Floss is Empty, Pre-Tirement is Over

Well, it had to happen. Not only has my last container of Italian floss (or Filo Interdentale, which I bought at the Mercatale Conad, my favorite little store in the world) run out:

and not only is it almost a year since we started our big pretirement adventure, it looks like I may have to actually retire from my pre-tiring to start up gainful employment once more. Which means that the Six Months blog is going into hibernation, until the next pretirement (hah!) or at least our next trip to Italy. We can’t stay away from Andrew and Marianne and the Upper Tiber valley for too long. Not to mention that I’m craving risotto from Calagrana and pizza from Bar Fizz (Quattro formaggi co cipolla, of course) daily:

Ciao-

PS: Hey, why not come over to my cocktail blog Spiked Punch and say howdy. It’ll help ease my “pre-tirement is over” pain.

Bar Fizz Quattro Formaggi Pizza

This pic is of the first pizza we ever had at Bar Fizz! And I hadn’t yet posted it here (I think). That seems somewhat amazing to me in my culinary hindsight. You can tell it’s early, because it’s a Quattro Formaggi (notice the Fizz usage of gorgonzola on their version of this standard Italian pizza) but it doesn’t have the cipolla addition that we grew so fond of during our pre-tirement:

Yummy. I think if I could afford it, I’d fly over to Italy tonight just to have one of these.
*See all Italian restaurants

*Note: We were on pre-tirement, and now we’re back. Want the full story? Start the pre-tirement journey here. Want to go backwards? Read the last pre-tired post here and scroll back. Or, just keep coming back for pretty Italy pictures.

TTITIM #2: Bar Fizz

It’s the night before we leave our pre-tirement and the Niccone Valley and our house on the hill, and we, naturally, had dinner at Bar Fizz. We tried to remember exactly what we had the first time we went to Fizz, and I have to admit, couldn’t remember. We know it was wonderful, though, because (and this may be one reason why we don’t remember exactly which Fizz meal was our first) after that first meal we never stopped stopping at Fizz, either stopping in or getting take out pizza once every week or week-and-a-half. If you’ve read this blog even a little, you’ve probably read at least one Fizz blog post, because I’ve written tons. Not only because the food is fantastic, but also cause it’s our local here (sitting right in the center of Liscione Niccone), and also (even more important) cause the owner, Guiliano and the other couple of folks that work there (his wife, her sister—at least that’s our guess on the latter, and occassionally his son, who reminds me tons of my nephew Kaiser) are darn friendly, and you can tell have fun most of the time, but still the food and the restaurant seriously, while being local and low key and without a breath of snootiness. Our favorite pizza is at Fizz (Nat’s own off-menu creation, Quattro Formaggi con Cipolla), as well as the best lasagna we had while here, delish pesto, fresh and fine frizzante bianco vino, and (when stopping at it as a café in the morning) great coffee and pastries .Okay, I’m going on and on, and will stop (cause you can read the old Fizz posts), but only after a few pics of our last meal there (and last dinner here). We started by sharing a recent obsession, the penne Quattro Formaggi (not sure why we started with it so late, but it’s darn tasty):

Then we went for pizzas, with a pick as you might expect of the above-mentioned “pizza Natalie.” Look how happy she is:

And finally, our dolce of choice (which I’ve talked about before), the tartufo al brandy:

Really, I’m not going on and on anymore. I suppose the fact that we were eating there the night before leaving really says more than I could, anyway, darnit.

*All TTITIM

Pizza at Bar Fizz

I know I’ve mentioned Bar Fizz (aka, Restaurant Guliano) a number of times here, but it is our local eatery, and one we love, and one that’s owned by a swell Italian fella, and because of all this I feel I should mention it as much as possible—not to mention that we eat there about once a week. Enough, really, that I feel I’m a Fizz-icist (ba-dump-bump). Also, I haven’t (what’s wrong with me?) had any pizza pics here on the Six Month blog lately, so call is Fizz-met (ba-dump-bump again). Our Fizz evening started with a pitcher of the vino Bianca al Spina, or the white wine off the tap. It’s a lovely light crisp frizzante wine that even looks good in low light:

cause we’re hungry (and cause we hadn’t had it in a while) we started with a shared spaghetti al pesto, which (as usual) was great, with the pasta cooked just right and the sauce fresh and not overwhelming:

Then (and this is some sort of a modern Italian miracle), we had pizzas, and neither of us had our favorite (which Nat created): Quattro formaggi con cipolla. Instead, I had the Siciliana, senza acchuighe (or without anchovies). Pal Tasha had this first way back when, and she dug it, and I dig it too: peppers, onions, and salty delicious capers:

Nat went for another regular in our Fizz pizza, the Vegatariana (sense olive—neither of us totally dig the olives in their non-oil form), which has artichokes, mushrooms, onions, and peppers and a heaping helping of awesomeness:

You probably know us well enough by now to guess that we didn’t skip dessert. And if you’ve read this blog for a bit, you can guess what we had (cause I wrote a whole post about it): big tartufo with brandy. Go read about it, cause I was too full to take any more pics. Another smashing night at the Fizz (dang, I’ll miss having it so close).

