Italian grocery stores are tiny. The Coop in Florence was the size of an american grocey, but both the supermarkets within walking distance of the apartment are about the size of small boutique back home. The Coop here doesn't even have a meat section (although it is next door to a butchers). We've been going to Meta (the Meta?), what has a total of six very short aisles. One row is devoted entirely to cookies. One is cleaning supplies, and another seems to be nothing but soap and "feminine hygiene." There is an entire row devoted to tomatoes, and one devoted to olive oil and vinegars. Wine gets its own row. That doesn't leave a lot for everything else that one might expect to find in a supermarket. The dairy section is about ten inches wide; fresh pasta has about three feet. You would think, that with so little room, it wouldn't take me long to find things, but Jeremy and I searched for about twenty minutes before we found anything that resembled bouillon or stock.
What Italian grocery stores do have are pre-made packages of soup basics: carrots, onions, celery, and parsley. I think this is proof that people still cook in Italy. It's brilliant. How many times have I bought that exact combination? Those ingredients are the basis for almost all stocks and soups, not to mention gravy and a whole lot of french sauces. Here, they also have adorable little yogurt-style containers of chopped pancetta, which in this case I passed by in favor of simple ground pork. I also bought some of the store's pre-made pesto to put on top of the soup, which was at least ten times as good as any pesto I've had anywhere in the states. Pesto here has more cheese, I think, and they aren't afraid of the anchovies (but don't tell Jeremy that is what he is tasting, or he might never eat pesto again).
The soup I made was very simple: ground pork, diced carrots, celery, onions, cubed potatoes and zucchini, a can of crushed tomatoes, water, and some powdered chicken stock (I put in a little more of this than I should, which gave the soup slightly more of a canned taste than I would have liked.) I served it with a little pesto on top, and an arugula salad on the side. It wasn't the best soup I've ever made, but it is hard to go too far wrong when you are starting with Italian produce, which is all flavorful, ripe, and fresh. Plus, even the canned tomatoes here are superb.
On Sunday, we braved the rain for a dinner at a restaurant called Dal Mi'Cocco. It has a fixed menu, and serves typical Umbrian food (or so we've been told). Once we managed to get a reservation, make the reservation, and get through our initial conversation with the waiter, it was a particularly stress-free meal, since we didn't have to make any decisions. Food just appeared before us, we ate it, and the next course arrived. We had two pastas, a fettucine in pomodoro that they called a macaroni, and a penne with a creamy cheese and red bell pepper sauce that they claimed had no cheese in it other than the parmesan on top. Meat was the typical mixed roast: great chicken, good pork, and very strong lamb. I like the lamb here, in small doses -- you sure aren't going to mistake it for anything else! Jeremy finds it too gamey for his tastes. A panzanella, a very sweet cake which was inedible until Jeremy figured out to eat it while drinking the grappa shot and which then was really good, and a bottle of the house wine, all for 13 euros. I love it when restaurants here give me a digestivo. I suspect it happens all the time for Italians, and most of the time to out-going Americans like Laura and Erik Schmidt, but it is a fairly rare occurrence for us. I like grappa, although Mirta will always have a warm place in my heart.
The only other thing to report is that I was attacked by a mime last night. Jeremy had a work Skype, so I left the apartment around nine to give him some privacy. Perugia is a very safe and safe-feeling city, but it is not entirely comfortable for me to be a woman alone anywhere in Italy. Italian men are very open about giving me (and all women -- it's not personal) a very obvious once over, even when I am with Jeremy. It makes me self-conscious, since I keep thinking I have made some sort of cultural faux pas, whatever the female equivalent of wearing shorts in a city would be. When I'm alone, those appraising looks are often followed up with some sort of banter, which is equally harmless, but which I don't understand and aren't fluent enough to get out of gracefully. None of this happened last night, thankfully. But, as I walked down a surprisingly empty stretch of what is normally a very busy street, I was approached by one of the ubiquitous white-garbed, white-faced mimes. He stood directly in front of me, grabbed my hands, and gave me the double air kiss, which I accepted. Probably a mistake, but I have a hard time being openly rude, even when I know it's a set-up. Then, he held out one hand for money, and wouldn't let go of me with the other. It took me several good tugs before I could get my hand free. Here endeth my solo passagiata, and I high-tailed it back to the apartment. I even had a smear of white on my face as proof of my struggle.
Tomorrow: cooking class in Todi with our fellow students! Pictures and a blog sure to follow!
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