food + friendship

I finished The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet last night and it was so so so so good; the perfect mix of history and fiction - entirely believable because of the live-off-the-page characters and scenery (and the ending). You know when you finish a book and you're sort of sad that it's over? I don't feel exactly like that, but if I could go back and read it for the first time again I would. We - Hendrik and I - were at the library this morning, and the next two up to bat are The Sense of an Ending and Sidetracked (I was sold by the L.A. Times Book Review on the cover: "... if you haven't bought Sidetracked, do so ASAP"); we'll see when I manage to get around to those.

Because Nao is here! We've been having such an awesome time together - eating. I mean really, have we done anything else? We've been feasting; in three days we've eaten gelato (twice), foccacia, fresh pasta, bread, cheese, olives, nanaimo bars, lasagna, pancakes, Easter panettone, pizza and more.... oh man, I'm going to need to slot in more than a few salad meals after this visit. Hendrik and I picked her up in Verona on Sunday night, and kicked things off right away on Monday morning with a pancake breakfast and coffee from a long-established Trento roaster (does that make sense?) - we have a visit to the coffee shop on our to-do list for the weekend. Monday we walked around the centre in the morning, and after an afternoon nap had-by-all, all four of us went for gelato and took Hendrik to the park. We rounded out the day with pizza at Orostube (so so so good) and then rolled ourselves into the car and into bed. Seriously, we set out to accomplish Nao's goal of pigging out ("not enough") cowing out from day one.

with Dad, Nao and his dream-sized ice-cream cone

On Tuesday we hit up the grocery store in the morning and then proceeded to cook and eat all day (nanaimo bars lasagna ham prosciutto cheese bread). I think we walked along the Adige in the afternoon, but other than that the day was focused on making food. And eating. Day two, mission accomplished.

And yesterday morning we somehow veered ourselves away from the lure of the table to visit Castello Buonconsiglio, the castle on the other side of town that dates back to the 13th century. It was amazing... we loved it! The buildings have been so well maintained and restored, and there are so many different parts - some altered more than others in the last what, 800 years - !?!! We did, of course, stop for coffee (and cake) in the cafe before taking a tour of Torre Aquila - in which there are 15th century frescoes depicting life in and around the castle in each and every month of the year. Hendrik was such a good little dude through the entire castle visit, though I did have to placate him with my wallet (torn apart) during the Torre tour... giving him a cookie was a no-no, so the wallet was the next best thing. The castle is, in my opinion, a must-see for our visitors. And then, after the daily nap Nao and I dropped Steve off at the gym for his five-day trip to Poland - sad face - and continued on to the grocery store once again. She was so cute - "I want to buy everything" and "this is a problem - I want everything I want to come back here I want to eat it all"; we thought about planning every minute and every meal of the rest of her visit, but got sidetracked by food. Oh, and after dinner we went for gelato, and I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves; it was pure gluttony.

strawberry, chocolate + hazelnut and a vanilla cone | Hendrik finished, made the Italian sign for yummy, and asked for more

So yeah, Steve is in Poland for the weekend's Final Four of Champion's League; they play on Saturday at 5:30 against Kazan (I think you can catch it on www.laola1.tv) and hopefully in the finals on Sunday (at 5:30 also). And Nao is in Milan for the night which leaves me here, toute seule with the little bean - for two-ish days. I thought I'd have all of this free alone do-whatever time tonight but pffft! it's already 10:00 and my eyelids are droopsy... boo. So I'll put up some pics and call it a day; more to come soon!