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!

Razzle dazzle in Randazzo - sweet experience near Mt. Etna

We are in Randazzo, a lava-built medieval town closest to the volcano craters of Mt. Etna. It's a small town yet has so much history with different influences from Norman, Greek and Spanish occupations in the past, which you would easily miss if you don't explore on foot.

Santa Maria Cathedral - built in a 13 century

Anyway, our local guide Natale has taken us to a wonderful Pasticceria Arturo on Via Umberto for a lovely coffee and sweets after exploring the town.  Apparently this is a historic coffee house with a beautiful Art Nouveau interior, serving delightful pastries, cakes and sweets, all handmade of course!

There were so many choices and all looked very delectable. Natale selected some for us to try; these were Pasta di Mandorla and Pasta di Pistacchio (small cakes/soft cookies made of almonds and pistachio - these are really nice and soft inside), cannoli (filled with sweet ricotta cheese) and white chocolate with pistachio nuts. There is also a small green ball which, I think, is made of almonds and pistachio paste and covered with chopped pistachio nuts.  All these are really delicious and go very well with strong Sicilian espresso!!!

We met the pastry chef, took a photo with her and managed to say from my Italian phrase book, 'I really enjoyed it' in Italian to her to compliment her wonderful cakes and sweets. Note, many people around here do not speak much English so the phrase book comes really handy!!!

We then went to the local Enotecca - wine shop with delicatessen near the town's main square, Il Buongustaio (www.ilbuongustaildipipocala.it).  The owner has poured two different types of lovely Etna Rosso for us to try each, with different types of Sicilian cheese including the one with pistachio nuts in it too. Both bottles were fantastic but 2010 Rosso was really marvellous and it's 15%!!!  Well, being a perfect or model consumer and feeling so happy with lovely sweets and vino, we ended up buying the bottle to take home - one day we shall open this bottle for reminiscing the wonderful time we were razzle-dazzled in Randazzo!!!!