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa, Le Capannine di Sommavilla, Calagrana, Trattoria Il Saraceno, L Enoteca Wine Club, Mastro Dante, Bar Fizz, Da Cesari, al Frantoio, La Balestra, Lo Strattoio, Mencuccio, La Fortezza. La Tufa, Kentia Pizzeria, Il Feudo del Vicari, Buca di Bacco, Camino Vecchio, Quattro Leoni, Ottavius

*See all Italian restaurants

Tartufo Bianca Affogato al Brandy—My Kind of Dolce

Admittedly, I’ll eat up the dolce (or dessert, or pudding, depending on your original locale). However, I don’t set my cap on sweets, and if I have to choose between the sugar or the savory, I’ll choose the savory. But, but (there’s always a but, right? And in my “I’ll eat savory and sweet often” case, it tends to be a big ol' but), I don’t usually turn down the dolce, and if it’s a dolce in the style of the Tartufo Bianca Affogato al Brandy I had at the fantastic Bar Fizz the other night, then sign me up:

The Tartufo Bianca was a big baseball-sized mound of vanilla ice-cream, stuffed with a chocolate-y ice cream dreaming of coffee, and that’s all good and well, but it was floating in like an inch of brandy. Good brandy. That’s the kind of dolce I can really get behind—one floating in liquid loveliness.

*See all Bar Fizz related posts

PS: “Wait,” you say (I can hear you—at least in my head. But I’m not crazy, just attuned cuisinistically), “but, but, what did you have for dinner?” Well, I don’t want to rub any noses, but it was lasagna night at Fizz, and once again those crazy kids were kind enough to make us tartufo lasagna (the “tartufo” here being truffles), which I detailed here.

Pizza and the Good Life

Hey, pizza lovers! Not that I haven’t perhaps dwelled enough on the famous bread-topped-with-stuff that people seem to enjoy almost worldwide, and talked enough maybe (well, I don’t think so, but am giving a “perhaps” to cloak my true intent. It’s what people do, but hey, I’m being honest about it) about the servers of said food here in the Upper Tiber Valley that I currently live in, cause I suppose some could say I have done the above. But, I’ve done it again, in another place, in an article on pizza I wrote for the Good Life Report. The article’s called Liberating Italian Pizza, and gives a splosh of pizza history (want to find out where the Margharita pizza came from? Now’s your chance), a splash of the interesting pizzas many pizzerias are now serving, and a splush of my favorite pizza (yes! What you’ve always wanted—to find out my current fav pie). What are you waiting for—go read the pizza article. And then go have a pizza.

Dinner at Bar Fizz (or Why We Made a Good Choice 10 Years Ago)

Last week, as we do at least once a week (or pretty darn close), we went into Bar Fizz for dinner. We often hit up the pizzas there (as detailed in past posts), sometimes getting a pasta, or salad, or the delicious fries. Rarely are we able to take advantage of the specials, which tend to be meaty in the week and seafood-y on the weekend (Fizz is known for the weekend seafood throw downs). We were the first ones in (early Americans) this night, and got to watch as Giuliano (the friendly owner and chef at Fizz) wrote the specials on the board. We were instantly intrigued because one was “Garganelli al pesto.” See, the pesto at Fizz is, I think, rather amazing. They never overdo it, and they never allow it to overwhelm the pasta. When Giuliano walked over to our table, Nat asked him “garganelli che cosa?” Turns out (I guess we should have guessed) garganelli is a type of pasta. To double check, we asked him (after some stumbling a bit, due to our lean grasp of Italian combined with his piccolo amount of English) if it was filled, and veggie, and he was yes, yes, laughing. The second special was lasagna ragu, which is lasagna with meat-y sauce. Nat said “vegetariano” we he started telling us about it, and he said ragu is carne, but then walked back into the kitchen, and talked to the other cook (another very friendly lady), and then came out to tell us that they could make “lasagna tartufo” or truffle lasagna. How nice was that? Just the idea of checking into it was super great. However (cause of course we ordered both specials), the lasagna itself was even better. My first lasagna this trip (most are meat-packed), the Fizz lasagna tartufo was perfecto. The pasta itself was in thin sheets, freshly made (more on this later), and cooked as right as any pasta ever has been. It was layered around a simple mix of black truffle paste and cheese, and not slopped up with excess sauce. This simplicity and non-goopy-ness also allowed the tips of the pasta to crisp just a bit, which I love:

