Superb butchers selling beef and pork products of all descriptions.
All manner of poultry and poultry products. I think I could hear clucking, so fresh were these products!
Fresh pasta stalls to die for.
And even a small plant/flower stand, with rosemary plants and other herbs for sale:
I think you would have to try really hard to go wrong at the mercato.
Is it the tomato?
The pommodoro (the golden apple)?
These pomodori were available today for sale at Sant’ Ambrogio Mercato. Are they not gorgeous? They look like rubies and garnets, only edible.
But despite the modern association of tomatoes and Italy, the tomato is of course a new world fruit and was not even known in italia until the Spanish explorers brought back all sorts of flora from the americas.
Ciao, bella! Where have you been all my life?!!
Cachi. Pronouced “Ka-key” which comes from the Japanese, with the stress on the first syllable. Persimmons deserve a better name in italiani in my opinion!
Look how gorgeous:
Cachi, the quintessential winter fruit.
Some of the citrus from Sicily comes wrapped in little papers as you see above. I plan to get some of those!
Guarda la dimensione dell’ uve! Look at the size of the grapes!
Fresh raspberries and currants are available for a hefty price.
Little strawberries from Sicily.
Do you see those dabs of red sealing wax on the pear stems above and below? Those seals are added when the fruit is cut from the tree to keep the fruit from ripening too soon and spoiling, I believe.
Limone: la genuinita del bel paese. The genuine lemons from the beautiful country. If ya got it, flaunt it!
And finalmente we arrive at apples, above and below.
Finito per addesso. Grazie e arrividerci!
I saved the most tempting photos for this post.
Anyone would like kale that looks like this!
And my everlovin’ favorite food on planet earth: olives!
Today I was at the divine farmer’s market, known as Sant’ Ambrogio, before the sun came up. I snapped a bunch of photos as the merchants were setting up their offerings for the day. Yowsa! What a market! Che mercato, per favore! My Italian lessons are starting to kick in.
It won’t be hard to follow your mother’s command to eat your vegetables with this amazing collection of offerings, in December no less. Can you imagine the September produce? Mamma mia!
Guardiamo (let’s look)!
Ignore the oranges below because I am planning an entire post on them, so lovely are they and so much do I love to eat citrus. But do check out the Jerusalem artichokes which are plentifully in season adesso (now).
The artichokes are spectacular fare in a local trattoria. Believe me, I have been eating them all week!
Mangiamo! Let’s eat!
Here’s a Florentine scene from today. I think it’s safe to say that this scene would be essentially unchanged (with the exception of the fabric covering the scaffolding) for the last millennium. Kind of mind boggling, non e vero?
Are you ready to see some more window displays? Andiamo!
You’ll have visions of Pucci, Armani, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Miu Miu, and many other designers dancing in your head, so get ready!
Hundreds of gold bows drift at the mannequin’s feet.
Yesterday about 8:30 a.m. I was walking to my school for Italian lessons and happened upon this scene of about 200 mostly men but some women dressed to kill in these uniforms with gorgeous capes. I snapped these pictures with my iphone and showed them to my conversational Italian professoressa and she told me they are police officers. I wondered if they were having a graduation ceremony or something, because they just kept pouring down the street.
The amazing backdrop for all these pictures is the venerable Santa Croce. I live a five minute walk from this important church. It pretty much blows my mind every day when I walk by it.
I maneuvered myself across the way from the swarm of uniformed people, and captured these scenes with the Borgo Santa Croce, the street on which my school is located. Another pretty amazing background! Some of these uniformed persons carried long swords!
Don’t know how safe they keep me, but they sure are pretty to look at! And that counts for a lot in this beautiful country!
So, two days ago I became a student again. To learn to speak Italian. Ayyyyyyyy! Madonna!
My school is about a 10 minute walk from my apartment. I go for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for two weeks. Then I see if I think it is worthwhile and can either enroll in another two week course or wing it in Florence and hope for the best. In any case, I’ll be hoping for the best!
I think it would be fun to enroll in a course on how to speak like an Italian with your hands. Lord knows Italians have very verbal hands! It is such fun to surreptitiously watch them talk to one another. Even if I don’t understand what all the words are, I can usually pick up the drift of the conversation from a few words and all the gestures.
Why do I do all this, expend all this energy, for Italy? It’s simple really. I drew you a picture.
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