lunch

After wandering through the city and the Uffizi Gallery all morning I worked off my breakfast and it was getting closer to lunch.
The guidebook had a small paragraph on Florence Beef, a local type of steak unique to this area. I'm all over stuff the locals eat, see or do (within certain defined limits pertaining to my own moral and ethical standards).
Anyway, I wandered a bit more trying to get a good hunger going. I looked at a couple of restaurants yesterday and saw they had Bisteca Florentina by the kilo, which tells me ...that's a big plate of food.
I found a restaurant that has been there since 1913 and went in. It was cool. Full of people and a little loud but I assumed that meant the locals were happy to be there, which is a good sign.
I ordered a homemade pasta with mushrooms and the steak, with a bottle of sparkling water. I opened up my journal and started writing about my day. The waiter, a kid, comes back with instructions from the chef. He says "Dude, the, uh...steak, it's 800 uh....grams....is that ok....we ...we can't you know....cut it down...." now for dramatic effect and to make this clearer for my people from california, the italian waiter did not say "dude" or "you know"...it just helps the story move so bear with me.
I told him it was fine. I was going to have the steak no matter now much it was....then I did the math....actually my calculator did the math. 800 grams in about 1.75 lbs. That's a pretty big steak, and I was having a plate of pasta. I was getting tired just thinking about it.
But before I could ponder the dilemma any further the pasta hit the table. It smelled like sauted mushrooms and olive oil and it was good. "hold on man!" I told myself, "That fucking steak is coming!"
I tried to pace myself but to no avail. The pasta was gone in a few minutes.
For about ten minutes I had to psych myself into a trance to be able to manage this steak which was on it's way.
I kept writing in my book and there it was. On a wooden platter just under two pounds of steak. It didn't look to bad. It smelled really good. It had that charcoaly smell like when you leave the meat on the grill to long and it burns. MMMMM....
I cut away some fat and cut into the meat. It was red in the middle and really juicy. My first bite wasn't that impresssive. It was a steak.
Now the last steak I had was from Black Angus. No offense to the Black Angus corporation and employees. You all do good work but this was better.
At first, I thought "hey, how good could a steak possibly be?" but as I continued the flavor of the grill and the tenderness of the meat I was started to have an expericence. Maybe it was being in a little restaurant in italy while my coworkers were up and down storage tanks but I was bonding with this steak.
I was slowly enjoying every bit. Cutting. Savoring. Repeating. Washing it down with some water and doing it again, until it was gone.
Now I was a different cat than they were used to. I could see they weren't getting one guy eating all that meat and writing and drawing in a book. They were polite but confused. They let me alone until I was done then the manager looked at me as smiled and I'm sure he thought..."wow...what else will this fucker eat?" and he offered me a drink, some coffee and pastry, etc.
I told him I was good and that he did good work, paid my bill and went off under my own power under the afternoon sun.
I feel pretty good. I completely recommend florentine steak by the way, if you're ever in the neighborhood.
more later....