The weather has gotten spring like, and the crowds are arriving for Easter. The newspaper the other day said the city was full up, all hotels, etc booked. Every bakery and food store is chock-a-block with "Columba"(dove), the traditional Easter cake, a kind of brioche.

We have been eating yet more artichokes, and some really amazing fresh fish- the other day a fresh whole mackerel, roasted with zucchini, fennel, garlic, herbs olive oil, and smeared with tapenade. delicious!

before that a "sea trout", or salmon, also roasted, remarkably delicate and tender.It hasn't been all great though. I bought WAY too much of something like wild asparagus at the market, expensive, too, costing as much as the fresh shrimp. Normally vegetables are practically free, so this is saying a lot. I asked what to do with them and was told they went in pasta dishes, soups, risottos.

So A obligingly made a really delicious risotto with said shrimp and said wild vegetable. It WAS good, but we had tons more of the green stuff, which did get stalky and hard to chew and DID have thorny bits on it- some kind of nettle maybe? Good, but certainly not better than small asparagus, or fiddleheads, or any other like thing.A started calling it "grass", and meekly asked that I NOT buy more.

THEN came the ruccula. We eat this with almost every meal, every salad. Called arugula in the states, here it is bountiful, fresh and cheap. I had never noticed the difference from one market vendor to the next in terms of this stuff, but have learned my lesson. it was full of bits of grass and other Field plants, and the side of my plate would be taken up with substantial bits of meadow refuse. I would like to know exactly how much non-ruccola was contained in my bag of salad when I bought it. Instead, I have opted away from that stand, to another with 100% pure clean what-I-asked-for....

we have been, truly, grazing here.

Above, more random pictures of here, and daily life. I've got a bit behind, so I'm lagging. These were taken in rather gloomier weather than we have now...