How can something so sweet, cause so much pain?

My daily love affair with Italian gelato has regrettably ended.


See, I have been trying unsuccessfully to kick my habit of ending each meal with a double scoop of my favourite two flavours - caffe and zabaglione (coffee and egg nog). However, I'm the first to admit that I have trouble exercising self control over dessert and would inevitably end up in my favourite gelateria each night somewhere between the hours of 7 and 8pm. Actually make that my ex-favourite gelateria.

Friday night was no different. I said grazie to the shop assistant and proceeded off happily into the streets of Firenze with my own little bit of heaven. Or so I thought. My stomach unfortunately didn't agree.

The next morning I woke up doubled up over in pain and my body shaking uncontrollably. I have never had food poisoning and I pride myself on my Polish stomach of steel that can quite happily eat egg nog and raw mince tartare style. Since I don't want to lose any of my readers, I won't go into any more details about my next twelve hours of severe food poisoning details, but all I will say is that I never ever want to look at ice-cream again. Even now, I can't walk past a gelateria without my stomach turning. If you have been to Florence, you'll know this is a problem as every street has many gelateria's.

It is now two days later as I write this and my stomach is still making noises that resemble a washing machine. No, not a quiet Fisher and Paykel. More like a noisy machine similar to the one I had as a student at university which had a life of it's own on the spin cycle.

I am now thinking about what lovely treat will become the replacement for my daily dessert. Perhaps a tiramisu or panacotta or some fragola with ricotta and miele (strawberries with ricotta cheese and honey). Hang on, my stomach is making those noises again...

Restaurant recommendation: Ok, so it is an hour drive from Florence, but we had a fabulous lunch at a restaurant at the Barberino Shopping Outlet which by the way is a great day out for shopping (and in my opinion a lot better than The Mall outlet centre). The restaurant name is Ristorante Il torracchione and trust me, just get the mixed grill - massive platters of ribs, roasted chicken and ribs. You can't miss the restaurant as you'll see roughly fifty Italians lining up for it. But it's definetely worth the wait.