If you spend any significant amount of time in Central or Northern Italy and love food, wine and lively company and somehow do NOT manage to acquire the aperitivo habit; then you have the kind of willpower that would make St. Augustine bow down to you.

It took me a while to get around to trying Noir. I’m not sure what made me hesitate, I love film noir, pinot noir and little noir dresses. I am glad I finally did.  The first thing of note about Noir is the location.  When you hear real estate types talk about location, location, location; this type of space is exactly what they are talking about.  Positioned on the north side of the Arno, on a corner that has one of the many bridges of Florence. Absolutely stunning.

The focus here on drinks is more cocktail oriented and the bar is PACKED after 7pm, to make things more efficient they have set up a system where you first pay and get a receipt and then tell the bartender what you would like.  If you are lucky enough to get a table, the table service here was suprisingly good for a place that is as consistently busy as this.  The aperitivo is typical Tuscan and frequently restocked.  During slower periods, or if you tip on your drinks, then the waitresses will bring little plates to you so that you can just soak up all the chatter and flirting that is going on around you.

When the weather is a little warmer the crowds grow exponentially and the only available “tables” are the spots along the wall that girds the river.  This is where you will find all the flirtiest Florentines that have just finished their workday.  Resting your glass and little plate on the wall, standing over the Arno, looking on the Ponte Vecchio to the east and the beautiful Tuscan sky overhead is a fantastic way to transition into evening.

Noir

• Lungarno Corsini, Florence 50123, Italy
• Phone: 39 055 210 751

If you have an appreciation for wine; but don’t always go for big tannic reds, like Cabernet or super juicy Rhone style wines, then Italy’s rendition of “new wine” may be just the thing for you.  Roughly 15 million bottles of Vino Novello are released every year on the 6th of November.  This was especially time appropriate this year.  If you have ever tried Nouveau Beaujolais in the autumn or winter then you are familiar with the concept.  This is very youthful, light red wine with very little of the tannic bite that so many of the big age-friendly reds have.  Vino Novello is a wine that is meant to be drunk immediately, no aging, no anticipation. Just buy, open and drink.

Whether Nouveau Beajolais came first or Vino Novello came first is one of those Franco-Italo wars, like Bechamel sauce, that will never be won, but each side will argue to their deaths that it had to be their ancestors that invented it.  I am just fine and dandy with the battle continuing as long as I get to keep eating Bechamel sauce and drinking Vino Novello, I’ll even judge the debates while eating a lasagne that is layered with the Bechamel sauce and drinking some Beajolais, just to show my impartiality.

One great thing about Vino Novello in this economy is that it actually has a reasonable price tag.  Another great thing is it has such an easy drinkability that it is one of the few red wines I will consume happily without having any food.  This is extra fun when you are cooking and waiting for guests and don’t want to disturb your artfully arranged antipasto platter.  Vino Novello is an easy companion to many foods, antipasto, pasta and lighter meats, especially poultry and lean pork. Keep it light as far as sauces that you serve with this wine as well, just like stronger meats will overpower the wine, so will a chunky ragout or anything really salty.  Vino Novello is also a great wine to introduce white wine drinkers to red wine, or the wine neophyte to the pleasures of Bacchus.

If you have already been to Italy you are aware that the “French Paradox” is alive and well and living here.  How do they do it? If you have sat through one of the multi-course dinners that are so common here you know that the amount of food consumed is nothing to sneeze at.  Every table has wine, every table has bread, some more bread, and as long as there is sauce to soak up, more bread.  What are the keys in the ability to consume so much good food as a culture and not have any apparent obesity issues? Of course there are a few Italians who are a little chubby but as a rule, the entire country appears to be a living example of an ideal weight chart.

There are few major differences in the components of the typical Italian diet and the typical American diet.  One if these differences that might seem minor at first is beverages.  An Italian typically has a few coffees per day (one ounce each), perhaps a small glass of orange juice with breakfast, a glass of wine with dinner, and a water bottle permanently attached at the hip.  Iced tea is common in the summer, but with minimal sweetening.  Sodas of most types are not consumed often, along with all of the chemicals and high-fructose corn syrup that come along with them.  If you adopt this style of beverage consumption you reduce sugar intake, chemical intake and sugar related mood swings as well.

Another big difference is the frequency with which Italians eat versus Americans.  Meals are eaten more slowly, over longer periods of time.  There are a number of benefits here; the more slowly you eat, the less likely you are to overeat; when courses are served you reach “sensation saturation” sooner so smaller portions leave you satisfied; and hey, the more slowly you eat, the more you can enjoy the flavors.  Snacks that are fairly healthy are also eaten throughout the day.  Some bread or fruit seems to always be at hand, or otherwise a small panini.

