Today is my birthday (32) which has become one of the many yearly excuses to get slightly better food than we would otherwise. Dinner will be more in the way of the full deal (bistecca fiorentina, ravioli di zucca, chianti classico, other tasty stuff) but for lunch we got figs (which Lauren adores) and some things to go with them. We had been thinking of goat cheese, something on the softer/fresher line, but the goat lady who occasionally shows up at San Ambrogio wasn't there so we asked our normal cheese/olive/everything-not-vegetable folks what cheese they thought would be best with figs. To our surprise the answer turns out to be salami toscano (or finocchiona, or some of the other many kinds of salami). We got some relatively fresh pecorino anyway, since we already had finocchiona that we picked up from the
Dario Cecchini macelleria during the vino al vino festival in Panzano a few days ago. We had the three of those with some wild flower honey and hazelnuts that have been sitting around waiting for a good excuse. Now, wildflower honey sounds like about the most boring honey available, and in the states it is only second to clover honey in that regard, but essentially all the honey in Italy is more flavorful and interesting than that which is available back home and this one went especially well with the cheese. The slight bitterness of the honey was just right for the faint sheepy funk from the pecorino. I have no idea why honey is more interesting here, so if you know please tell me. Because one should always have mimosas when (insert occasion here) (and because we visited Treviso a couple of months ago) we topped off lunch with a bottle of La Gioiosa Prosecco DOC Treviso (€4.60) and fresh squeezed orange juice. For the record a €5 bottle of prosecco, while not especially competing with €30 bottles of champagne, is actually a thing of some quality, as opposed to almost anything one might find in the states for much under $18.
