I’m leaving. I’m off, and I’m going to miss my New York, but it’s good to shake it up every once in a while. I will be making new friends every week with the start of each class that I teach, and there will be dinner daily; I’ll keep you posted. I will be using the computer at Bar Centrale in the village of Mercatale di Cortona. I’ll throw back my coffee and write to you about the daily food events and other juicy stuff. Mercatale, small as it is, can generate some really good gossip.

At the moment, all I’m thinking is what do you give a kid for dinner who is about to go on a plane for an international flight, if you have already used up the legal limit of bread products for breakfast and lunch. There is just so many times in a day that you can say “here honey, have a piece of nice bread and butter” because you know they will eat it, before you start feeling guilty. I have been desparate enough on long travel days, to consider the nutritional value of an m&m, but that one gram of chocolate protein lasts about a minute and there is no way I can convince Ferd that what he really wants is the unidentifiable sauced up over heated meat slick off the food cart, no matter how big a smile the flight attendant is flashing. My answer is a little of everything. If you are lucky enough that your kid will eat peanut butter, there you go, but Ferd won’t even look at it. I am going to pack yogurts, apples, raisins, blue corn chips, veggie booty, granola bars and a frozen hot dog. By the end of the day, I will have eaten most of it myself, but at least it will make me feel like I’m doing my job. That’s what counts.
I will be back on line by Friday, and I will let you know how it goes.