travel | Rick Bailey

Panforte: Best Served in Slab Form

January 7, 2020 by Rick Bailey

While we’re in Italy, Tizi accumulates treasures. Mainly chocolate. Over time we’ve put providers on our maps, in Rome, Florence, Siena, Venice. When we’re hanging out in San Marino and Pesaro, which is usually the case, her go-to place is Cioccolatteria & Confetteria Talmone. Now we have a new place, in nearby Fano. But…, but… We time our visits so we can be in Santarcangelo di Romagna for the feast of Saint Martin, aka festa di San Martino. It’s a […]

Categories: Eating, travel • Tags: chocolate, cioccolata, Dessert, panforte, Pesaro, San Marino, santarcangelo di romagna, toscana, tuscany

At Delinda, Serious Joys

December 1, 2019 by Rick Bailey

Full disclosure. These are our relatives. My relatives by marriage, and how lucky I was, am, and will always be. (When Tizi’s cousin Pierpaolo shakes my hand and says, Come va, cugino? How goes it, cousin? I sort of pinch myself. How did this happen?)

Categories: Eating, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: Marecchia valley, Rimini, romagna, San Marino, tagliatelle

Da Gustin

November 29, 2019 by Rick Bailey

Today, on Thanksgiving Day, we went to Bargni. I wouldn’t blame you if you said, “You went where?” It’s not the kind of place, you go back to the States and say, Hey, when we were in Italy we went to Bargni. Remote location. A small town on a hill west of Serrungarina. Twice this month on the state highway we’ve driven past the exit for Serrungarina, on our way to Acqualagna, on our way to Fossombrone. This is hilly […]

Categories: Eating, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: Bargni, da Gustin, Le Marches, porcini, truffle

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Intermittent Feasting

November 27, 2019 by Rick Bailey

Fat rats. Research focused on them suggests there may be something to intermittent fasting. So says Monique Tello in Harvard Medical Publishing. Good, I think. Because this morning I feel like a fat rat. My wife and I are in our fifth and final week in Italy. Around this time in our stay, a kind of desperation sets in. Can we eat enough before we go home? Yesterday at lunch, after our first course–she had the ravioli, I had the […]

Categories: Eating, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: cinghiale, fave, formaggio di fossa, Osteria Io e Simone, Rimini, romagna, tagliatelle, Tartufo

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Probably Not the Beef

November 24, 2019 by Rick Bailey

So you’re standing outside a restaurant in Italy. Its PR machine has been humming for months, no, make that years. The restaurant has been featured on Chef’s Table, in Food and Wine, who knows where else. You’re standing outside enjoying a glass of their Tuscan wine, actually a third or fourth glass. It’s a small glass, of a light swill, and it’s free! While you wait for the starting gun at 1:00 p.m. you enjoy crostini with lard, crostini with […]

Categories: Eating, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: Antica Macelleria, Beef, Cantinetta di Rignana, Cecchini, Greve, Panzano, Steak, tuscany

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Required Eating

November 21, 2019 by Rick Bailey

I remember a distinction professors made on their course reading lists: required reading vs suggested reading. Put Gennaro down as required eating. That’s Da Genarro. It’s on a hillside high above the Adriatic, on a two lane road called “la panoramica,” through a national park called San Bartolo. I wouldn’t say the restaurant is in a village. It’s not a village so much as a brief deviation. If you don’t deviate, you’ll miss it. And trust me: you do not […]

Categories: Eating, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: da Gennaro, Pesaro, Pesce, San Bartolo, seafood

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Into the Mix

November 20, 2019 by Rick Bailey

One of the delights in eating in Romagna (and I hazard to guess all over Italy) is the “misto.” The mix. Where I come from, eating fish you usually get one thing. Your appetizer is one thing–a tartar, half a dozen oysters, a bowl of mussels. And your main course is usually one thing–fillet of whitefish, fillets of perch, a chunk of salmon or tuna or swordfish, some crab legs or a lobster tail. Want to taste something besides what’s […]

Categories: Eating, Essay, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: La Marianna, Pesce, Rimini, romagna, San Marino

But Why Florida?

November 18, 2019 by Rick Bailey

I read on a Kindle in bed at night. Lately I have not lasted very long. I wake up early, at 4:00 a.m., rested and eager to await and face the day. Through the morning and afternoon we walk a lot, in weather that has been partly cold and occasionally rainy. At lunch the wine pours have been generous. By evening, approaching 10:00 p.m., it stands to reason that I’m running on empty. A page or two into whatever I’m […]

Categories: Essay, travel • Tags: global warmng, venice

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Romagna Food Notes, Part IV

November 15, 2019 by Rick Bailey

This post is not exactly Romagna food notes. Tizi’s family on her mother’s side is from le Marches, a contiguous region known for white truffles. There are truffles in Romagna, too, any Romagnolo will tell you. We’ve been to eat, for example, in Sant’Agata in Feltria, which, as far as I can tell, is a truffle capital in Romagna. Truffles are on the menu in all restaurants we like around here. But we save ourselves for days like yesterday. Because […]

Categories: Eating, Essay, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: acqualagna, Lampino, Le Marches, porcini, ravioli, romagna, tagliatelle, Tartufo

Don’t Want No Ugly Jesus

November 14, 2019 by Rick Bailey

So Tizi has it in for Burt Bacharach. We’re driving down to Rimini this morning, where we’ll visit the Grand Hotel, have some lunch, then go to the newly restored Fulgor movie theater to buy tickets to see the newly restored version of Fellini’s “Amarcord.” And we’re going to stock up on Jesuses at the Catholic shop today. At the moment we’re sitting at one of the many stop lights between San Marino and Rimini. I tell her I have […]

Categories: Essay, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: Grand Hotel, music, Rimini, San Marino, Semprini

Romagna Food Notes, Part III

November 12, 2019 by Rick Bailey

“This chicken has barbecue sauce on it,” I say to my wife. We’re eating take-out for lunch, a few chicken legs, roasted potatoes, some bietole, and grilled zucchini. All this for 20 euro from a place in Santarcangelo. I also picked up a bottle of Sangiovese for 5 euro from a street vendor. This weekend is Festa di San Martino. The whole town is an outdoor market. I love this place.

Categories: Eating, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: Osteria Montecavallo, polenta, Rimini, romagna, Rosticceria, Sangiovese, Scondita

Romagna Food Notes, Part II

November 10, 2019 by Rick Bailey

Where I come from, the wine I drink comes from somewhere else. Around here, the wine they drink comes from around here. Vineyards everywhere. Wine production is local, in small batches and large batches, quaffing wine, slurping wine, sipping wine, wines that go with your food just right, wines you want to contemplate and appreciate and gently guzzle. Local legend has it that the Sangiovese wine (meaning “blood of Jove”) got its name from some monks in Santarcangelo di Romagna. […]

Categories: Eating, Life in Italy, travel • Tags: cappellacci, Osteria Io e Simone, passatore, Rimini, Sangiovese, santarcangelo, tagliatelle al coniglio