For breakfast, I go to the street market and buy some fresh alpine strawberries (and some bananas). The strawberries are amazing. They'll be a daily treat.
I have pesto at a bar for lunch with homemade tagliatelle. Fabulous. They seem to use more basil and less olive oil than I would have expected and if there are nuts in there, I'm not tasting them.
For dinner, I go to Pappagallo, a very old and famous restaurant. I was surrounded by pictures of long dead opera stars on the wall who'd eaten there. Need I say more? I have their classic green lasagna which is elegant but simple. It consists of layers of green pasta, a simple ground beef ragu, very similar to the Marcella Hazen Cardinal's ragu but not as much cinnamon, some bechamel that's really good (must be the cream) and then fabulous parmesan, which they come and scrape over the lasagna as well. The waiters at this place have straight spines and grate cheese with an elegance that's hard to describe.
For the main course (that's right a lasagna appetizer - hey, I'm in Bologna), I have a grilled pork chop wrapped in filo dough and tied with a bow. It sits in the center of the plate and to the north, south, east, and west lie dollops of spinach gnocchi. (I resist the urge to quote Auden here.) Drizzled in a spiral pattern on the edge of the plate is the classic port reduction. Nothing fancy here. No foam. Same food they've cooked at this location for more than a hundred years. It took a lot of will power not to lick the reduction after I'd finished off the pork chop. By the way, the chop was thin, pink, and firm. Perfecto!
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