Vino in Lucca, Tuscany

We have just been to Lucca, a lovely city in Northern Tuscany, surrounded by Renaissance-era city walls. It is only appx. 30 minutes by train from Montecatini Term where we are currently staying and this is also the place where you change a train if you want to go to Pisa to see the famous leaning tower or to visit seaside town of Viareggio. Lucca is also the birthplace of composer, Giacomo Puccini famous for La Boheme and Madama Butterfly.

Lucca is a lovely small town yet there are always somewhere we could go and 'look at' in Lucca, ha ha ha.

We went to the Cathedral of St Martin in Piazza S. Martino, just inside the city wall. There is Labyrinth, the maze embedded in the right pier of the portico, dating back to the 12th century.

Every time we came to Lucca, we just had a quick look at the Labyrinth but never actually went inside. This time we did go inside ... it was really lovely to see beautiful artwork on the ceiling.

As we were leaving Piazza S Martino to head toward the centre of the city, we found a wine bar which we have never noticed before. Enoteca Calasto (http://www.lucca-wine-treasures.com/winebar.php) is in the small piazza, Piazza S. Giovanni, promoting and serving local wines from Lucca region. 

We tried a glass of red wine, Libente Toscana, which was lovely, that came with some olives, small peppers stuffed with tuna and some crisps. We really enjoyed all these in a very relaxed atmosphere.

By the time we finished our glasses, the weather had improved with the sun coming out. We then decided to move toward the centre of the town to look for a restaurant for lunch.

We also notice that the Calasto has some wine tasting menu so we shall come back to Lucca another time to try that.

That's all forks!

Eating Again - Dinner at Hotel Torretta in Montecatini Terme, Tuscany

I can't help reporting what we have been eating at our hotel. The food here is so good that unusually miserable weather in early summer does not bother us much - as long as we have excellent food and wine, everything else is secondary....

To be honest, the weather has not been too terrible - ok, it is not warm enough to sunbath but we are not here for that anyway. We are staying at a lovely hotel, eating a lovely food and I now have Benneton's great rain jacket and cardigan - shelter, food and clothes - Maslow's hierarchy of basic needs is now satisfied that I have nothing to complain.

We had wonderful lunch earlier - perfect risotto and panna cotta, but before you know it's time for dinner. Feels like we are constantly eating - and in a sense, yes we are!

The dinner started with a bowl of minestrone soup - it is lovely with lots of sprinkles of parmesan cheese and black peppers.  I really love this soup but I had to forgo this so that I can eat the next two courses of my favourites. So this is the photo of what my husband had and I stole a few soup spoonfuls for quick tastes to remind me how great the soup is.

Next is spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce - just a simple dish but I just love the way the chef at the hotel makes - this is really delicious, and I am not kidding!  Tomato sauce is so sweet but not too sharp, hint of basil but not over-powering and of course, the spaghetti is perfect al dante.  I really need to try to make tomato sauce like this when I go home.

The Secondi is swordfish steak with herb sauce. This is another of my favourite to eat at this hotel for dinner. I don't eat swordfish back home at all but I really like it here.

After the main course, the dessert trolly comes out! Today's special is Sponge case with candied fruits, cream and ice cream (the pink one on the right), which is what my husband had while I had coffee ice cream with biscuit and hot chocolate sauce (the one in the front). The one in the left is baked apple, I think...

Sponge cake with cream and ice cream with candied fruits. This is a bit like Sicilian cassata minus marzipan and green colouring...?

Coffee flavoured ice cream with home made biscuit with warm chocolate sauce .... Mmmmmm

We then retired to the lounge area and asked Olaf (I hope I have spelt his name right...?) in my broken Italian for cafe macchiato (for my husband) and tea with milk.

You see, it is very difficult not to eat in Italy as food is so good and especially in this hotel the food is REALLY good. Can't wait what is for dinner tomorrow .... can you?

That's all forks!

Perfect Risotto at Hotel Torretta

Weather in Northern Tuscany has not been great as we had anticipated - it is overcast most of the time with occasional sunshine but not hot enough for sun-bathing, with occasional rain here and there with wind. As I only brought summer clothes with me and a black cardigan to shield myself from cold wind, I could not venture out too far other than going for a short walk through the park.

On our first day in Montecatini Term and being on Sunday with cold wind, we thought there may not be much restaurants opened in the town and that we decided to have lunch at our hotel.

