Last Sunday we were invited to Casa Linden for one of those great, Italian lunches,where, after 4-5 hours of eating and drinking one just wants to have a nap on a sofa somewhere, so it’s time to go home. Courtney and Daniel prepared a selection of delicious things to start with and then we all made our own pizzas, which were then baked in the oven on the terrace. The kids had a blast, fun and creative way to get them involved.

Molly made an appearance with her brand new short haircut, away went the wig, she looked radiant and healthy, but continues on a strict diet, so with Courtney they had a pumpkin soup with wonderful fresh eggs, of which we also got a few.

Later in the evening I started a new WhatsApp group for us, Boaratis and Svedesi, we had such a good time together. Next time we’ll repeat this here, Izzie’s birthday will be an excellent excuse to have them all around.

Last week we were mostly child free, as The Child was enjoying some skiing up in Sestola, school trip. I had made some plans well ahead and thought it would be great to finally go and see Modena, a bit more than 2 hours drive. We invited The Swedes along and ended up having a great day out together. The Swedes are always a good bet when it comes to company; they eat, they drink, they’re great to talk to and are severely allergic to any sort of bullshit, one of the reasons we get along well.

So we drove to Modena, parked the car and walked up to Piazza Duomo, past Bar Pavarotti, took a few moments to enjoy the views and went to Mercato Albinelli, following the footsteps of Robert Maklowicz, it was lunch time afterall.

We had a delicious lunch of some smoked fish- never before had smoked tuna or smoked swordfish before, both were fantastic. After that fish based secondi, nicely watered down with some Lambrusco ( when in Emilia Romagna……).

Next stop was Azienda Agricola Moscattini, which I had booked a couple of weeks in advance. We wanted to see one of many places where parmigiano reggiano is being made. And we ended up having a private tour, just the 4 of us and lovely Alessia. We were shown the process of cheese making, cheese storing and then sat down to cheese tasting; we were given parmigiano of 12,24,36 and 50 months old, some cured meats, honey, local bread and a bottle of Lambrusco. We ended up bringing home a piece of 50 month old parmigiano and some honey, among other treats.

The plan is to make this sort of trips more frequent together, hopefully we can make this happen. 🙂