Antica Macelleria Falorni

The Antica Macelleria Falorni was founded in 1729 by Gio Botta. The place still stands pround in the main piazza of Greve in Chianti. The butcher-cum salami / cheese shop is still run by the 8th generation of Gio's descendants.



The finest Tuscan meats are used including Chianina for beef, Cinta Senese for pork and wild boars that have been present in the Chianti forests for centuries. A variety of Chianti herbs and spices are also essential ingredients; fresh fennell, laurus, juniper, garlic, parsley, sage, rosemary and even some Chianti wine.



Upon walking inside this gracious butcher, that spans 4 shop fronts in the piazza, there is no other way to describe it then a meat lovers wonderland. Kim and I wander around in awe, and managed to get lost in here for at least an hour (and that was only our first visit!) First we wander into the cheese room, which goes down into the basement, where various cheeses have notes and times on them, for when they're ripe and ready (if anyone could wait that long!)



Then there were blocks of pancetta, some covered in chilli flakes.



And the salami, oh the salami !! Salami made with Chianti Classico red wine ....



Little chingale - Wild boar - salami's.



And then the Il Ghianda, an acorn fed leg of prosciutto from Greve.



After at least an hour spent in the woderland that was salami, meat & cheese, we head next door ....



Still a part of the same shop, this room was full of Tuscan wines - and most of them were available for tasting. They use the fancy enoMatic system, where a card is brought with credit and then used to by tastings of various wines in different sizes. We start with a 10Euro card .......



and make our way through a whole range of fantastic wines.



Each tasting is offered in 3 sizes, and start at just 30cents. With tastings of delights from next door including cheese, truffle salami and fennel sausage, you can understand another while was spent here ......

Before we loaded ourselves with goodies and headed off with our bread, olive oil and market treats for an afternoon in the sun.



Antica Macelleria Falorni
Piazza Giacomo Matteotti, 71
50022 Greve in Chianti, Firenze, Toscana, Italia

T: +39 055 853029 F: +39 055 8544312 E: negozio@falorni.it

Italian Breakfast

What is there not to love about Italy? and their lifestyle that seems to evolve around eating, drinking & sleeping ...

Our morning ritual was heading down to the local coffee bar, and joining the constantly streaming hordes of people that would wait on the bench until a standing counter space was available, move up and order a coffee - perhaps a cannoli or panini as well - and so to has the day begun.



Now just filling in some time until we're ready to eat again ... and then sleep!

Tapping olive oil straight from the drum

After we were armed with some fresh baked bread, we were in need of some more treats for our afternoon in the Tuscan sun. We found this great little deli in the piazza and head on in. The variety of products inside includes antipasto vegetables, cheese, cured meats, dips, dairy and more.



But then we spot in the corner a drum filled with Tuscan extra virgin olive oil. We order a bottle, and the very-Gepetto-esque (Pinocchio's father) owner of the shop casual walks over and taps the oil straight from the tank.



The whole novel idea was so fun, but the oil itself was superb for dipping our bread !!

Tuscan bread by the kg

We found a little bakery in Greve in Chianti, tucked in a little side street, always bustling with Mama's shopping mid-morning for fresh bread to be eaten with lunch ... and then us! We visited just about every day, picking up slices of fresh baked bianco pizza or a loaf of bread for our afternoon snacks.



The one thing, well no there was two things, that I loved about this particular bakery ... firstly, we spotted the baker out the back pulling a loaf of bread from the oven with a paddle. Then he checked it's 'doneness' - by breaking off a chunk of bread and biting it ....



this goes into the second point I absolutely loved, that all there breads / pizza / sweets were sold by weight - priced per kg. An end of foccacia cut off just for you, no problem! A half loaf of delicous Tuscan bread? No problem! It's all just placed on the scales and the priced accordingly.

What a life ....

Traffic in Tuscany

How blessed were we? Arriving in Tuscany when it was coming into truffle season (OH MY GOD!!) porcini season and grape picking season. Every day we were oh-so happy to sit behind tractors putting down the road, chock-full of fresh picked grapes .....