The lasagna was without a doubt one of the best dishes had since arriving, but I don’t want to short shrift the garganelli, which was also delish. The pesto, as mentioned, was fantastic, light, bright moments of basil and nuttiness garbed in local olive oil, and the pasta was also dandy, like penne curled around itself (almost like when people can twirl their tongues) with little ridges, all together making a textured tasty dish:

Overall, a lovely dinner and a lovely evening, and on the way out, as we stopped to pay (we always just walk up to the register on the bar side, following in the footsteps of locals we’ve watch do the same), we told Giuliano (who also steps over to check out football scores, man the bar, and watch the register) how much we liked the pastas in our halting Italian. He told us, in a combination of Italian and his halting English, that it was made today (I thought). When I said, “oh, just made today” he corrected me to let me know that, no, not today, but right when we ordered it. He was--cause he’s that way--smiling and laughing throughout, too. The fact that they made a special dish for us, and that it was lasagna with fresh noodles made right then, and that he’s such a friendly guy, just underlines for me that we made the right choice about 10 years ago when Nat and I (and pals Jeremy and Megan) randomly picked this area to vacation in, and randomly picked a villa managed by Andrew and Marianne to stay in for a week. Sometimes, it’s the random choices that are the luckiest.

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa, Le Capannine di Sommavilla, Calagrana, Trattoria Il Saraceno, L Enoteca Wine Club, Mastro Dante, Bar Fizz, Da Cesari, Calagrana Lunch, al Frantoio

*See all Italian restaurants

Three Days of Pizza: Day Three, Quattro Formaggi con Cipolla

I wanted to end our three pleasurable precious poppin’ days of pizza with another quattro formaggi varietal (after yesterday’s quattro formaggi con roket pizza). This one’s also from the Fizz (like our first pizza), and is one that Natalie created (I think I talked about it briefly in a past post), a quattro formaggi con cipolla pizza. The cipolla is thinly-sliced, almost paper thin, and spread liberally over the cheeses, which are a blend of Gorgonzola, and I believe mozz, pecorino, and chunks of stracchino. It’s our favorite pizza of the moment, one that when I get it Natalie wishes she would have, and when she gets it I wish I would have gotten it—pizza envy may be the best recommendation. The onion mingles so well with the cheese blend. This one’s super close up, so you can admire the gooey goodness at close range:

Three Days of Pizza: Day One, Funghi Porcini

I thought instead of doing longish pizzeria posts for a couple days I’d skip the song-and-dance and hit the pie itself. The idea (which is somewhat sadistic I suppose, but only in a gentle way) is to maximize reader salivating.  Okay, not solely to do that, but to allow me and us to focus in on the pizza itself. Like with the pizza below, a funghi porcini pizza from Bar Fizz. It’s funny to have funghi (meaning mushroom) and porcini (a type of mushroom) together in a “mushroom porcini” way, but it’s to draw a line between it and the regular funghi pizza. And look at it—those porcini are awe inspiring. Big meaty rich bites. They almost break the fork:

*All pizza posts

Acronyms: Corporate vs Italy

It’s the holiday season—have you done your shopping yet? As someone who worked for eleven years in retail, I can sympathize with my past-co-workers especially at this time of year, because they are working harder than any elves (real or cinematic). Because of this, I’ve been thinking of them even more than usual (hey, I miss my working class pals), and because of this I’ve been thinking about acronyms. If you don’t know, big corporations (like big governments, big hospitals, big schools, and big restaurants) are awfully fond of acronyms. And (this is all getting somewhere, promise), because of this combination of thinking about my stressed holidays pals (Andrea, take a break!) and about corporations and their acronyms while living in Italy for my pre-tirement, I’ve (with Natalie’s help) been comparing corporate acronyms with Italy acronyms. And I thought you’d enjoy it, too (even if you are in the midst of the hectic holiday season—everyone needs to goof off a few minutes a day). Some of these are specific to my past company (Amazon.com, that is), such as the first one (which, to be honest, I may have wrong—but it’s the way I learned it), but some are just general to the corporate world. And, if your corporation has any favorite acronyms that you think might be better in Italy, add them.