The lunch was a set menu that began with assorted salad in buffet style so you just pile up whatever you fancy - I tried olive marinated onions and fennel which were really wonderful, especially I really liked the onions.

The primo was risotto with prawns, asparagus and cherry tomatoes.  I have never had such a delightful and perfect risotto - rice was soooo creamy yet with bites and never stodgy or too thick. You can also taste every key ingredients - asparagus, prawns and cheery tomatoes. And it looks so lovely to look at. The weather may not be that great outside but it sure lifted up our sprits!

The Secondi was sole with cheese & vegetable flan and boiled potatoes.  It was simple and light.

The dessert was panna cotta with strawberry sauce. I am used to eating supermarket panna cotta with more genetin-like texture, I have forgotten how creamy, silky-smooth the real home-made one is! This was really delicious, with pretty colour.

We then decided to have coffees - I know Italians don't have cappuccino for mid-day but we don't care, we asked for it to finish our meals. Cappuccino came with extra layers (?) of frothy creams to make us smile.

That's all forks for the lunch we had the other day.

P.S - The next day, my husband had to buy me Benetton's rain jacket as I was feeling so cold and pathetic. Luckily, for any consolation, it was 30% off due to end of season sale and now I can go out in the rain or wind!  I do like the style and functionality of it so I can definitely wear it back home.
I had never imagined we ended up having to buy a jacket in early summer in Italy!!!

Drunken Spaghetti in Florence

By the title of this blog, you are wondering what I am talking about...

We are in Northern Tuscany for a holiday. Before we came here I bought a book called The Food Lover's Guide to Florence by Emily Wise Miller. I diligently marked all the pages that feature restaurants I wish to try in this book with post-it indexes, colour coding purple for 'must try' and green for 'good to try'.

Osteria de' Benci (http://www.osteriadeibenci.it/index_en.htm) on Via dei Benci 13r, near Piazza Santa Croce, walking toward Ponte alle Grazie is the restaurant with my purple index 'must try' place.

We went to look for this restaurant for the whole purpose of trying out their signature dish, the spaghetti dell'ubriacone or drunken spaghetti, boiled in wine so that it turns a bright burgundy and then tossed with garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes and parsley.  You can taste the red wine and hint of garlic ... it was tasty but a touch salty for me however we both enjoyed this dish, and it was worth a visit. Definitely blog-worthy, ha ha ha.

Drunken Spaghetti - tasty but very interesting!

I was checking for the recipe online and found it by someone who has actually eaten there so please visit: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/04/seriously-italian-spaghetti-all-ubriaco-recipe.html if you are interested to make one yourself.

When we got to the table, they brought us a basket of nice bread, sprinkled with rock salt. There is a big bottle of olive oil on the table. We pour this into a dish and dipped the bread into it whilst waiting for bruschetta that my husband ordered for a starter.  The bruschetta was lovely, with lots of sweet and flavoursome tomatoes.

After the bruschetta, we both had the drunken spaghetti, followed by cafe macchiato in glasses.

Anyway, if you are interested to try this restaurant, here is their business card. It is not a big restaurant but there are some tables outside too. As it is a little bit off the main tourist area, we did not have any problem to get a table right away without a booking despite it is not too far to walk from Uffizi Gallery. That said it was Monday after all so that might have helped.

We did not have any dessert as we had another place with 'green' index to go to for gelato.  Emily Wise Miller's book also informed me of Caffe' dell Carrozze, the gelateria near Ponte Vecchio in piazza del peace 3-5 and their excellent pistachio gelato.

Considering it is meant to be the best gelateria in this area, the place is rather unassuing looking, without much elaborate displays of heaps of ice cream in different varieties that you see at other places. Perhaps they don't need such elaboration as people know where to go for excellent gelato.
I have thing about pistachio ice cream so I tried theirs and it was indeed delicious, full of nutty pistachio flavour!!

I was now happy, full of lovely food in my stomach and some shopping bags in my hand. It was a lovely day out to Florence.

That's all forks!

Food Food Food Love Food in Northern Tuscany!

Guess where we are right now! We are in Montecatini Term, somewhere between Lucca and Florence in Northern Tuscany. We are staying Hotel Torretta (http://www.hoteltorretta.it/en_benvenuti.html) and this is our 'home' for the next 7 days. We love this hotel - the room is nice and spacious, the staff are all very attentive and friendly AND the food is just amazing - so much so this is our 5th year to come back to this hotel. Every time we come back, we see same familiar faces, same team of staff providing excellent customer service with warm welcome, making us feel like a home.

