Un bambino del cibo

Salmon tartar. It's like a sashimi cake. And yes, I realize the picture above is steak tartar...

Salivation, French food is thy name. During our trip, we found the most amazing restaurant ever, thanks again to NYTimes travel section. Bistrot Victoires is fantastic, and has a very down to earth, every-day arrondissement-ers feel. There were French families and couples there eating. It was so fantastic that we went back a second night. Some of the others got this steak that had flaming thyme on top of it. My salmon tartar was insane... I've had tartar before, but never in a lump. Usually I've seen it in slices. For the arabs in the bunch, it was like Kibbey Neyeh, only made with salmon. Mom, you have to try to make that for Pascha this year.

I also have to confess, I caved again. I had duck. You can't go to Paris and NOT have Confit de Canard!  It was fantastic. Cooked so well it fell off the bone. Don't worry though. I used the prayer my Mosu taught me: "Dear Lord, grant me this wish. Turn this duck into a fish." I like to think he heard me.

It's also been a crazy couple of days here in Firenze. Jamie and I decided to try our hand at deep frying. We made Fiore di Zucche, or zucchini flowers. AMAZING. If you've never had zucchini flowers before, you need to go out right now and eat them. I don't even know how to begin to explain what they're like. I mean, they're flowers, but they're very vegetably? We also fried eggplant and zucchini sticks.

Which brings us to this morning. Jamie and I went to a cooking class on campus. The guy leading the session kept calling me "chef Matteo", so that was fun. And I learned that whenever you're making the base for a sauce, using white wine will clean the bottom of the pan (of burnt bits of pancetta and onion for example). Eggplant parm was also on the menu. The secret is to sprinkle the eggplant slices with salt and let them set for 2 hours before frying them. It gets all the extra water out of them. But what the people didn't do today, was adjust the rest of the recipe for the extra salt. YOU DON'T NEED ANY MORE SALT AFTER THE EGGPLANT! MY KIDNEYS ARE GOING INTO FAILURE! But still, it was delicious.

Ciao Bella!

"Chef Matteo" Yazge