Il Cantinone

I've been a bit frustrated at school this week because all we've been doing in grammar class is a review of some simple past tenses that we had already gone over one month ago. Perhaps that explains my behaviour during conversation class. We were talking about the school system in each of our respective countries and somehow I went on to rant about how spoiled children are these days and when I have children of my own one day, I will likely follow most of the decisions my mom made for me, i.e. importance of good grades, discipline, respect, etc. (For more of what she has instilled on me, I direct you to what I wrote on her 60th birthday.) My teacher proceeded to call me a nonna (grandmother), severe, and said how strange it was that a twentysomething year-old Canadian would hold these strict values. A quick description of what a traditional Chinese mother is made her realize where I'm coming from.

Hours later, I had dinner with Posh, K-Bravo, and a few friends of his at Il Cantinone, a restaurant in the Santo Spirito area of Oltrarno (still in Florence but on the opposite bank of the river). One of our classmate's friends is a chef (originally from Japan) there and so as a pre-advisory, I was informed that we would have unlimited wine. This didn't make a difference to me because I am not the type to exceed more than 2-3 glasses. I can't say the same for the guys.

Within the first ten minutes I witnessed a job interview between the Calabrese owners (or friends of owners) of the restaurant and T, who had come to Pienza with us on Sunday. He was a chef in Japan for an Italian restaurant and was looking for some work while here. Thanks to these connections he was offered a job in Calabria on the spot--I instantly remarked how he should take me with him since I've heard that Calabria is beautiful. He's taking his time to decide if he's going to accept the offer since his knowledge of Italian is still minimal.

Our dinner was carefree because the chef decided our menu for us. We started off with a huge plate of antipasti (salumi, pickled veggies, cheese), and then slowly continued on to spaghetti con aglio, peperoncino, e pomodoro (spaghetti with garlic, chilli peppers, and tomato sauce), and tagliatti di manzo con rucola e grana (sliced beef with arugula and strips of parmesan cheese). Everything was delicious but I couldn't help but feel for the chef--half of the waiters were on vacation and so were some of the other chefs, so he was the only one cooking the whole night in a restaurant full of tourists and locals!

We were stuffed, the guys were lightly drunk, and yet I was hoping we would have some kind of dessert. I was eyeing the cheesecake since we entered and luckily we each got a small piece of it and another chocolate cake. After dessert we had espresso and by the end of the night our bill came to 25€ each--much more reasonable than Trattoria Omero in Pian dei Giullari!

At one point during dinner, the same Calabrese guys who held the job interview started hitting on Posh, and later on they bought both her and I a rose, making it the second rose I've ever received in Italy after the one Giuseppe gave me in Siracusa two years ago (not that I'm keeping track or anything).

In case you're wondering, we finished dinner at an early 11:45pm.

Today's word of the day is the suffix -one, meaning "big". A perfect example would be the name of tonight's restaurant, which comes from cantina (wine cellar) and -one, making it Il Cantinone ("The Big Wine Cellar").