All the more time for taking in the beautiful Tuscan landscape.

Porchetta Sandwich #2

At the morning markets in Greve one of the first things we spotted was the Porchetta van. The van had an impressive rotisserie set-up, spinning around in the background piled full of chickens, meat & all sorts of sticks.



But we have our eye on the crisp pig, perched up on the counter. This variety is available by the kg at 24Euro or on a panino for 3.5Euro. We take 2 panino. Chunks of the delicious porchetta are sliced away, and piled on a crisp Tuscan bread roll.



We also spot something in the counter that is a tradional Tuscan spiedini. We need one of these !!



We first un-wrap our sandwiches, and they were even more delicious than they looked! The pork was still warm, the stuffing packed with fennel seeds, fresh rosemary, lots's of salt and pepper.



As you can see, I was very content .... my eye's glazing over with glee.



Then we were onto the spiedini ... wow! There was chunks of sausage, chicken, and pork all layered between slices of bread. It has been cooked in the rotisserie and all the fat from the meats have fried the bread to a golden crunch. An absolutely amazing concept, fried bread and tasty meat, all this goodness packed onto a stick ...



Oh, Italy ....

To market, to market.........

My head is spinning, every sense is reeling, I feel like the whole world has exploded into full technicolor life. We've been to markets all over Asia, but standing in the midst of the morning markets in Greve in Chianti, it's just wow. All the things we've only ever seen as dried or preserved goods are all here fresh. Vege stalls over flowing with that morning picked porcini's and chanterelles.


Porcini's and chanterelles


Zuchini flowers by the crate and beautiful artichokes


Tiny chilli's and roma tomatoes on the vine

How could we not buy some? Or the cheese or the cured meats or the....... well, all of it. This was our first experience of Italian life and we loved it, we were already formatting plans to pack up every thing we own and move it all here, from swinging by the local coffee shop to grab a standing breakfast of espresso and pastry, to walking another few meters across the square to grab freshly baked bread, or buying some prosciutto at the 300 hundred year old family run butchery and mingle with the locals doing their weekly shopping.


Seriously how could we choose?



Delicious fresh bread

After we rounded up a few amazing snacks it was back to the villa to set up a wee lunchie under the Tuscan sun.


Truffle cream, seeded bread and stuffed pepperoncini


Tuscan artichokes and Brawn


Herb rolled goats cheese and oh so stinky taleggio


Guanciale


Fresh peach with Guanciale


The view from the lunch table

I think I'm going to have trouble re-adjusting to real life...

The truffle madness begins.

On our first night in Tuscany we began our ridiculious attempt to scent ourselves from the inside out with truffles. Crostini of Lardo with truffled honey, and crostini of taleggio with fresh truffle was a great way to start.



How could we be in a new place for all of five minutes and already feel content??

En-route ~ Rome 2 Tuscany

Road tripping ... across the Italian countryside. Dinah (Kim's mum), Don (her husband) Kim and myself met in Rome earlier this month. We pile our stuff in a little turbo VW golf and head off bound for Tuscany .... our first stop, and a taste of what was to come, was a little town called Montalto di Castro. We squeeze the car through miniscule little cobbled streets and stumble across some beautiful sights, including this particularly pretty blue door:



But we did pull into this little town with the hope of food, but weren't so blessed with that. We get back on the road, and to our horror and dismay pass a Salumi & Fromagi van on the side of the highway .... oh my?! But it's on the wrong side of the road and it's way to hard for us to turn around, so the mission continues.

We are taking the beautiful coastal drive up to Grosetto, before heading inland towards Greve in Chianti. It between Grosetto and Siena Kim and I simultaneously spot a sign proclaiming "PORCHETTA" - an Italian culinary wonder of boned pork, that is heavily salted with herbs or fennel seed and then roasted over charcoal. A crisp, crackling skin and super moist meat, we know if that's to be had at this roadside stall we'd be good for the last stretch of the drive.



