

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Visiting the Hampton Institute in Virginia with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Hampton Institute in Virginia by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I discovered the Hampton Institute at the end of our stay in Virginia and could not believe that I almost missed visiting such an excellent museum.

The Hampton Institute was set up in 1868 to educate African-Americans and Native-Americans.  The school’s most famous graduate was Booker T. Washington.

The Museum houses masterworks such as African-American artist Henry Ossawa’s The Banjo Lesson painted in 1895.  The West African art collection has a full regalia medicine man’s outfit and armchairs in it.

While we were there, the museum was holding a special exhibition about the Harlem Renaissance painters William Johnson and Malvin Johnson.

I was surprised that we were the only visitors at the museum.  It was a gem.

Lunch at the air-conditioned Pizza Hut afterwards - mushroom-cheese pizza with a large salad.  I still eat this combination and am a well-preserved, middle-aged woman.

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

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Visiting the Air and Space Museum in Hampton (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Air and Space Museum in Hampton (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Laurent did not have to work on his birthday and wanted to visit a museum.  We headed out to the Air and Space Museum in Hampton for a day at the Museum and a light lunch afterwards.

There were several kinds of exhibits there with hi-tech and bio-tech displays among the exhibits.  We all liked the exhibit showing how raptor-vultures, falcons, and owls fly.

Florence and I listened to a neat computer program that showed the different kinds of owls and listened to the different hooting sounds they made.

One of the exhibits showed a naval airman with his yellow jacket, orange pointers, and gray ear protection on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

“That’s the same stuff I wear on the ship,” Laurent told Florence, who became immediately interested.

We all liked the Apollo 12 Space Module.  I remembered what one astronaut said about this Module, “I am entrusting my life to an object made by the lowest bidder.”

Another exhibit I liked was about the African-American Tuskegee fliers in World War II.  They were the first “black” fighter pilots.  Mayor Coleman Young of Detroit was one of them.  (I grew up in Detroit, so I shared with Florence why that exhibit was very important.)

After the museum, we went to Pizza Hut and loved the air-conditioning.

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

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Ruth Paget's Honeymoon in Italy: Arrival in Florence, Italy

Savvy Mom Ruth Paget’s Honeymoon in Italy: Arrival in Florence, Italy by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I was happy to sit on a train to Paris (France) the next day and rest after my wedding outside Tours to Laurent.  The smile muscles in my face hurt from all the photographs.

I was not a savvy mom on my honeymoon, but I wanted to have a “cultured lifestyle” to go with my education at the University of Chicago, so I could raise my children well and contribute to my neighborhood as a mom.  

Laurent and I saved money for a 6-week honeymoon vacation in Italy; the Languedoc region in France; and Barcelona, Spain.

I could hardly wait to get to Florence, so we could start our honeymoon.  I had taken all the classes necessary in college to be an art history major in college, but chose to be a Far Eastern Languages and Civilizations major, because it would marry well with an MBA.

At the moment, though, I felt thoroughly prepared to serve as the tour guide for us throughout Italy.  I watched the Alpine villas roll by our windows on the way to Florence.  Pretty soon, we were in tunnels speeding towards Florence.

The train arrived at Santa Maria Novella Station.  I immediately began gawking at the alternating green and white marble stripes on Santa Maria Novella and asked Laurent, “Isn’t that amazing?!!”

I was excited to see a church that I had studied in an art history class when I was looking at Santa Maria Novella.

“We’ll have plenty of time for tourism after we get to the hotel,” Laurent said unromantically.

The early morning sun was already beating down on us, and pretty soon we were drenched in sweat in the July heat.

I began to agree with Laurent that there was time to sightsee when I would not be walking through town with a backpack.

Laurent expertly guided us through octagonal-piazzas and diagonal streets to our hotel in a Florentine fortified apartment with a tower.

I loved the ochre-colored buildings that had floral paintings on them around us as well as the sturdy stone towers that kept marauders out in less peaceful times.

Whole families occupied entire buildings that were spacious apartments now.  Our room opened out to a private terrace with potted plants on it.

After getting our bags situated, we walked to the university district for dinner.  The Florentines wore shirts that had creases in the sleeves from ironing I noticed.

The women all seemed to have pedicures with red toenail polish, which their sandals set off to advantage.  I even saw one pair of sandals that had turquoise inlaid in the thong part.

“Italian women have the prettiest feet,” I remarked to myself.  I though they were wonderfully thin, too.  I thought all Italian women were going to be plump, pasta eaters.

We were looking for restaurants where we could have a real Italian meal and settled on a trattoria with lots of Italian men inside eating big lunches.

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

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