I just got back from Italy and boy did I have some awesome food. I spent about 5 days in Florence and Tuscany and then headed to the Amalfi Coast. I have tons of pictures that I need to upload of the various foods and wines we tried during our travels. We ended up only bringing about 6 bottles of olive oil, 4 bottles of red wine and a few bottles of limoncello from Sorrento, Italy. And, I think my boyfriend purchased every single spice in Italy!

In Florence the most common dish that the Florentines seem extremely proud of is Florentine Steak....it was on every menu. It's funny because I wouldn't think of beef being the main dish in that area, but in almost every restaurant we visited, we were surrounded by Italians eating Florentine steak. And, my girlfriend who lives in Florence encouraged us to try it. It's cooked very rare, but it was indeed good.

I consider myself to be someone who is focused on high quality foods and what I do decide to eat...but why does the food from Italy seem so much cleaner and fresher than what we are used to eating? And, most of the Italian men and women are not only thinner than Americans....but their whole body composition is different. They are leaner all together....we should really try to live more like Europeans.

Agrotourism is a big trend right now and we saw a number of places marked as an agrotoursim spot in Italy. I want to learn more about what types of opportunties there are for people to participate on these farms. A former co-worker of mine is going to Italy in the next month and will be learning to farm. I feel like it's something that is taking off.....It's somewhat ironic to me that Americans are so interested in learning how to farm.....didn't most of our ancestors move to America because they wanted to get away from farming? I truly believe that all of life is one big cycle and this is just one of those cycles. We truly need to know more about farming again because it's a lost art.

While we were in Florence we did a bike tour into the Chianti region of Italy with Florence by Bike. We had a great time biking the hills in Chianti and working off some of the great food that we ate. Part of the tour took us to a bread and breakfast where we had a home-cooked lunch.

I've included a few pictures of the famous Florentine steak and will add even more soon.