The glory of cinghale

Aaaaaahhhhhhmmmmrrrrrmmmmm. That's all I can say about the continual poop that wants to land in the proverbial cornflakes of my time here. (Yessir, I am a master wordsmith) But, it's still amazing, and I refuse to let the little things get me down.


More specifically, my camera was stolen last night. Luckily, I upload all of my pictures nightly, so there wasn't much on there, but a few of the pics would have been really nice to have. One of wonderful roomates has offered me copies of her pictures from yesterday, so I will get those before I leave.


We were on our way back from dinner out at Buca di Bacco (Baccus' Basement) when we found a little Italian band playing out in the street by the Duomo (the cathedral) and thought it was too awesome to pass up, especially since they were playing old American songs. It was so great! People of every age were dancing together on the cobblestone streets, drinking beers and generally enjoying the frivolity. Some old Italian man (l'uomo vecchia) grabbed Michele's hand and started dancing... the guy had slick moves! We later found out that he was the Mayor of Orvieto! We all started dancing (his wife and a couple of her friends were there as well) and having a great time. It was really funny to hear the Italian version of some classic songs- the guy didn't know great English, so some of the words were just... what English sounds like to a non speaker, and it was hilarious! Sometime during the Twist, I realized my camera wasn't in my hand bag. I looked on the table- gone. Asked the bartenders, all the people inside, and everyone around, and no one had seen it. Double checked everywhere.


At that point, I had to walk away and get a grip on myself. I called my Father, and he was able to calm me down. When I returned, my roomies had been searching (this is when we found out our dance partner was the Mayor, whose son was also the lead singer of the band), his wife had been watching our table for us, and even she said the person must have been super fast, as she would only have looked away for a second. Everyone was super cool about it- the band even announced it over the microphone and had everyone look for it, alas, it was long gone. I thanked everyone profusely for their help, and decided that I couldn't let material loss get in the way of having a great time.


Anyhoo, the following pictures are off of my Blackberry (I have no idea how I would continue living without this thing right now!!!) which has a flash, zoom, and actually takes really damn good pictures.


Our landlord gave us these this morning when we came downstairs (I think she's Austrian or German, she speaks good Italian, and damn fine English), for Easter. It's some kind of fruit flavored (ie: fruit liquor flavored), cream filled marzipan treat, and it was really sweet of her. These were far, far too sweet to eat a whole one!! 1/8th and I've had my sugar fix for the day!


The sad part about losing my camera was losing the pictures I had of a pastry chef demonstrating how to make these chocolate eggs- it's really interesting! They're hollow, usually with a treat or toy inside for delle bambini. (the kids)

Roomie Michele and I decided we wanted pizza for lunch, so opted out of the group luch at the Zeppelin, also because the restaurant was fully booked and we felt a bit like the servers (who are great) were overburdened as it was. And our pizza was... well...

Above is the leg of wild boar (cinghale) proscuitto that sits on a little stand in the center of the dining room at Pizzaria Charlie. The server uses the long, thin carving knife to hand shave paper thin slices from the leg.

And here's our cinghale selection antipasti. In front is cinghale soprasetta, back right is cinghale salumi, back left is the aforementioned procuitto. And all of it was nothing short of spectacular.

Ah, a bit of a story behind all the cinghale (I think I've eaten at least a little boar every day that I've been here), wild boar are in abundance in the outlying (not on the plateau) sections of Orvieto. At some time in the past few centuries, they cross bred with the deomestic pigs, so the Orvieto boars are larger than normal boars.

They cause the farmers no end of problems, rooting out gardens, eating smaller livestock, and absolutely destroy vehicles and cause tramatic accidents when you hit them with a Fiat. The residents despise them... so eat them at every opportunity. Every norcieria (cured meat shop) in town has at least 5 varieties of boar salumi/sausage/procuitto, and the meat is sold cheaply in the grocery stores.

Let me just tell you, I want to take up boar hunting as a hobby when I get back. They may quite possibly be the tastiest animal I have ever eaten, and I really, really will be depressed when it's not completly available and cheap.

Then we had this beautiful pizza with heirloom tomatoes and awesome basil. This place has bar none the best pizza I have ever had in my life.

This pizza had sausage, speck (a style of bacon) and truffles. Yeah, that's right, truffles are cheap, and on everything here. This was pizza nirvana.

I also love how the restaurants only have wine by the bottle... and it's pretty cheap. You can get a great local vino for 8-9 euro in a restaurant, 4-6 in the store. The wine shop next to the Zeppelin is great, the little old lady there recognizes my roomates and I (we're the likable ones) and gives me a hug when I walk in the door, then scurries around undoing her careful arrangement of bottles to excitedly show me new wines.

The rest of today I spent doing homework, as most stuff was closed for Easter, it was nice to have a slow day. Dinner was at the restaurant, nothing super fancy, but also delicious.

Tomorrow, (after I have chef call to double check the existance of my bag) I am taking a train into Rome to try to collect my baggage. Chef gave me special permission to stay in Rome an extra hour or two- I'm already known as the responsible one who translates for everyone (D'oh!!). But, wish me luck!!

Buena notte!