Buon giorno

Ciao, my food friends.
It's good to be back after a nearly 3-week sojourn to Slovenia and Italy - with a long layover in Munich. (So funny to see people eating scrambled eggs and sliced wurst for breakfast along with pints of beer. I opted for ham, crusty rolls and coffee. )
I'm facing a landslide of email and an overflowing amount of snail mail. I've poured myself a big cup of Joe to face this uneviable task but, alas, it just doesn't compare to the wonderful coffee in the beautiful city of Trieste.
I've got lots of food and wine adventures to share. (It was fresh porcini mushroom season in Italy and I ate more than my fair share of funghi.) Also, look for a story soon on struklji and zlikrofi, which are two different Slovene dumplings. (I took a really fun cooking class in Slovenia and chefs Bogdan and Claudi shared some secrets with me. Oh, and, if can hunt it down, you must try a bottle of Vitovska. It's a white Slovene wine, made from a native grape. It's usually unfiltered and is very interesting.)
My favorite meal was probably a light bean soup with cavolo nero cabbage, braised wild boar (cinghiale) over polenta and roasted rabbit and grilled eggplant made in Tuscany by my friends Janet and Stefano. (Nothing compares to a meal at the home of good friends who are also brilliant cooks.)
But I'm still dreaming about the hot, crispy fried soft shell crabs, the size of silver dollars, the black tagiolini with lobster sauce and the great bottle of Soave I had in Venice. Oh, and the risotto with artichokes....
I could go on and on. OK, more to come, but first I need to open some mail and catch up on the local news. And I guess it's no longer PC to drink wine during a 2-hour lunch....Big sigh! We have a lot to learn from the Italians when it comes to eating and drinking.