The place was pumping with Italians, loads of construction workers happened to be stopped for the lunch and coffee fix as we arrive.



Then we walk in and are greeted by a delicious pork head, crackling skin covering his face, with those come hither eyes. So it's prochetta x 2, piled between delicious Tuscan salt-less bread. But the pork, oh the pork, this one packed with crystals of salt and loads of fresh rosemary.



2 massive sandwiches and 1.5l of mineral water, for 5.5euro. Awesome!

We then see that all the locals seem to then head into the bar and drink a coffee at the counter before moving on. Well, you know what they say "When in Rome ...." So we perch at the bar and order duo caffe. Watching the precise and efficient use of the coffee machine makes me weak at the knees.

Then we are overwhelmed with the choice of panforte, sweets and pastries on offer. We both decide on the spiced panforte - which is taken from the showcase ... a animated indication with our hands of how much we would like, and a little buffalo horn knife (yes, we found one in Tuscany and Kim bought one back with us, tres cool!) cut's a chunk for us. It's placed on the scales - so many things are just sold by weight, so cool - and we scoff it down.



And all this was had at a little service centre / road side food stall. You can only imagine what lies ahead on our 14 day adventure in Italy .........

Are you going to drink that??

Seems it is the festive season round here ... Following close on the heels of pork and lanterns is the festival of beer (oh joy!). This happens smack bang in the middle of Sapporo and goes on for three weeks. All down Odori park huge beer gardens are set up by all the major players on Japans inebriation circuit as well as a bunch of the guys who usually prefer quality over quantity.

We made plans to meet up with a few friends in the center of the beerdom and headed off for a much needed civilization day in the city before hand. After some city wandering we found ourselves at the beginning of Odori so decided what better time than the present to have a few drinks. Wandering down the park we head past the gardens of the beers we can enjoy any day and grabbed a seat in the German section, we started off with a Franziskaner's weiss and a Spaten fest bier



Of course we couldn't have a beer garden without beer drinking snacking, so with table and beer secured we picked up a German sausage plate as well as a curry sausage an kicked back in the afternoon sun. Sweet.



Just as we finished the first round, we were joined by the Gyu+ crew We picked up a HB Munchen Dunkel and a Hallerndorfer Rauchbier which is a smoked beer, and got down to chewing the fat with the guys.



After we polished off these beers, and maybe a couple of pretzels we took a mosey on down to the Otaru beer spot, passing a group of sumo on the way (our first sumo sighting in Japan). Although we would have been glad to drink any of Otaru's range we were more interested in the other creatively named micro brewed beers from Rouge brewery on offer. With one Dead guy ale, a Brutal bitter, Shakespeare stout and an Otaru Pilsner with strawberry syrup in our hands it was time for a little more talk and don't forget the snacks, this time grilled squid and beef with mustard.





As the light was fading we now made our way to the Kirin tent where the night time action really kicks off, fueled by towers - 6 liters of towering beer, scouring the garden it seems that there is no seats left so we grab a spot on the grass....for about two seconds before a group leaving gives us their table. A tower is procured and the drinking begins.



It's a long way to the bottom and just when we had thought we had finished we realised we had just drunk until the beer level was out of sight, but there was still a liter in the plastic tower housing, once this was done the foolishness really set in.





Fuzzy logic brought Hisashi to the realization that if we had missed the unseen liter there were many liters awaiting a fellow in the know. This genius thought in his head he headed off into the throng of festivalers helpfully clearing the empty towers two or three at a time and stopping by our now hysterical table to empty the stash.



Ten more liters later we decided to head into town for a few more drinks and salsa of course. A quick stop in Tanuki koji at a bar that all I can remember is the roof was a foot shorter than I was, and we were suddenly in Suskino in a salsa bar, Hisashi promply passed out and the rest of us enjoyed salsa lessons from the owner for a few hours before wandering out onto the street for late late night ramen Kyushu style.





This means thin noodles and that's about all anyone remembers from that night. Good times.