On the way home

So on the walk home from the bus station Saturday when we came back from Siena, we ran into a saxophone and drum band in the Piazza della Repubblica. They were amazing! Even though I ran out of battery and Kristen ran out of space, we just put my memory card in her camera so she could record them. Here are a few songs for your viewing pleasure:

   

Siena

Kristen and I took the bus to Siena yesterday! Siena is only an hour and 15 min away, and much smaller than Firenze. Some roads are a bit steep as the city sits on a hill. Vivaldo told us that in the medieval times, Siena was an advanced city because they managed to transport water up and, without a river running through in like here, it was much safer. It was so foggy and cold in the morning, but it eventually it got nicer.

This is a loooong post, but it isn't even half of the pictures I took (all of them are on Picasa):

Piazza Salimbeni

International Festival

We learned today that there is an international festival going on in Piazza Santa Croce, so we checked it out! It was really cool, lots of booths with food, desserts, and other goods from different countries:

Germany! The food smelled delicious

Chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine

We went to another church for Intro to Renaissance Art today:

Crudo

No, I don't mean crudo as in crude. What I am talking about is the Italian version of Japanese sashimi. It's pretty interesting, and I've never heard about it before. Raw fish with a delicate balance of fat (olive oil), acid (lemon juice or vinegar), salt and spices. Another chef, B. Becht, even invented Italian Sushi, which is different because it is little, artistic versions of any traditional Italian dishes. However, this trend never really caught on in Italy, but apparently it is popular in Japan (John?).

These concepts work so well because Italian and Japanese cuisine are actually similar, despite being so different. They both focus on the taste of natural ingredients in dishes, and Italians are extremely particular about their ingredients. They get the freshest fruits, vegetables, meats, and cheeses because having good ingredients is 80% of the cooking (at least). The dishes we have for dinner are all homemade (check out the album Kristen put up on Facebook: A tavola) and simple, but delicious because the tomatoes, for starters, are amazing! That is why there are so many markets around here, for people to get local-grown produce so often. Italians generally do their grocery shopping pretty often. Milk is sold in much smaller containers than I'm used to, only 1 liter. At the supermarkets, the milk sometimes isn't even kept refrigerated because they go through them so fast, which still seems bizarre to me.

Well, I put up 4 more recipes from cooking class on Monday as usual, but I also added a rating for each dish so you can see what I thought about it. I hope you find it helpful!

Caitlin