We arrived yesterday afternoon, just having missed the stormy weather with temperature being plummeted down to 8 degree for early summer! The weather was just like Britain, but hey, at least we could survive with vino and food as we are in Italy, what else do we need ?!
I was so expected to see usual wonderful weather that I totally forgot to bring a jacket with me. I only packed summer clothes, silly me! And I was hungry. Our flight was delayed about an hour due to strong wind around Pisa Airport. This meant that we would not get to the hotel till 3pm in the afternoon and we had been up since 5am. Despite my hunger, I refused to purchase any inflight snacky meals Ryanair was trying to entice us to buy, telling myself 'Just wait till we get to Italy and we can eat real food!!'

We missed the lunch menu at the hotel but the owner of the hotel arranged something light for us to eat for late lunch when we got there.

We had Zuppa di Farro alla Lucchese (Lucchese Spelt & Bean Soup) to start with. This is a soup from Lucca in Northern Tuscany. This was just what we needed as we were feeling chilly and so delicious. We sprinkled some parmesan and black pepper to taste.

Tuscan Bean Soup with Chard.

We then had selections of Italian Cheese with home made fig jam and home made banana bread, with side salad. I have never had such a delicious fig jam before and it actually goes really well with cheese. The home made banana bread was also delicious, lovely and moist with perfect texture and surprisingly also go so well with cheese and fig jam!

So what are those cheeses? From the left to the right, the light yellow coloured cheese is Pecorino which is made from ewe's milk. According to wikipedia, the word derives from pecora meaning sheep. It has a sort of buttery and nutty flavour to it.  The next one is Ricotta, which is whey cheese made from sheep. Ricotta literally means 'recooked'. (Thank goodness, we have wikipedia and we can also get to learn things by reading my blog, ha ha ha!) The next one, which looks like tofu (or bean curd) is Stracchino, a type of cow's milk cheese with creamy texture and mild, delicate flavour. I have never heard of this cheese before as I am not much of cheese person. I asked the hotel the name of this cheese and tried to remember this for this blog .... the name of this cheese starts with stra-something but sounds like Pinocchio. Of course, over night I totally forgot what it is called. Hence, referring to wikipedia again, I now learn that the Italian word 'stracca' means 'tired': the milk from tired cows coming down in the autumn from the alpine pasture is richer in fats and more acidic, giving the cheese its characteristic flavours! ... well, I bet you never thought my blog can be educational too! The next one with bluish vein through it is Gorgonzola, Italian blue cheese made from unskimmed cow's milk. I am not keen on blue cheese but my husband loves this. And the last one is Parmesan.

Well, despite the horrible weather outside, it was right not to have eaten anything on the plane and waited for this moment. We had a happy and full stomach, finishing with lovely cafe macchiato to end the late lunch.

Well, you think my blog ends here for the day, but what about dinner!  Of course we ate that too, after having a few hours nap. It is amazing how much your stomach can hold if you are greedy....

The problem in Italy is that the standard order is to have antipasto (appetiser), primo (first course), second (second course), contorno (side dish), insalata (salad), dolce (dessert), caffe and digestivo (after-dinner drink), all accompanied with water and vino!  Here in the hotel's restaurant, you get soup to start with, followed by pasta, and then main course. My husband loved that Tuscan Bean Soup so much that he had another one to start with. I could not have another soup so I watched him eating the soup and being happy. The next followed pasta that would have been with bacon, read onion & tomato sauce but since we don't eat meat, the chef made us simple but really tasty tomato and basil pasta. This was really yummy!

Rigatoni with tomato and basil

For main course, we had Filetto di trota al burro e salvia (Trout fillets sauteed in butter and sage). This was also very delicious.

When we finished this course, we were asked if we wanted to proceed to the salad bar but we could not eat any more so at least declined this one. BUT we still managed to have dessert. The menu had Coffee ice cream with chocolate sauce but that's not all you get for dessert at Hotel Torretta. They bring you different kinds of delectable desserts on a trolly and you just don't know what to choose.  My husband had a slice of apple pie and I had caramel custard, which is TDF!

We ate all up, of course, then moved to the lounge area to have coffee and tea before we retired to our room with happy stomach.

