Apparently, the country with the most McDonald's franchises in Europe is France. Those people are savages.

If you want to befriend someone in Italy, talk with them about food. It takes us ages now to do our shopping because we discuss (at length) the food with everyone in the shops -- advice, recipes, tips, thoughts, cooking techniques, information, opinions, fervently held yet apocryphal beliefs. Then we come home and gorge ourselves.

Here are some things we have been eating lately, as spring has come to the market:

Agretti: tastes like spinach, looks like grass.

Fresh fava beans (shelled by me): eaten raw with good olive oil, a tiny bit of sea salt, and little pieces of fabulous cheese.

Fresh peas: again, lovingly shelled by hand. Well, maybe not "lovingly."

Jonathan has baked bread today. The sun is out and we can see the waves still left from last night's storm crashing on the beach. Every day, I know that I am profoundly lucky.