Last summer I went to Italy for the month of August. That sounds super fancy, I know, but I do not have the funds to be considered fancy by any stretch of the imagination, so please withhold your judgement and snark for the time being. Though I do really love the snark. I was able to go because Bossy cashed in her airline miles to get me a gratis ticket (which was insanely generous) and we had a free house to stay in Panicale in Umbria.

Panicale is ideally located right next to the Tuscan border, so driving around from cute little countryside village to walled gothic town was really easy (well, for the most part considering I did get car sick for the entirety of the month, which was less about Italian roads and more about the driver of the rented Cinquecento but whatever).

The first day trip we took was to Montepulciano (where my beautiful copper stock pot was forged), and it was one of my favorite places in the whole of Tuscany because of the breezy, beautiful walled in spot on the top of a hill overlooking the region. It was a gorgeous day and we were lucky enough to have access to the best wines of the region in the numerous bars that dotted the peak of the city.

I’ve been home from Italy for a week now, and I can no longer claim jet lag as a reasonable explanation for my lack of posting; I’m going to sum up, with as much efficiency as I can muster, the last tidbits of the soupapolooza! goes to Italy summer.

There was a shin-dig for Ferragosto, which is an Italian holiday that has something to do with the ascension of Mary, but don’t ask me what that means since I was raised by godless heathens, thankyouverymuch. But nonetheless, Bossy and I chose to celebrate this holiday by braising a shinbone (called a “stinco” in Italian, tee-hee) and inviting our international friends over for some drunken reveling.

There were also two more trips into Florence, both unsuccessful in their promise of the now unicorn-like vintage silver gelato spoons. On the first excursion, a Sunday, we blindly brought the Cinquecento into the city center without consulting a map. It wasn’t pretty, made even less pretty when we found ourselves squeezing (and screeching) down a one-way street exactly the wrong way. We did get another excellent lunch and dinner (pizza!!!) with Beefcake and the Baron before we drove back to Panicale, dejected and stuffed.

italian bubbles: quit trying to make 'fetch' (I mean franciacorta) happen

olive oil gelato: the Baron of the Borgo, Bossy, Beefcake and Bologna... and a club sandwich at the Four Seasons

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.