Bona Sera Supper Club

Francesca

We arrived in Tuscany after a train ride from Venice to Florence, the acquisition of a rental car and an introduction to the hell that is driving in Florence. It took us a while to get out of Firenze but once we did we weren’t disappointed by the countryside. It really is as beautiful as everything you’ve seen.

Our stay for the next seven days  days is to be at a place called La Ripa, down the hill from a village called Belforte, near the larger hill town of Radicondili.

La Ripa

We were met by our host Graziano and his mother Francesca with a snack of Sardinian flatbread with olive oil and salt, little cookies, chunks of Pecorino and their homemade Vin Santo, which they had aged in their attic. I found out later that the bottle they opened for our arrival was their last of the last batch they ever plan to make.

They are extremely gracious people; Francesca kept insisting that we finish the huge platter of flatbread and Graziano kept filling our small glasses of wine.

The next day we drove in to Radicondoli, a small and sweet little hill town and stopped at a place that looked suspiciously like a gelato bar from the outside, but housed a small dining room in the back and found an interesting menu of typical Tuscan offerings with some great specials.

Anchovies and Mascarpone

I had, because I just had to order it, marinated anchovies with mascarpone…the anchovies were marinated in olive oil, parsley and red pepper flakes and though I’m usually not a whole anchovy lover, I really kind of got into this dish…of course part of that could be that I enjoyed freaking the rest of my party out…in either case it was salty and a little sweet and just what I wanted.

We also had a pretty typical antipasti platter with some marinated artichokes and a really good cabbage and carrot slaw dressed with vinegar.

Pumpkin Barley Soup

The really excellent standout from the meal though, was the soup special of the day, which was a pumpkin barley soup drizzled with a good green olive oil. Comforting and delicious.

Updates later about a Cinghale stew, Ribolita and a surprise attack of the Calabrone.

This entry was posted on October 16, 2009 at 8:16 am and is filed under Bad Fairy Does Italy. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.