Acronym   Corporate World                                    Italy

ASIN      Amazon Specific Information Number      Americans Seek International Notoriety

WBR       Weekly Business Review                          Wine Bread Regularly

MAP       Minimum Advertised Price                        Maximum Amount of Pasta

CP          Contribution Profit                                    Crostini Porcini

GV         Glance Views                                            Gelato Value

DMM     District Merchandise Manager                   Dolce Manga Merchant

FBA       Fulfilled by Amazon                                   Florence Brings Art

CEO      Chief Executive Officer                             Charming English Operators

FIFO     First In, First Out                                      Frescos Invite Frequent Odysseys

LIFO     Last In, First Out                                      Lisciano Involves Fizz Often

Bar Fizz is Back! Bar Fizz is Back!

One of the massive oversights on this blog (I’m sure there are more--Rory and Sookie think they need to be mentioned more, for example) is that I haven’t done a full post on Bar Fizz (which is also called Ristorante Guillano, after the owner, and Ristorante Fizz). Bar Fizz is our local-est eating spot, in Lisciano Niccone (the town closest to us). It’s a low-key, family spot (the son is usually eating when we go in), very homey and very friendly. We’ve been in to eat multiple times (though I’ve only mentioned a couple), and have also gotten pizza to go, which is awesomely handy (cause you don’t always want to sit pretty in the crowds)--they serve pizza and pastas, as well as antipasta and salads (and seafood on weekends, as shown when we went there with Keith and Tasha). We really rely on Bar Fizz--but didn’t realize it enough until they were closed recently for 10 days (try to hear me singing “don’t know what you got until it’s gone” in your head now). Lots of Italian ristorantes close in November, as it’s the most “off” off-season, and Fizz was closed for what seemed like forever, finally reopening last night. We were there as early as we could be without seeming silly (which is about 7:30 pm). We started with Bruschette Tartufo and a half liter of the house red. The toast was crisp and the truffle puree earthy and fragrant:

Then we shared an ensalata mista that was simple but perfectly put together: crisp lettuce, juicy tomatoes, and grated carrots:

Nat went for a pizza, one of her own creations a bit (Bar Fizz has been very accommodating with our requests, even though they don’t speak much English and our Italian still leaves something to be desired): Quattro formaggio con cipolla (or four cheese with onion). I love that the Fizz puts gorgonzola on their Quattro formaggi. Nat’s addition is the onion and they loaded it up:

I had spaghetti pesto (which was the first dish I ever had at Bar Fizz, too), and it was delicious, with the pasta just rightly al dente and the pesto accenting the pasta, not overwhelming it:

We’d eaten enough (too much, some might say) that there was only one real dessert choice: grappa. I’m not sure of the vintage, but wow, I need to ask cause it was grappa-tastic:

Bar Fizz, never close again (at least not until after next April), and thanks for being our local-est eatery.

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa, Le Capannine di Sommavilla, Calagrana, Trattoria Il Saraceno, L Enoteca Wine Club, Mastro Dante

*See all Italian restaurants

Keith & Tasha, Part 1, Ferries, Wine, and Food

We had our first visitors at Cielo Chiaro recently (about a week back—hey, I would have posted sooner, but was spending time looking for internet connections) and had oodles of fun with them traveling around. To tell the story of their three days here, I’m going to go picture heavy (you’ve been warned), but thought that would be more fun that text heavy (which I have a tendency to do, as you know if you’ve seen this blog before). This one post covers almost everything, except our last dinner with Keith and Tasha. Who, I realize, I need to introduce (you already know me, and should know Natalie, too—if not, read her blog Bella Cinghiale and catch up). First off, both Keith and Tasha live in Seattle, in the Ballard neighborhood, about 6 blocks from our house. Keith is sometimes called cookie, and likes his Spritz’ (like all four of us):

Tasha, short for Natasha (which I think she only uses during missions of international espionage) knows how to wear big sunglasses and look very Monte Carlo:

We picked them up in Camucia, at the little Camucia train station, had a quick lunch which was good (as 95% of all meals in Italy are), but then headed out to Tuoro. Tuoro is a decently-sized city that sits right on Lago Trasimeno, the lake and city being about 20 minutes from our house, via some very curvy mountain roads. We skipped Tuoro proper, and went straight to the lake, where (after some mathematical calculations from Keith to figure out the scheduling, and after some bierra for Nat and Tash at the dock bar) we found the ferry dock:



and then got on the ferry:

for Isola Maggiore. Lago Trasimeno has a couple islands in it, but Isola Maggiore is what we were boating toward:

It has a little town, some old and lovely churches, and this welcomingly psychedelic sign:

