Annabelle Milanese

I've been delinquent; I've also been in Milan. Eating.

Pizza with anchovies, capers, and olives at Di Raco, Navigli, Milan.

Pizza is different in Milan -- thin, cracker crust, less sauce. All the better to cut delicately into small pieces with a knife and fork, as many of the Milanese do (though I saw one or two slice and fold, New York style). Heathen that I am, I sliced and folded, rakishly drank wine instead of beer, and perhaps worst of all, ordered a pizza at 7pm. In Italy, 7pm is far too early for dinner.

Rockefeller pizza: mozzarella di bufala, egg yolk, arugula, and white truffles.

Milan is more formal about its eating schedule than New York. In Greece, I happily embraced 9 o'clock dinners. In Milan, traveling alone, I scarfed gelato and gazed longingly at aperetivo buffets grazed by happy groups of friends. If there is one unique element to New York restaurant culture, I'd say it is its embrace of and deference to solitary diners. It isn't quite the same in other cities.

Straciatella and prosciutto di Parma, Obika Mozzarella Bar.

Solution: constant snacking,

Roasted chestnuts, Piazza Duomo.

eating pastries at Cova Pasticceria, a 193 year old bakery on the Via Montenapoleone,

and large lunches.

Fusilli with veal sauce at Il Veliero.

Orecchiette with cima di rapa.

 And then there were the street fairs, like this Friday morning market on the Via Crema:

My mind is boggled by the complexity of the meat-and-cheese trucks.

Pumpkin.

 

Artichokes!

Porcini!

Holy produce, Batman.

The loveliest lettuce in Italy.

 

It's not easy, being an eel.

and this Saturday artisanal food fair, in Parco Sempione:

Honey for your honey.

Damn you, US Customs.

Mmm... medieval French paté.

Porchetta, rear.

Porchetta, front.

Porchetta, sandwich form.

Quince.

Quince jelly.

Ciao, Italy. See you next year.