And these routines were certainly thwarted during our time in Italy.
One of the main reasons was because restaurants don't even open for dinner service until 8 pm, which is generally when we're getting Cass into bed, or, rather, he's normally all done and in his bedroom by himself by 8 pm. Dinner, bath, book time, teeth-brushing, and all night-nights are said before 8.
So we adjusted.
During the conference we had multiple coffee breaks each day, and many were supplied also with fresh pastries of various kinds. The coffee was always in supply, and was always espresso, a tiny shot of black sludge spit out of a Keurig-like machine, one shot at a time.
It started to grow on me, but I still prefer a larger amount of hot liquid. I joked to myself that the reason we took so many breaks was because of the portions:
On one day, since we started late and had to push back the start time for lunch, the start time for the post-lunch activity, a walking tour of the surrounding San Lorenzo neighborhood, was also pushed back. The need for a two-and-a-half hour lunch was paramount.
During the break I went to get groceries for dinner, since after the walking tour I was going to head home, make dinner for the fam, change my clothes, and leave for my own dinner, the Social Dinner, which started at 8. Or, let's say, mustered at 8 and began thereafter.
That dinner itself was at an establishment that, when pointed out to us as the second stop on the walking tour---so we knew where it was---during the day, was shuttered with the normal style of metal faced shutters familiar to bug city folks, and the shutters themselves were covered in graffiti. (Just about every surface is covered in graffiti in Rome.)
When the place was open at night, the inside was so beautiful and quaint. We took up the majority of the seats, and sat at tables designed as six-tops. That way we got to know the people we were communing with, or got to eat with friends from past events, as many of these people have been coming for years.
One of the gentlemen I sat next to was a professor from Iowa. he read on the first day. He mentioned to me that he hoped he wouldn't have to choose off a menu. I mentioned that my experience in the restaurant industry lead me to believe that we wouldn't be seeing any menus.
The wine came first, in carafes, along with bottled water, both fizzy and still. The table wine was red and very good. Then came the cured meat spread and then cheese spread. There was one type of salami that was the best salami I've ever had in all my forty years.
Next was the crostini plate, each with three enormous pieces of toasted bread. One piece had a compound butter with honey and roasted; another had a flattened sausage patty (exquisite); and the third had a roasted medley of zucchini and summer squash that had been dosed with saffron.
At some point a plate with sauteed greens came, and then another with some kind of half-roasted/half-mashed seasoned potatoes.
The meat dish finally came: each table was given an olive shaped urn with handles the size of a soccer ball with about 70 sticks of tiny sizzling lamb bits. I easily mowed through five sticks, then slowed down for another two before realizing that by then even our table had not even made a dent in the number of meat sticks still available.
The tiramisu was good and the cheesecake was totally different from the cheesecake we make here. Their cheesecake was more of an icebox cake, like tiramisu, than the custard pie we make.
I turned down the espresso. The meat urn didn't hit the table until almost 10. It was glorious.
It was all so glorious.
I love the Italian attitude to eating. I'm trying to figure out how to make it work for us and our own situation.
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