George Clooney

Two days ago, we rented a motorboat from our pal Mino, from whom we are also renting the apartment here in Ossuccio.

I had never driven a motorboat before, but I think I handled it like a pro.

We spent the day on the lake, motoring down to Lake Como, looking for George Clooney's house along the way. We knew that he has a villa in the town of Laglio, but we had no idea what his actual house looks like, so we took pictures of basically every villa in Laglio along the way, saying "Look, George Clooney!!" after every one.

That night we went to dinner at a lovely hidden restaurant Mino told us about, La Tirlandana. It was right on the water with a beautiful view of the island Isola Comachina, and the rest of the lake. Torches burned on the dock leading from the water to the tables. It was idyllic.

For my starter, I had a lemon ravioli; thin rounds of al dente lemon-scented pasta filled with a delicate lemon cream. For my main, I had the grilled local fish, which was absolutely lovely: light, and delicate, sprinkled with fresh herbs and a few frizzles of bacon. There was no butter or sauce on it, so the freshness of the fish and smokiness of the bacon really came out.

In spite of the fact that I was having fish, I opted to try a bottle of red wine, and since Steve was having lamb chops with mint sauce, the choice wasn't totally out of left field.

I got a bottle of Barbera d'Asti "Mon Ross" 2008 from Fortete della Luja from the Piedmont region of Italy. This is a light red wine, but in which you can still taste the warmth of the sun with a bright acidity, as well as a lovely sour cherry, red and black cherry, plum skin, bramble, dried leaves, and that distinctly Italian light tang of iron on the finish.

It was a lovely meal, punctuated by a visit from the waiter's cat, who alternated between visiting us at the tables and jumping in and out of the boats. As you can see from this picture, Dr. Evil from Austin Powers would have loved this cat "with frickin laser beams".