POST-TARA

Friday
I got a chance to catch up with David, Anna, Jack, and Mom. Awesome day for conversation. I grabbed a falafel and moussaka sandwich and then went to the bar for my friend/bartender Mateo’s birthday party. When I got back home, it was the Aussie farewell party. As a thank you, they generously got us a big bag full of alcohol. Bottles of Jaeger, Absolut, spumante, wine, etc. After a few decidedly difficult drunk games of gin rummy, we all settled into the couches and watched American Psycho.

Saturday
I woke up to Sal making vanilla tea and Jesse saying “If I give you cous cous and vegetables, could you make them for me?” Sure. From her pantry I took some cous cous, zucchini, onions, potatoes, carrots, curries, cumin, and cinnamon. From my own, I added some extra virgin olive oil, celery, tomatoes, butter, red and white peppers, parsley, and sultantina raisins. It came out pretty well. The aromas during the cooking gave Jesse a foodgasm and literally brought tears to her eyes. In a good way. That night, since she and Gerard cleaned the kitchen and a lot of people were out of town, they Tom, and I made family dinner with the special theme ingredient of PANCETTA, the Italian version of bacon. It was incorporated into every dish. Jesse made cheeseburgers, Gerard a spicy ginger chicken stirfry with Asian-seasoned rice, Tom a diced vegetable pasta, and I some Parmesan and garlic smashed potatoes. A few bottles of wine and a nice long leisurely meal by shot-glass-candlelight. We all went to get gelato after for dessert and were just too full to go out and drink after.

Sunday
I don’t remember anything except for Mass and a lengthy hibernation as a result of the pancetta-fest. Oh and everyone else came home.

Monday
Chocolate class was about using cocoa as an ingredient for savory dishes, so through the wonders of molecular gastronomy, we made an olive oil ravioli, both regular and cacao pastas, grana padano sauce, and crushed cacao nibs. That night I went to the gym with Lisa and Adrian, and from the treadmill watched The Cardio Queen and Barbell Fanatic.

Tuesday
Mediterranean class was all about cous cous and lemon tart. Diedre and Sal had missed the tart in the vegetarian class the first day, so Adrian and I saved them each one. As well as some cous cous. Sal commented that it was “delicious, but the ones you always make Jesse are better.” That made me feel great. In vegetarian class, the vegetable of the day was bell peppers, so we made rolls of them and stuffed ones.

Wine-Wednesday
Cosimo took us up to his studio for our fashion photography class. We just played around a little with the professional equipment and shot some portraits of each other. He made us a pesto pasta for lunch and opened a few bottles of wine. Then Massimo cancelled our pairing food and wine class so we could go to a wine-tasting with the current boss of the Fiore wine family. Their wine is awesome and they even sell two types exclusively to Florence’s premiere, three-star Michelin restaurant. Then when I got home, my roommates convinced me to crash the aperitivo they were going to at Gabriela’s. Obviously there was lots of wine there. I was relieved when she greeted me with “Ciao caro! Dov’e tu fratello?” rather than “What the hell are you doing here?” It was an awesome, awesome night. Afterwards, a few of us went clubhopping but the numbers dwindled down until Diedre and I closed down the last club. When I got home, Tom, Gerard, and Jesse were still awake due to the aftermath of people being wasted and a certain someone almost setting the kitchen on fire twice. So we watched Requiem For A Dream and then all went to bed.

Thursday
Naturally the morning was slept away. Lampredotto. Coffee. Chilling. We went to the second anniversary aperitivo party for our favorite bar. Alex and I left the apartment a lot earlier since we were starving. We probably ate half of the huge pork roast at the aperitivo before the rest of the gang got there. Eventually, he, Lisa, Adam, and I left early to go get gelato. The house was quiet since almost everyone went to Rome for the weekend, for various reasons. I played Rummy500 with Tom, and we finished just in time for him to leave for his trip to Amsterdam. Aeri was still awake, so we watched American Psycho since she had missed the screening the other night.

