A Week of Firsts

I had a bunch of “firsts” this week . . .

On Sunday I ran my first half-marathon. I liked it. Tough, though: It was, effectively, 12 km UP the mountain, and then 9 km DOWN the mountain! It was beautiful: I could see snow-capped peaks in the distance and river valleys below. I did pretty well, won some cheese, and some guy gave me a salami.

On Monday I cooked my first risotto. It’s basically rice, but – at least if you make it well – there are three things that elevate it to all-star status in my book. First, it gets a lot of flavor from whatever vegetables you use. You sauté the vegetables – lots of ‘em – at the beginning, and they create a good broth. (At least, that’s what I do. The Italians do whatever they can to make it unhealthy. Butter. Pig fat. Probably some disgusting fatty meat product if it’s on hand. Which it always is.) Second, you use arborio rice, which is very starchy and kind of disintegrates a bit when you cook it. That gives the risotto a “creamy” texture. And the third thing is that instead of putting all the water (or broth, or wine, or whatever you’re using as liquid) at once, you “give the rice only what it needs,” adding the liquid little by little and stirring regularly. On Monday I made a zucchini risotto, and I liked it so much that I made another risotto yesterday – this time with mushrooms. Next on my list: risotto with butternut squash!

And on Tuesday I gutted my first fish. Yeah, it was pretty gross. I need to wander over to Google videos to figure out what all that stuff in there was. In any case, I figured that if I’m going to be a good cook, I better start gutting fish. The experiment turned out well. After gutting the fish, I filled its belly with the top parts of a fennel stalk, a little salt, and a little lemon juice, wrapped it in foil, and put it in the oven. I’ll definitely repeat.

And, not related at all to my week of firsts, here’s a photo I shot in Piazza Maggiore. I love this pic. Check out the way Cop #2’s cap is tilted – straight out of a ‘50s TV series!