Welcome to Florence, part 3 the food and wine! When I take to the streets to document a city photojournalistically, I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot when I capture a moment like above! Just love seeing behind the scenes of the hustle and bustle it takes to keep a tourist flooded city continually delighting in the culinary creations. I took this 25 year anniversary trip 1 1/2 years ago and I said, “it’s going to take me years to share this 2 week trip!” Well here we are! Click here to see Florence the Art or here to see Florence the city. And to go back to the start, Venice at Night.
I love to cook from scratch with fresh ingredients and look forward to being able to do it more when life slows down a bit. My love of cooking was definitely one of the draws to Italy and Greece. Personally, I’ve grown frustrated by how over processed and sugar saturated so much of our American diet has become and am working to root out a lot of the excess hidden sugar in my diet. I just learned that approximately 68% of packaged foods in the grocery store contain added sugars! And meanwhile every third commercial is for a medication…I digress!
Clients at JDP are big fans of our legacy boxes that are handmade in Italy and hold fine art print collections. Placing these orders gives me a chance to chat with my Italian contact Christina about life in Italy and I so enjoy our conversations! I asked Christina what she most enjoys about life in the States when she’s state side. She shared the ease with which she could go to a store and purchase a week’s worth of groceries, rather than daily trips to the market, in bad weather. But oh the freshness! Freshness is just how they do life in Europe. 
The views from the kitchen aren’t too shabby either! 
This was a dog I affectionately called Buckets. We met him while visiting a vineyard. He’s a french bulldog intent to grab all the attention of the visitors for himself! His owner complained, “he doesn’t like it when people are giving me attention, he wants it all!” He threw this bucket up in the air and then banged it on the ground repeatedly if his audience wasn’t big enough!
I adore exploring these older homes because I find it so unexpected what I’ll see next. Inside this vineyard owner’s home where we were treated to a feast after our tour.
Florence holds a special place in my heart. One more installment to come with more on the countryside and our tour in a Fiat 500 before we are on to Rome!