Friday
I spent the afternoon at the wine bar getting wine and internet. Since Kyle and Aeri were coming to pick me up, I ordered a café latte to perk up. That miraculously turned into a coffee spiked with Bailey’s and whiskey. (I’m looking at you, Christian.) When we were about to leave, Christian jump-started Kyle’s birthday celebration with shots of limoncino. Aeri, Kyle, and I hit up aperitivo and gelato and a random church organ music fundraiser and went barhopping and celebrated Kyle’s birthday at midnight, as he wanted, by dancing. We met up with Johnson in Piazza della Repulica then killed some time at his place with him and some of his friends.

holler back

Let’s pick up as if I never stopped writing due to a lack of Internet. All the gaps will fill themselves in sometime. Since I just introduced all my roommates on our arrival, I’ll just begin with them leaving for break.

Here’s a picture of my roommates that I wish I had been around for. Adrian and I had already left to go drinking out, but we all wound up at the same club. Anyway, I figure I have enough pictures of The Super Marin Bros. Marlene is missing too, but she hadn’t moved in yet.

Front row, from left to right: Tanjila, Vanessa, Tom
Standing, from left to right: Aerie, Kyle, Diedre, Jesse, Lisa, Sal, Gerard

This picture is almost two months old, so everyone looks slightly different now.

Wednesday
My exams ended. I turned in my fashion photography “legs” assignment. See a picture below. Then I went to my wine tasting final. Wednesday night pretty much everyone took it easy and opted for a rest and relaxation night instead of a party hard night. Jesse and Sal both left that night for break. Jesse’s visiting Chad in London, who visited by the way. [We spent the 24 hours he was here drinking and dining. And luckily (?) for us, there was no casino with blackjack anywhere in site. And of course, everyone loved him, particularly Tanjila and Diedre.] When he heard she was couch-surfing a random stranger’s couch, he suggested he be the stranger so it would be a little less random. Kyle, Tom, Gerard, and I went for a walk just to get some fresh air. And then we just hung out in Kyle’s room with Tanjila, Aeri, and Diedre.

Thursday
I don’t know remember what I did all day. Tom, Gerard, and I started a game of Rummy500 in the afternoon. (Half of us roommates play it. A lot. Everyday.) Neely, who came to be with Adrian during break, Adrian, Gerard, and I went to a bar for aperitivo. We got back here and Adrian and I popped off some bottles of spumante (Italy’s version of champagne) we had bought off to celebrate midterms and break. Eventually, Aeri, Diedre, Marlene, Tanjila, her visiting friends, Gerard, Kyle and I went my favorite bar (now everyone’s favorite bar) in my old Santa Croce neighborhood. Or Santa’s Crotch, as some of us have nicknamed it. Of course, Sergio and the regular crowd were there. Molly, a friend of ours from class who lives in an all-girl building on my old street Ghibellina, was out too. Her birthday is coming up and we need to celebrate it in a fashion reminiscent of Nick’s and Vanessa’s (from class) birthdays, which were honestly kind of shit shows, in a good way. Eventually we all went to a dance club and then worked our way back home. A bunch of us were still awake, so Tom, Gerard, and I finished the game of Rummy. (We always play at the dining table in the middle of the living room, and non-players tend to sit on the couches L-shaped around the table.) We ended just in time for Tom to catch an hour or two of sleep before his flight in the morning.

Friday
Vanessa, Lisa, and Tom left for their break adventure together. It’s possibly Tom will end himself or the other two before their return. Gerard, Kyle, Tanjila, and I have all bet on the probabilities already. Adrian left, with Neely of course. What else? Aeri went to Rome to fetch her mother but came back the next day. Marlene, Gerard, and I – mostly Marlene – made the kitchen the cleanest it’s been since we got here. I met Gerard’s visiting parents. They went to the same Mexican aperitivo at Sei Divino that Kyle and I went to. He and I got back here in time to meet up with Diedre, Marlene, her “conversation buddy” Simon, his nameless friend, and Alex. We taught the two Italians how play Up-The-River-Down-The-River and Kings (the two house drinking games) and then went to the Festival of Creativity. Or Whatever. On the way back, sans Italians, Marlene and Alex, we stopped at our neighborhood enoteca (aka a wine bar… that has become our other hangout besides my old bar) to get a round of drinks and finish off the night. I accidentally got drunk because when I ordered tequila shots for the table, Christian generously poured the rest of a bottle into my mouth and opened a new one for the table. We talked about ethnic heritage for some reason. Kyle freaked out when he realized he was the only white person. We got back here, and I made drunk food for everyone. Farfalle with a simple sauce of garlic, shallots, white wine, and truffle extra virgin olive oil. We borrowed Tom’s laptop to play music to listen to. Kyle and I had a sleepover in my room because we were jealous (?) that Diedre and Marlene, and Tanjila and her visitors were having sleepovers. Drunk logic.

