A Quiet Day

I woke up with a bit of a sore throat this morning (mal di gola) so we took it easy. . .well, reasonably so. Preparing for our meal with Roberta, we first went to the Coop grocery store--I bought orrecchiete (pasta shaped like little ears :) and sausage. I got veal for us for tomorrow. While Greg took those back to the apartment, I got green beans, lettuce, tomato and onions at the fruttivedura (green grocer). The stalls still look a bit like this only the seller was a gruff sort of guy instead of the young woman pictured here:

Then, we got a chicken at the macellaio--(butcher); then we went to the vino sfuso negozio--we took in an empty water bottle and he filled it up with pinot rosso for less than 3 Euro (a little over 4 bucks).

I'll make the orrecchiete with pasta as the first course, followed by roast chicken. Nothing fancy but I feel confident of making this turn out well.

Yesterday, when we went to Madonna Dell'Orto, we bought a Chorus pass, which for 10 Euro allows us to get into 16 different churches (3 Euro entrance fee for each)--Today's church of the day was Santa Maria Formosa which is a very nice church in a very large campo, not too far away from our apartment.

On the way, we passed by the deconsecrated church of San Lorenzo and the Questura (police station)--both figure very heavily into the novels of Donna Leon. If you don't know these and you like mysteries, get them immediately!

Here is San Lorenzo:

and here is the Questura:

I know my book club friends will enjoy these :)

We finally ended up at the church:

The favorite piece of art here is the Vivarini triptych: