Linda and Gerhardt and the Appreciation of Fine Food – Many of you likely know by now that I boastfully feel that we have the finest travel agent on the planet and her name is Linda Lockner!

Linda has been ensuring that we have priceless memories for nearly ten years now and over the course of that period she and her husband Gerhardt have become our friends. The two of them paid us a brief visit in early April and it was wonderful to see them.

As you can imagine, they had many things on their agenda list, but reserved two evenings to spend time with Anna and I over dinner. One of the many things that we have in common with them is a love for food. Gerhardt is an accomplished cook and prepares meals for the two of them many times a week in their gourmet kitchen, so sending him to San Lorenzo market for a look was near the top of the list.

On their final night in Florence we took them to one of the finest restaurants in Florence called Fuor Di Acqua (Out of the water). Four Di Acqua is a place that was introduced to us by Steve and Emma Silverman, who learned about it from Nicola Albini in September. On the menu that night (As always) was fish, fish and more fish, served both cooked and raw (Raw). Gerhardt and I dissected each of the several dishes in our effort to figure out how we could recreate them at home.

If you ever get a chance to go to Four Di Acqua, don’t arrive until around 9:00 at night as the fish doesn’t get to the restaurant until then. Every day the fish is brought to Four Di Acqua straight from the boats in the Mediterranean, assuring that you have nothing but fresh fish caught that day!

I remember in September when we took Mark and Tracy Tyron to Four Di Acqua and following the first course (You don’t really ever see a menu, they just bring you what’s fresh), Tracy Tyron called for the waiter; “Excuse me, do you have any pasta in a meat sauce?” she asked. The waiter responded simply with “Mam, we don’t have chicken, we don’t have meat, we don’t have lamb. When you eat here you eat fish!”