Saturday
Diedre and Marlene left. I woke up and went to the bathroom, where I found Pablo sitting on the closed toilet with a note “Dear Andrew, please take care of me. XOXO.” Pablo is Marlene’s stuffed animal, an ear-muffed penguin with shut-happy eyes. I put him in between the beds Kyle and I were on but didn’t fall asleep again. I finished reading Invisible Monsters, another thing Marlene had entrusted to my care. It was crazy and outlandish and freaky-deaky but all in a good way. It’s by the author of Fight Club, and its protagonist is a supermodel who gets half her face blown off. It has great twists and turns, some of which you see coming, some of which you never would, and some of those what-a-surprise-but-looking-back-it-should-have-been-so-obvious-but-it’s-crazy-enough-not-to-be.

Anyway, apparently we all slept through a cleaning lady coming (?!) who cleaned the floors. And she also cleaned our balcony’s ashtray, and by ashtray, I mean the rain gutter enwrapping our balcony.

Tanjila and her friends went out for the day, so Kyle showed me a museum with an exhibit he really liked that closed that day. He stayed to watch a film and sketch, so I picked up my jacket from the wine bar, where I had forgotten it on Friday. I went to the grocery and made myself boar pappardelle since the kitchen was clean. Kyle had fallen asleep, and the house was empty. I started to read Haunted but took a nap. When I woke up he was awake, and the girls were home, and Gerard and Aeri were both back. Gerard and I played a quick game of 500. Tanji’s visitors went to bed so roommate bonding among Aeri, Tanji, Gerard, Kyle, and me ensued. Music and dark chocolate (71%) Perugina sfoglie all around. Everyone loved how thin the slices were. Kyle suggested we put them atop these crackers he had. Amazing.

Tanjila: “You should make a movie, like Harold and Kumar.”
Kyle: “Kyle and Andrew Go to Kebab? It would be like three minutes long.”

Although now that I think about it, Tanjila and Aeri get kebabs way more often than we do. They keep our neighborhood kebab guy in business since the rest of us have gotten over our first-week dependency on him.

Sunday
Tanjila and friends left. Aeri and Gerard spent the day with her mom and his parents, respectively, and leave with each Monday and Wednesday, respectively. I spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine and walking around the city then met up with Nick for mass. I planned on roasting a chicken when I got back here, but seeing as how both Kyle and Gerard had already eaten and I was impatient, I ended up out for dinner. After months of eyeing it, I finally sat down at Rossini, the Michelin-starred restaurant on the river. The manager, who was accommodating a party of 30 Japanese businessmen and women and a table of Russians with finicky women, seemed relieved to find out I only wanted a light dinner and not a six-course tasting menu. He kept the Chianti Classico, an awesome pairing for the meal, coming. Acqua naturale, of course, and three kinds of bread so fresh they were warm. The primo piatto was homemade pappardelle with tomato, chunks of meat, and “salty ricotta” garnished with a little arugula. Words can’t do it justice. The secondo was roast pork flavored with thyme, chicory, and balsamic vinegar over steamed zucchini, eggplant, mushroom, and peppers. Pork is almost always my last choice when it comes to protein, but this was extremely delicious... perfectly moist and right in the balance of leanness and fattiness. I also got treated to a dessert that wasn’t on the menu, a coffee-flavored semifreddo with a hint of cinnamon and topped with blue, rasp-, juniper, and straw berries all whittled to the same size. If you wash all that down with some Italian coffee, you’ve got the best meal I’ve had in Florence this season. When I got home, Kyle was procrastinating and Aeri had just gotten back from chilling with her mother, so I popped open a bottle of spumante to try Adrian’s suggestion of an “Ognissantini.” It’s like a bellini or a mimosa but instead of putting peach nectar or orange juice with the sparkling wine, you put ACE juice. It was a success. We all enjoyed them. Nick came over to discuss possible travel plans. We’ll see.

Monday/Today
Aeri left this morning.
And then there were three.
Gerard will leave on Wednesday.
The Asylum will be empty.