Sometimes when you venture out on a journey, you're not quite sure why you're doing it. Such was our daytrip to Montepulciano, about a 45-minute drive from Cortona where we were staying.
Montepulciano, in my mind, was never anything special. What did it have that Cortona didn't? More churches, narrow roads and city walls. Not only that, but we were making the drive in the pouring rain.
{photo href=’http://www.flickr.com/photos/chancesend/353431847/’ src=’http://farm1.static.flickr.com/128/353431847_8d99bac0b0_m.jpg’ width=’240′ title=’A charming road along the outskirts of Montepulciano’ caption=’A charming road along the outskirts of Montepulciano’ float=’left’}Though it was pouring, when we found a spot to park, we still ventured into the city. I had a recommendation from a guide book that suggested a small osteria for lunch. The only problem was that the landmarks the map listed in the guidebook didn't seem to correspond to the ones we were seeing in front of us. At all. And when it's pouring down like a waterfall, no one's really too into your cries of "let's just take this street, maybe we'll figure out where we are!" But after 15 minutes of wandering in the rain, we found our bearings and headed towards our lunch destination.
These were no ordinary mushrooms, for the millimeter-thick slices were orange on the outside and pearl white on the inside.
Upon seeing it, it really wasn't anything special – a little hole-in-the-wall place serving seemingly simple fare, inexpensive but not ridiculously so. Sort of akin to a small tavern or a quaint mountain ski lodge. My gnocci was good, but nothing compared to the heavenly fare we had been dining on in Cortona over the past few days. T, on the other hand, ordered a mushroom pasta. These were no ordinary mushrooms, for the millimeter-thick slices were orange on the outside and pearl white on the inside. We both agreed that the dish both looked and tasted divine.
When we were finished with the meal, we asked the owner what the mushrooms were. He motioned for us to wait for a moment, and returned from the kitchen with a few golf ball-sized objects in his hand. He told us a long story about their origin, and the words we picked out were “funghi dell'uovo” and “solo settembre”. Thus, we realized that these “egg mushrooms” were only harvested in September, meaning we had come at the perfect time. Now we knew why we had driven all the way to Montepulciano.