My Food Writing and Food Photography classes are collaborating to create a cookbook for Florence’s culinary school Apicius by May. It is a very interesting and useful project – we are involved in every part of the process, from the daily decisions (layout, title, graphic design) to writing the articles and shooting the pictures. While I have had the experience of critiquing in a restaurant (taking notes, etc), I have never had the experience of shooting photos in a restaurant. One thing that is a little odd about these courses is that because of the publishing deadline, our teachers can not really teach technique until two months into the course. So, we have been thrown to the wolves to provide pictures and writings for the cookbook. This means that when my photography group gets assigned to a restaurant, we eat there and as we eat, we are shooting pictures. There has never been such an awkward feeling. The Italians in the restaurants give curious or hostile looks (perhaps we seem to be invading tourists), and our uncomfortable-ness makes it harder for us to move around and get better shots. The lighting in these restaurants is bad at best for photos and even tougher without the room (or the courage sometimes) to move around. But, if we have a group of atleast three of us with cameras, it seems a little less awkward.
Wednesday night, after a tough day of exams, I trucked it to Café Italiano to meet Cassie to eat pizza and take some photos. We entered the almost hidden entrance to the pizza part of the fine dining restaurant. A large wood burning, turntable pizza oven loomed in the right corner of the room. A temperamental pizza man whirled pizza dough and sped through stacks of tickets. The café, unlike Pizzaiulo down the street, only offered three types of pizza: Neapolitan, Margarita, and Basil Sauce. Instead of crushed pepper or parmesan, the topping on the table was a large bottle of red pepper olive oil – quite tasty!! When a young Italian women tried to convince the pizza creator to make her a pizza with different toppings, he responded: “If you want something else, go to Pizzauiolo!”
Later that night, I met my neighbor Meghan and Sarah at the beautiful outdoor theater near Piazza della Republica for the opera concert of an acquaintance of ours. The arched rooftop of the theater helped the strong voices resonate throughout the large space. The nights free entertainment was a wonderful selection of Giuseppe Verde’s compositions.
After sampling the wine and Tuscan bread laid out for listeners, Meghan and I had a ball thoroughly embarrassing Sarah on our walk home, yodeling The Lonely Goathurd and singing in our best opera voices!
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