TRATTORIA PALLOTTINO - PART 2

TRATTORIA PALLOTTINO -- FLORENCE, ITALY

In Florence, local flavor means an Pallottino appetizer of crostini di polenta fritta ai funghi porcini -- ie, little toasts made of lightly fired polenta and topped with porcini mushrooms to die for.

Because lunch is often the biggest meal of the day, next comes ribollita alla contadina, the famed bread and tomato-based Tuscan soup thick as stew.

Starving, we also ordered Pallottino's signature cannellini beans in tomato sauce, though it might have been wiser to go with the more traditional olive oil base since the hearty ribollita also was tomato-based.

No matter how good the primi was, the best -- by far -- was yet to come in the secondi.

My bride of a quarter century Heidi went for the blackboard special of porchetta with outstanding roasted potatoes.

Porchetta is Italian for suckling pig that is heavily salted on the outside, deboned, stuffed with garlic, rosemary, fennel seeds, and other herbs, then rolled up and slowly roasted.

The result is a stunning piece of pork with the perfect amount of buttery fat and crispy skin on the plate to add to the flavor.

Porchetta usually is served room temperature or cold.

Pallottino serves it chilly.

Here's a little hint for those of you who perhaps are children of the Great Lakes who grew up thinking everything out of mom's kitchen should be nice and warm -- put the hot out of the oven taters on top of the porchetta and you've got warmed pork without offending the kitchen.

We certainly didn't stoop to such devices, we're just saying...

PART 3 POSTS TOMORROW -- JUNE 9