aubreyholland.com

One of my favorite things about being here is the food. I remember being in Europe before and feeling really jealous of the fresh food and the way things are built around buying things every day at the market to have for dinner. Venice has really taken this idea and turned it up to eleven, and I love it. Not only do they have tons of different kinds of produce/meats/seafood/cheese, but they are all very fresh, very local, and (surprisingly, to me) very very cheap. Since I, suffice to say, don’t have a lot of other responsibilities, this is fantastic because I have plenty of time to actually enjoy cooking.

At the Rialto they have the biggest market in the city, and it’s really something. The main part of it is a fish market, and I don’t think I can come up with a single creature that lives in the ocean that I haven’t seen for sale there. Sharks, rays, all manner of things with tentacles, and plenty of things that I have no idea what they are. Here’s a few pictures from there…

That thing in the first picture that looks like the head of a swordfish is, in fact, the head of a swordfish.

In addition to the fish market, they have what has to be the world’s biggest collection of vegetable stands. Here are a couple of pictures that don’t do any justice whatsoever to the size of it.

Yesterday I bought a cookbook with a bunch of recipes from Venice and the Veneto. In a moment of cookbook-picture-induced denial, I thought it would be a great idea to try to make some ravioli. This despite the facts that:

1. Neither Hannah nor I had ever made pasta before
2. The cookbook is in Italian
3. The cookbook lists the recipe as complesso (complex)
4. We had no idea what we were doing

Oops. Disaster ensued almost immediately. I made the filling, which turned out stringy and terrible, and Hannah made the pasta, which, shall we say, also left a bit to be desired.

Here’s a picture of some beautiful produce, some of which wound up in the ill-fated ravioli seen below.