Ponte Vecchio from Ponte alla Carraia

Saturday was heavenly relief from a week of Italian language study. We had no plans, though there were some chores to do. I decided to make a lemon ricotta frittata for lunch to use up some ricotta we had gotten earlier in the week. And we agreed I would make white chicken chili for dinner. We got ourselves moving by going to the nearby supermarket. They will know us well by the end of our visit. It’s about the size of a medium-sized grocery store in the States.

The frittata came out nicely, and after I took a short nap, we decided to visit the Cappella Brancacci only six minutes walking from our apartment. Gail had tried to visit on a previous trip but missed seeing the frescoes of Masaccio. When we got there they had only one ticket available and I insisted Gail do the tour. Although it turned out to last only 15 minutes, she was thrilled by seeing the frescoes for the entire evening.

We stopped at our favorite bakery, S. Forno, which we passed on our way back from the chapel. We got half a loaf of a nice bread and a large piece of maple pound cake that I got for dessert that night.

Gail had wanted to visit a bookstore with books in English and we picked two that sounded good in the downtown. The first was a berry large bookstore but with a limited selection in English. The second was Paperback Exchange, which had a Good quantity of books in English. We each found a book and home to start cooking the white chicken chili. On the way back I caught this moody shot of the Ponte Vecchio. It had drizzled a bit earlier in the day.

Fortunately, Gail is a good cook and led the way on cooking the chicken and answering multiple questions from me. I roasted some Tuscan green peppers and chopped onions and garlic. It all came together and we enjoyed a bowl of chili and bread. We were both tired and headed toward bed early, though I had a small slice of the pound cake—yummy!