The Brandt Blog

After 42 days of living La Dolce Vida (and also La Pasta Vida… and La Vino Vida… and La Baccala Vida etc.) in Firenze, we’ve officially reached the halfway point of our self-titled, “Residenza” (as opposed to this being a vacation). To be sure, there are many, MANY people, places and things that we miss […]

After a few requests of wanting to know my morning routine is like I thought I’d share a few photos from one of my walking routes. This is the road right outside our villa. It has no sidewalks like most of Italy and is very narrow. Interesting tidbit – we noticed full water bottles along […]

Here are a couple of action shots demonstrating the expert cooking techniques learned during our two weeks with Anna and Simona. First, Anne is making the veal/beef/pork Ragù for the lasagne… a little while later at the same cook station I’m making crepes for the Crespella alla Fiorentina. By the time we return to the […]

Who’d ever have imagined that steamed and macerated turnip greens would create the foundation of a tasty gnocchi/pasta sauce? Well, here’s my lovely emoglie and burgeoning chef-de-cuisine expertly driving the tasty, leafy greens into immersion blender under the careful guidance of our teacher, Anna. “Not too much – add some oil – that’s good!” Simple. […]

Here’s a post for our Obsessive Compulsive blog followers (it most definitely takes one to know one) based on the once-in-a-century numerical date string of the day. My ride on Route 222 clocked in at 2:22:22 this ‘Tues’-day 2/22/22. I stopped twice for (what else??) two double-espressos. Today = TUTTO 2 (everything is 2). Ciao! […]

The Brandt Home during my impressionable and pre-adolescent 1970’s was an ABC-TV family. Schoolhouse Rock, SuperFriends, Happy Days, Mork & Mindy, Welcome Back Kotter and The Love Boat made up our broadcast banquet table. This is not to deny occasionally tuning into other network programming. We watched CBS broadcast the Walter Payton Bears on Sundays, […]

Part 2 – Cycling Using the tired but true cliché that 1 pic = 1000 words and excluding my quippy yet informative captions; here are 24,000 words about why cycling in Tuscany is on (to use maybe an even more tired cliché?) every rider’s bucket list. In humble objectivity, I can’t speak for every cyclista […]

Part 1 – SIGHTSEEING We’ve done more than ‘just a tad’ of walking past, through, over and around Firenze’s myriad landmarks since arriving. We all to often haven’t participated being either too preoccupied or pressed for time with things like… well, I can’t think of anything right now. Buying soap comes to mind … But, […]

The astutely observant Blog followers certainly have noticed in several posted pics a conspicuous black strap looped over my shoulder. Despite that Europeans are more culturally accepting of man-toted personal carryalls, this mismatched-chromosone American expat is not ashamed to admit to my state-side readers that there is most definitely a man-bag (aka: Murse, Bro-bag, Bro-sack, […]

Sunday afternoon stroll at the Palazzo