A final factor is the freshness of the food.  Weekly grocery shopping is fairly common, but with trips every couple days or so for produce or meat.  You see canned food consumed, and frozen items, but very little food here has preservatives or additives. And people eat fruit and vegetables here as much as your mother tells you to, maybe even more. Every house seems to have a bowl of fresh fruit that is never empty, the gutters always have orange peels in them and if you don’t eat your fruits and veggies Nonna will come after you with a wooden spoon.  If you balance your pork, your cheese and wine with every color of fruit and vegetable you can’t go wrong.You can eat all of the tastiest foods, but slowly and with relish.

If you are anything at all like me, one of the most appetizing aromas you can imagine is the smell of bacon sizzling in a skillet in the morning.  If that is not one of your favorite smells then skip this post, this is all about the pork.  Pork is extremely popular in Italy, and the array of preparations is truly mind-boggling.  I will date myself here and say I remember the days when not only was there a neighborhood butcher, but also a butcher in the supermarket.  I’m talking about a real butcher, with real meat, who can actually talk to you about what you are buying, not a guy who puts the prewrapped packages in the Safeway display.

In Italy, this is still extremely common.  And they love teaching people about it.  This is one tasty lesson to learn, and keep learning, because failure only means you must try again and eat more!!!  My favorite lesson is, hands down, prosciutto.  Prosciutto is to ham what Champagne is to a $5 dollar bottle of sparkling wine.  If you have not yet acquired a taste for prosciutto, I highly recommend adding it to your to-do list. True DOP prosciutto is a bit pricey when tariffs and shipping do those nasty things they do. But one great thing about prosciutto is that a little goes a long way.

Prosciutto is pork that has first been salted, pressed, washed and then left to dry and age and become the addicting taste sensation that “prosciutto crudo” is.  There is variation in the flavors of different prosciutto from different regions, whether nuttier like Prosciutto di Parma or sweeter like my personal favorite Prosciutto di San Daniele, which are both imported to most parts of the United States.  Prosciutto is sliced very thinly, think of an old school deli guy layering piece after piece of paper thin slices of pure heaven while you wait, this is not your grandmother’s ham.

Prosciutto can be used through almost every course of an Italian meal.  It is one of the most common things in a plate of antipasto and in the summer when melons are in season, wrapping slices of the melons with room-temperature prosciutto is one of the most popular appetizers.  In a pasta course it blends best with cream style sauces and vegetables.  If you combine a tagliatelle with prosciutto, cream sauce and asparagus you have a dish you will make again and again. In main course it is almost always used to accent the flavor of another meat.  My favorite of this type of combination is Saltimbocca “jumps in the mouth” a name that could not be more appropriate. Traditionally veal, but chicken is also common, layered with fresh sage, prosciutto a few splashes of Marsala and a touch of unsalted butter.  If you can’t find true prosciutto at a gourmet grocery store, and you don’t have a local Italian deli, then igourmet.com sells both the Prosciutto di Parma and the San Daniele.

In my continual quest for truth, beauty and eternal happiness….okay, not really, more like my continual quest for yummy things that satisfy my hedonistic nature, I found a beautiful website. I was first attracted to the beautiful photographs. I have a debilitating weakness for scenes of Tuscany and am a sucker for weddings and a well set table. So I was browsing through, and lo and behold, in addition to the typical setup of a website for accommodations in Tuscany with all the myriad of options, they have recipes.

I must admit, it is a small selection of recipes, but the quality so far has been superb. I have a strong leaning towards simple dishes that use a minimum of fresh, high quality ingredients where the flavors of each come through. The recipes, though limited in number, are ideally suited for this. I have been on a tiramisu quest since moving here. Having an Italian friend growing up whose mother did all the old-school type of cooking, including homemade pasta, spoiled me immensely and made me a critic at the age of 12. But I found my tiramisu. One point they emphasize that can not be overlooked is that the coffee must be strong. I love, love, love this.

I am shaking with anticipation at them adding more meat recipes, my canines can never get enough exercise and the quality of meat that you can buy in Tuscany is amazing. The tips listed for cooking Bistecca are spot-on, especially the “turn the steak on the fire only once”, if I can add to this NEVER press down on your meat while cooking, just those two tips will make a huge difference in the juiciness of your steak.

The only part of Tuscan cuisine that I don’t absolutely love is the vegetable preparation. My California roots favor minimal cooking for vegetables, preferably lightly baked or sautéed in olive oil, so the boiled vegetable thing just does not work for me (sorry Mom). The two vegetable recipes they had for veggies, surprisingly to me, actually suited me. I love cannellini beans; they have a comfort food quality to me that is similar to potatoes or polenta, and of course adding olive oil and tomatoes makes for a tasty combination. But OMG the fennel gratin, fennel is served regularly here, both in restaurants and at home, but this was by far, the best I have ever tasted it, absolutely perfect.
Do make sure to use unsalted butter and enjoy, I could have made a meal of just this.

Use the link or at the bottom of the homepage there was a link, the recipes aren’t the focus of the site and it was only by luck that I stumbled upon it. Live vicariously through those gorgeous photos too, even Tuscany doesn’t look like that at this time of year.

www.tuscandream.com/recipes.