Glorious food!

We are eating VERY well!  After we checked into our hotel and relaxed a bit, we went to Chef Claudio's bed and breakfast for a welcome lunch.  It was SO good!  I was late.  When I asked, nobody knew what time we were meeting up so I got wifi access and went upstairs to upload pictures here.  I dozed for just a few minutes.  When I went back downstairs none of my classmates were around anywhere!  The gal at the front desk said that they had gone to eat.  She called but they had already discovered me missing and sent someone after me.  I understand that my classmates were shown around the place.  I looked around a little.  Chef Claudio is a very nice man and his food is WONDERFUL!!!

Chef Claudio is in the middle here, standing.

My plate--had to try some of everything:

This is Cleopatra.

Dinner was at Antica Tavaerna Casagrande, the restaurant in Hotel Villa Casagrande, where they serve delicious, authentic Tuscan food.  I still say that there is not a prettier place for a wedding anywhere.

The dude in the purple shirt is the hottest waiter I've ever seen.  Very young but yummy!

He took our picture:

Our first course was bruschetta--very simple but so good!  The tomatoes and olive oil were good but I think it's the fresh basil that makes it so heavenly.

This is the second course--veggie pasta of some kind.  There was a little meat in it and a creamy sauce.  We all loved it and, of course, had to analyze how we would make it.

A nice Chianti:

This waiter is hilarious!  "No feeneesh, no dessert"!

The main course was a skewer with bread on both ends, a pigeon leg quarter, some kind of liver (too big for this bird), and another piece of the pigeon.  No, it did not come from the flock of them all over the garden!  And, um, no, I wouldn't ask.  It was all very good but I was stuffed!

Gellato!  Maybe I'm not really too stuffed...