Jenni Jenni Jenni.

I'm lucky to know you. And I'm also lucky that your roller derby name, Jenni Jihad, and the fact that I've propagated said name all over this blog has pretty much guaranteed us both FBI files.

Hola Department of Homeland Security, and welcome!

Jenni, you make the world a better place just by being in it. You are deserving of every good thing I can imagine, most certainly the eight course cajun feast prepared to perfection by your boyfriend and the rest of our favorite zydeco-playing-chair-designing-robot-engineering-architect-and-master-chef, the Ragin' Cajun.

Happy Birthday to you, and here's to another trip stuffing our faces around the sun!

Soup on!

Every Sunday should be so lovely. 75 degrees. Fresh eggs, dewy plums and the company of your best gay boyfriend.

I will miss you posing anywhere and everywhere with cats. I will miss the same story told at least a dozen times, but with an alternate, more entertaining ending with each succession. I will miss you losing your glasses at IHOP and almost missing your 14 hour flight back to Shanghai.

Thanks for the Sunday love, Love! It was, as always, eggcellent. xo

Bossy and I almost turned around when the thunderclouds opened up on us as we exited Firenze Certosa off the A-1 (the wrong exit, by the way, but more on that some other time); we were both wearing flimsy sundresses, after all, which had seemed like a perfectly appropriate sartorial decision to make for a mid-August excursion in land-locked Italy. It had been unseasonably comfortable in Umbria, but there was no reason to think it would be 60 degrees and rainy, unless, of course, either one of us had actually bothered to check the weather report.

But we had a two-fold mission for the day-- to pick up a painting for the owner of the villa we had taken over (Bossy’s sometime Boss, the Contessa di Mozzarella), and to have lunch with a fabulous artisanal food exporter, let’s call him the Baron of Borgo de’ Greci, whom Bossy had been provided with a cursory introduction to through mutual friends.

I suggested we turn right back around to Panicale as soon as we finished our errands, as this was not a proper introduction to the city due to my lack of a sweater and wellies. Bossy suggested that my “creature comfort needs” were a little “needy”.

But anyway, we managed to find our windy way into the parking lot of the train station and into the back of a taxi right as the rain REALLY started, and I have to say it was kind of magical, if not a bit cold.

Despite all my good intentions to zuppapoloooza! as soon as I hit terra firma here in Italy, there sadly was no zuppa in the ‘polooza of this Sunday. Instead there was a road trip to a famous macelleria, an Italian butcher shop. Destination: M with a capital E - A - T. This is no ordinary butcher shop, oh no, this is a full five course meat tasting-- yes MEAT TASTING-- at the butcher’s restaurant across the street from the macelleria. Who could say no to that?

Dario Cecchini and his beautiful shop in Panzano, Chianti, Antica Macelleria Cecchini, were made even more famous in Bill Buford’s 2006 book Heat, becoming arguably the most celebrated butchery in Italy-- if not to Italians, then certainly to Americans. I knew about Dario (I call him Dario because we’re that close despite us not actually knowing each other or sharing a common language in which to communicate) because I read Buford’s book; unfortunately I never got to the part that related to Dario because I was kind of irritated with Bill Buford as soon as he stopped talking about Mario Batali and started talking about Bill Buford. He’s about as fun as searing your hands while preparing short ribs in a blazing kitchen. Instead of being a wild boar, which I love and have not stopped eating as a ragu since I got here (cinghiale!), he’s simply a bore which is simply intolerable.

So we set out on our quest for carne...

quick pics: a cajun feast for Jenni Jihad's birthday

quick pics from Sunday's farmer's market on Larchmont (and a shout out to my gay boyfriend who is now back in China)

lunch in the big city: the rainiest day in the history of Florence

the long and winding road to meat: two blondes, two and half hours and too much to eat

Why? Because soup is cheap, delicious and easy. Kind of like me.

a weekly attempt to eat well and to savor life. or to see how much food I can get on my clothes.