These are what we had yesterday and I am writing this before going for dinner soon. I feel quite full already, just talking about what we had yesterday and looking at these pictures however I must 'soldier on' for the sake of this blog (what a hard life I got, ha ha ha) and also tonight's menu has something I really like so I can't miss it! You need to wait till tomorrow to find out what we have eaten today!

That's all forks!

How to train humans - Guest Post

Hello, there... my name is Yuki, well that's what the humans in my home calls me anyway. It's not Russian but actually Japanese meaning snow because of my white furs.

I have been in this house for 3 months now and have successfully trained them the element of purrsonal hygiene for me, namely proper litter box cleaning routines. Once the business is done, I only have to meow once and they come running to clean it up.

The male human has the purrfect body for me to rest. The best time for me to meow 'Attention, purrlease' is when he is having a cup of tea with his beloved iPad or when he is playing computer games. He is now well trained to be able to support my whole weight with his one arm so that I can rest my head on his shoulder to relax and get petted whilst he purrsuit his day-to-day activities.

Anyway, you are wondering where I am going with this as this blog is about food, right?

I was a stray when the Cat Rescue Centre found me earlier this year. I was used to eat whatever that came to my way. The centre then fed me Felix brand food. When the humans adopted me, they initially fed me Felix meals in jelly. I am not a fussy eater so I was happily eating this for a while but one day the female human thought I should get something that looks and smells a little bit more 'meaty' and changed to Felix Doubly Delicious brand. It is callused As Good as it looks and it comes with beef, chicken, tuna and salmon for choices.

Well, I appreciate her effort but frankly speaking I just licks all the jelly and once jelly has gone, I just leave the 'meat' in the bowl, letting it getting dry. I have been doing this for a while trying to give her some subtle hint and this has paid off!  The other day she has brought home Sheba - Chicken in gravy!  That was yummy. Each slices of meat are in the right sizes, well coated with tasty gravy. The smell is not bad neither - a bit reminds of me school dinner, well human children's school, I meant....
And the best of all, it comes in a small container for each meal so every time I get freshly opened meal instead of left over from previous packet. This is the most tasty kind!

I scoffed all in one go as there is no tomorrow and licked the bottom of the bowl nice and clean. I then went over to the female humans and gave her a cuddle, purring intensely, to reward her behaviour for positive reinforcement as she did bring the right brand!

I do however need to be careful not to be too choosy so that I can still secure daily feed. You see, I am now a house cat, not allowed to go out which means that I can't just go outside and 'dine out' at a neighbour's house or two-time my humans with another human feeder by doing social rounds to get two breakfasts and several lunches during the day. 

So my positive reinforcement must continue to keep reminding them to bring the right brand from supermarket. 

That's all purrks!

Girls Weekend!

My daughters, Emily and Maria, and I went to Double Tree by Hilton Dunblane Hydro Hotel (http://www.doubletreedunblane.com) last weekend to celebrate Maria's 22nd birthday for half board & wee spa break package. This was a present from both my husband and me for Maria's 21st birthday but we had not had a chance to organise this until a year later... sorry, Maria!!!  Anyway, it was a really relaxing weekend for us three 'girls'.

We stayed in a family room so that three of us could be in the same room. We 'smuggled' ourselves a bottle of prosecco, strawberries and a birthday cake to eat in our room when we checked in.

'Happy Birthday, Maria - Queen of Awesomeness'

Ah, I forgot to mention... when we checked in, the receptionist give us Chocolate Chip Cookies. There was a tea/coffee making facility in the room so we had these first before we scoffed a bottle of prosecco and cakes!

Yummy chocolate chip cookies - sorry, it's upside down...

Our dinner was booked for 8.30pm so we still had good few hours to kill.  After we had some cakes and prosecco, we went out to walk around the hotel ground.

Dunblane Hydro Hotel

This is our Family Room with sofa bed

Back to our room, having more glasses of prosecco with strawberries, we watched Britain Got Talent on TV lying on the bed, munching packets of crisps and M&S's Percy Pigs. Hope we got some room for proper dinner later....???

At 8.30pm, came dinner time, we were ready.  The dinner was served at The Kailyard Restaurant by Nick Nairn, Scottish TV chef.  Our weekend spa package includes an allowance of 32.50 sterling pound per person to dine in his restaurant and we could choose anything we want from the a la carte menu.

