More food

I woke up this morning feeling bloated.  This meant it was time for us to go on a diet.  The Stoic One thought we were doing fine, so I went out and bought a scale.  I decided that we were eating way too much, and the scale would prove to the Stoic One that he needed to cut down on our noon time eating orgy.

He was not happy.  "We only eat one meal a day", he says.  That isn't really true. He always eats his weird gruel for breakfast, don't ask, and I either eat a little yogurt or skip it.  For lunch we eat whatever we want.  Following the Italian plan, we first decide which courses we will order.  I must say we never order all of the courses.  We usually start with an antipasta and then decide if we will have pasta or a secondi, which is generally grilled meat. Sometimes we have dessert.  I was sure we were both turning into porchettas, hence the scale.  It is a very nice modern scale that weighs in pounds as well as kilograms.  So, he gets on the scale first and has LOST WEIGHT!!!!! Argh! He is so happy.  He is dancing around in his undies telling me he can eat whatever he wants.  Great!  Then he tells me that I need to weigh too.

With great hesitation, I get on the scale.  I had previously lost about 8 pounds in preparation for my eating fest here.  I look at the scale, and I weigh exactly the same as I did when I arrived 3 weeks ago....Whoah!.  How could this be?  It must be going up and down those 65 stairs 4 times a day.  We were so happy that we had not blimped out that we went out to lunch to celebrate.  You will now have to continue to endure more stories of lunch time meals and their rhapsodic descriptions of the dishes.

http://viaggi.it.msn.com/fotogallery/foto-italia.aspx?cp-documentid=149215734&page=24

One of my plans in exploring our area is to have lunch in a different little town every day.  Today we explored a hill town of Bettona.  It is another of the Most Beautiful Towns in Italy.  We had been here previously but the 2 restaurants were closed.  One for the holiday and the other because they were having a christening and the family had booked the entire restaurant.  I decided that was the restaurant for us. It is high up on a hill with a beautiful view of the country side.

I ended up having one of the most unusual and delicious fish dishes I have had anywhere.  It was sea bass with diced tomatoes and tiny diced potatoes wrapped in a cabbage leaf and baked.  OMG.  The fish was perfectly cooked as were the vegetables.  I am sure the Stoic One could learn to fix this.

We ended up at this restaurant in Bettona. Lovely view and food

He had lamb chops

I had Sea bass wrapped in a cabbage leaf. Note the crispy leaf.

Unwrapped and ready to eat.

Shared dessert Catalan cream...unbelieveably delicious

After this meal, we decided we definitely had to take one of our longer walks.  This is the country side outside of Umbertide.  It is like a painting.  We walk along the Tiber River.

Just outside of town. It goes from city to country side in just footsteps.

The walk leaving town.

Others walking off lunch.  Where do they buy these clothes?