Often, you can walk completely around the island, and/or over its mountainous middle, but currently half of the walk around was unavailable (we figure for some sort of Wicker Man Wiccan ceremony). We did the half island walk, which was pretty and picturesque, and which took us by a statue or two of St. Francis:

It turns out Mr. St. Francis stopped on Isola Maggiore for a spell (like make visitable locations in the area), and communed with a rabbit, as well as more routinely divine beings. Because of this, there are lots of rabbits on the island, and pheasants, and one fat fox (the last my own guess). There’s a really lovely church atop the island that we walked up to, which had a cemetery behind it that you couldn’t go in to—you could, however, look into it and see you reflection in the glass across it:

After leaving the Isola via ferry, driving back to our neighborhood, we kicked it at the house, played with the dogs, Spritz’d up, and then headed to Taverna de San Leo Bastia for dinner. You can read heaps more about this sweet little Taverna and the town of San Leo Bastia on my other blog (where I have a post about our last vacation in the area, when we stayed in San Leo B). It’s about 30 minutes or so from us, and the main reason we went was for the fancy meat plate:

though Nat and I don’t eat meat, we can appreciated the care they take at the Taverna when putting together the above pretty plate o’ meat, and we knew Keith and Tasha would eat it up happily, while admiring it as a vision of meat products. The next day we hung around the house for a bit, so Keith could continue his studies into being an Italian grandmother. This day he learned how to hang clothes:

Then we bundled into the car to head to Greve, which really gave us grief. I have to vent here for just a sec. See, we found this cute little flyer in the house that someone had left about this place called La Cantina de Greve, which promised much in the wine tasting, meat tasting, general good times, and a pleasing atmosphere that harkens back to the 1800s. After a drive that was longer than expected (our car GPS was angry at us), we ended up in a little town that was once probably extremely cute, but we know has become a little bit of tourist hell. And La Cantina? You buy a prepaid card, and then go around to these wine kiosks, where you put your card in, pick a specific wine, and then it spits out a sip into a cup. The staff—never even talks to you except to take your money. The meat and cheese tasting? Again, put your card in a slot, then these trays (which looked as if the food inside had been there a long time) open up, where you can take a little taste. The wine itself? Underwhelming—the fact that most bottles had been sitting in a big metal kiosk with a plastic tube in them probably didn’t help. Listen, I know little Tuscan tourist towns need to make money, but this one had definitely gone around the tourist bend. Also, I’m of the firm belief that drinking, even wine tasting, even if you’re a judge in some prestigious wine tasting event, should be done with enjoyment in mind. This place was anti-enjoyment. Ugh. Let’s move on. Oh, the one thing that was good in Greve was the fact that Tasha and Keith picked up some Cinghiale prosciutto that may have changed their lives:

On the drive back, we decided to skip trying to hunt down some ristorante that was new, and took Keith and Tasha to our local eatery, Bar Fizz. It really deserves its own post, but let me say that it’s a tasty, friendly spot, owned by the chef and world’s fastest pizza cook, Giuliano. We all had Prosecco, some salads, and some tasty pasta (Tash had tasty pizza), highlighted by my ravioli (stuffed with spinach and ricotta, and topped with sage and butter):

But it was a weekend, and on the weekends Fizz also has seafood, so Keith had a second course of Gamberoni:

The Fizz took the taste of Greve right out of our mouths (and we didn’t even have to spit in gross spittoons). The next day we went to Citta di Castello for the Saturday market, where Tash and Nat picked up outfits, and Keith and I decided we probably wouldn’t be buying any Italian underpants soon (even those that said “underpants” on them) and scouted locations for lunch. We ended up randomly stopping in to a place called Il Buongustaio, and at first were a little nervous, due to some pastel ambiance and a lack of communication skills with the owner/waiter. However, he ended up being charming through the language barrier, and the food ended up being lovely, with highlights stopping their spotlights on the bottle of La Vi Canevel extra dry Prosecco, Keith’s Carbonara (interesting sidenote: Keith went on about how he’d never liked Carbonara in the states, but had been devouring it in the I-tal, and savoring every bite. We theorized about why, but never found a standard thought, though I think it’s better everything):

and my Al Arriabiata, or angry (or spicy) penne:

That night was our last night with Keith and Tasha, and we had such an amazing dinner that it deserves its own post. So c’mon back y’all.

*See more Italian restaurants: Capponi, Nestor's,Nonna Gelsa

*See all Italian restaurants

D.S.D.I.: Dr. Strange Levitates Fizz Bar Pesto Spaghetti

* All D.S.D.I. (Dr. Strange Does Italy) posts

* The first post and the explanation behind D.S.D.I. posts