For starter, Emily had Classic cocktail of brown shrimps, Loch Duart Scottish salmon 'Nick Nairn', Hass avocado & cocktail sauce. I had Trout 'Nicks' Potato salad, beetroot and fresh horseradish. This was meant to be grilled Peterhead mackerel but the waiter told us that they ran out of mackerel so it was replaced with trout. I could not remember if there was horseradish but anyway, the trout was lovely. Maria had 'Nick's' chicken liver parfait, Cumberland sauce and warm brioche.

Brown shrimp cocktail

Trout with beetroot and potato salad

Chicken liver parfait

For main course, Emily had Slow braised feather blade of Scottish beef, mustard mash, Swiss chard, truffled celeriac and red wine gravy. Maria had sauté breast of chicken, smoked butter mash, glazed parsnips, pancetta and king oyster mushroom. I had Pan fried Scrabster halibut, herb mash, wilted spinach, Avruga caviar and chive butter sauce.

Braised Scottish Beef

Saute breast of chicken

Pan fried halibut - can you see some sprinkles of Avruga caviar?

By the time I finish the main course, I was so full, I could not move. I could not even sip any water so I watched Emily and Maria enjoying 3 British cheese 'in good Nick' with handmade fruit chutney. Actually 2 British cheese as Emily did not want blue cheese so she asked for 2 cheddar and brie cheese.

Emily & Maria sharing cheese and biscuits for dessert.

We were really full. I thought Emily and Maria wanted to move to the bar for cocktails but no, they just wanted to go back to our room with me just to chill and lounge in jammies and it was not even 10.30 yet!  Those days were gone when they did not go out to the town with friends till almost midnight for clubbing, so I bet they are feeling 'old' now...ha ha ha. 

The next day was Sunday we we had a little bit of long lie but not too long so as not to miss our breakfast.  Breakfast was buffet style so you just pick whatever. I had scrambled egg, sauted tomatoes, potato scones and beans.  Maria and Emily had full Scottish breakfast - fried egg, potato scones, black pudding, square sausage, tomato, baked bean and a role. 

Our check out was 12.00 and we finished our breakfast just before 11.00am so we went back to our room and relaxed.  We booked our massage for 2.00 and 2.30pm in the afternoon so we checked out, went to M&S to get Sunday newspaper and some magazine and went back to the hotel's bar for tea and coffee till our appointments.

Maria had facial and Emily and I had aromatherapy neck, shoulder and back massage. It was really lovely, so relaxing.  We really enjoyed staying at the hotel, in fact the whole weekend package - room was lovely, service was great, staff were very friendly and attentive, food was good but the highlight of this weekend was the massage. After the massage, we were given a glass of water each to drink for hydration and were advised to relax and not to get stressed.

We then got into Emily's car, phoned my mother-in-law Mary to let her know that we were on our way to come and pick her up so that we could all go for late lunch at The Hollybank Restaurant  (http://www.thehollybank.co.uk) in Stirling for ladies lunch!  Yahoo!!!  We were all relaxed, feeling great, looking forward to our impending lunch at the Hollybank, just with 4 'girls', salivating whilst discussing what to eat off the menu. Soon after leaving Dunblane however we got stuck in terrible traffic jam, found out that the motorway was temporarily closed and there was a long tailback on the back road all the way to Stirling. We were surrounded by erratic, rude and impatient drivers. So much for the relaxing massage we had just had.... we were now tense!

After almost one hour later instead of what it would have only taken 15 minutes journey Mary's house from Dunblane, we finally arrived in Stirling, picked Mary up and went to the Hollybank at last.

The Hollybank is a family restaurant, serving hearty meals to locals in many many years. I forgot to take photo but had Hollybank bruschetta for starter which I shared with Emily and Maria.
For main course, Mary had half portion of breast of chicken and pepper sauce on rice. Sorry, forgot to take this photo too.... I am doing not well, am I?  Maria had Chef's home made burger with chilli, I had scampi and chips and Emily had hot chilli bowl of home made chilli with cheese, nachos and rice.

Chili burger

Scampi and chips

Chili bowl with nachos ad rice

Maria's burger was really dense, meaty and proper burger, none of those processed meat rubbish, but it was too big so she could not finish. Between Maria and I there were quite a bit of chips left so all these left overs were carefully wrapped with napkins for Robbie, Mary's beloved family dog.  So Mary's doggy has doggy bag!

Anyway, overall, we had a great Girls' Weekend. I love to do this again some day.

Stunning Stirling Castle, taken by Emily.
I actually work at Stirling, not far from this castle
and in fact, I pass by this every morning to drive to work, isn't this great!!!

 That's all forks!