Italy: Tuscany

After visiting Cinque Terre, my Family and I took our car and went to Tuscany. We stayed there for 4 days and some friends also came to stay with us. We stayed at B&B Renate where we also had dinner and lunch most of the time. The B&B is located on a hill, so it's very quiet and private. The only down-side of the B&B was that is was located pretty far from every town we went to, we had to drive for minimum 1 hour, to the closest "known" village. There were also some small villages located a little bit closer but these weren't that big, so that made it fun to make a quick trip, explore the town and then get back to the B&B.

We arrived on Tuesday at around 4 o'clock, we took a quick dip in the pool while Henny, our hostess, made some delicious dinner. We relaxed for a day at the pool of our B&B and went to visit Lucca on Thursday in the late afternoon. We shopped for some time and then went for dinner at Ristorante All'Olivo. This restaurant is located in a small side-street of the shopping street, which made it "tourist-free". It was recommended to us by one of the workers of a store we shopped at and we were really glad she did. The restaurant was very nice and clean, the staff was super friendly and the food was amazing. We started off with some bruschetta which was served with a plate of Italian charcuterie. And some melon with ham. The exact names of the menu are:

- Selezione di affettati Toscani e bruschetta tradizionali (€18)

- Il Culatello di Zibello, Grana Padano e il Melone "Lorenzini" (€20)

As you can see the restuarant is more on the expensive side but the food does live up to expectations and is worth it's price. The 2 men in our company also ordered a starter, they ordered:

- Maltagliati alle Zucchine nostali, Fiore di zucca, Pomodorino Giallo e scaglie di Grana (€13)

- Homemade Tortelli in beef 'bolognese" (€13)

Both me and my mom ordered a starter as our main dish, the "Tagliatelle alle Melanzane, Pomodorino Fresco e Ricotta stagionata"(€13). And my sister ordered "Trancia di Pesce di Mare all' isolana"(€30) (Fillet sea fish) ,the 2 men ordered "Tagliata di Fiorentina con Misticanza e Grana" (€50 for 2 persons) (No picture).

We all enjoyed our meals very much and the dishes were very well made. I really recommend this place to everyone who doesn't mind paying a little bit more for an excellent meal.

The next day we made a day trip to Pietrasanta a small village close to Forte Dei Marmi. We sat down at a restaurant called Quarantuno. The owner of the restaurant helped our table, and he made sure everything was perfectly in order. Three of us ordered a dish from the "menu of the day", which was Tagliolini con Tartufo Bianco and we added some Porcini too (€20). And my mother ate some pasta vongole (€12).

In the first place our dish didn't come as ordered because we customized the dish ourselves, we didn't make a big deal out of it because we knew we were asking for something that the kitchen normally wouldn't make. But after the owner noticed it he immediately took away our dishes and made sure the right meal was served. The pasta was delicious and exactly what we wanted, the vongole as well, was perfect.

To end the holiday in a perfect way, my dad and I took our hostess Henny to a cooking class at the extra virgin cooking school in Lucca. The cooking classes were given by chef Guiseppe Mazzocchi a realy nice man with a beautiful home and a kind heart. He first took us to the center of Lucca where we bought the ingredients for our 4-course dinner that we were about to prepare and he told us about his history and how he started his cooking classes. After we did some grocery shopping, Guiseppe took us to his beautiful house with a lovely kitchen and gave us an oil and honey tasting. Afterwards we started preparing the food. The starter was called a "Tuscan Timbale with baby zucchini and blossoms" and we served it with a tiny salad, it was delicious. Next we prepared our main dish which consisted of "Carnaroli Risotto with summer pumpkin saffron and tuscan IGP hazlenuts" and "Malfatti Ricotta and Spinach florentine style "gnudi" with tomato sauce", which was marvelous as well, especially the Gnudi, a dish I had never eaten before. Our dessert was a "Light Lemon Custord with Fresh Berries and Lucchese "Buccelatto", I do not have a picture of this dish but I can confirm that it was pretty good too, even though I am not a big dessert fan. I would really recommend these cooking classes to anyone who likes to cook as much as I. There are many different cooking classes in Lucca, but I think this one is the most interesting as it doesn't focus on one specific meal (Pasta, Pizza or something else), it is very diverse and he always prepares a new menu to make sure you can come back to cook somthing different.

The rest of our stay, we ate at our B&B because our hostess was an excellent chef. The region of our B&B was known for it's truffle so we ate a lot of that and weren't complaining. I love Italian food and would go back every month just to have some delicious pasta. I can't wait for my next trip to Italy.

(Melted cheese with white Truffle)

A bientôt!

Bisous