Day 3 - Florence

Let the food orgy begin.

When we last left you, dear reader, the sweat was drying on our tired bodies, having just scaled on bicycle the summit known as Fiesole (ok, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration) and having been returned to downtown Florence by our guide, enjoying the pleasures of an Italian haircut. Upon return to our hotel we had asked the concierge to arrange dinner reservations for us at our favorite Florentine restaurant, which shall go nameless in order to protect it against hordes of American tourists. A few moments later the concierge called our room to confirm our reservation.

We arrive at our restaurant, a few paces from the Piazza Santa Croce and enter the doorway into the tiny reception area where one of the two brothers who runs this little piece of heaven on earth immediately registers his recognition of us with a broad smile and an outthrust hand. “How are you? It’s good to see you,” he utters in very passable English, something he would have been unable to express a few years ago. We exchange greetings and are quickly shown to our table.

We pass through the front room and up a couple of stairs to a smaller back room with perhaps six tables. The front room, which seats maybe thirty people, is full, despite the early dinner hour (eight o’clock generally marks the time when restaurants begin to get busy, although you can generally find a table at seven thirty). Couples and larger groups are hunched forward in animated conversation and there is a noisy but friendly buzz throughout the room. The back room is nearly full and equally noisy. All of the voices, except ours, are Italian. All of the clothing, glasses, handbags and dogs (you will often see Italians entering restaurants with a small dog, who usually sits quietly underneath the table throughout the meal) are Italian. This is a local haunt, always filled with locals. We feel privileged to be allowed in and can think of no better recommendation for a restaurant.

We had tried to book a table here the previous evening, our first night in Italy. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed. Another favorite was booked solid, so we allowed the concierge to recommend a good restaurant for us, Parione (Via del Parione, 74/76r, Florence, tel. 055.214005). We arrived there at 7:30, having just travelled from Washington, DC and wanting to get a relatively early night’s sleep. We were surprised to find Parione completely full, waiters dashing around and people obviously enjoying their meals. The three small dining rooms were similar in appearance to our favorite restaurants, plain wooden tables, open faced cabinets filled with various vintages, and a low, yellowish lighting that provided just enough illumination to allow you to see the menu, but which promoted calm.

But while the menus of these two establishments were similar, the experiences were very different, due largely to the fact that Parione caters directly, and it seems, primarily to the American tourist. As we are being seated every conversation we overhear is in English and our waiter, who rushes us to our table, speaks better English than my college age son. He is charming, no question about it (the waiter, not my son, although he is charming too) and entertains us with his bubbly personality as he runs through the menu with us, dumbing it down for these obvious dummies. Whereas our favorite place sticks to traditional Tuscan specialties – fettunta (toasted bread slathered with olive oil), crostino tipico (toasted bread with chicken liver pate), bruschetta pomodoro e basilica (toasted bread with diced tomatoes, basil and olive oil), assorted Tuscan meats and the like, Parione presents a menu that seems to want to make the American comfortable, featuring non-Tuscan offerings such as insalata caprese (sliced tomatoes with mozzarella and basil). There is nothing wrong with Parione’s menu, and our meal of bistecca alla fiorentina (chianina beef steak grilled to perfection and sliced from the bone), roasted potatoes and white beans is terrific. So good, in fact, that we have the identical entrée the following night at our local hangout. It is served the following night without so much glitz and commotion, but the humble owner nonetheless proudly carries our slab of beef to our table for us to inspect before it is cooked. Proclaiming that it is “un kilo e trenta” or 1.3 kilograms (just under three pounds) it is a deep maroon, red color, moist with its juices and about two inches thick. An enormous bone will give it even more flavor as it is cooked. (During the mad cow “epidemic” in the 1990s, the European Union required member countries to ban the sale of certain cuts of meat on the bone, fearing that this would encourage the spread the disease.
Surprisingly the Italians complied with this directive rather than withdrawing from the EU. We were fortunate enough to be visiting Italy several years ago just after the ban was lifted and heard a number of stories of city-wide celebrations where diners “welcomed back the bone.”)

Our bistecca is accompanied by white beans drowned in olive oil and sautéed beet greens. We wash all of this down with a bottle of Tignanello, a “supertuscan” red wine which has been priced at the same €60 for the years we have been coming here.

So, two nights, two bistecche, two exceptional bottles of wine. Not a bad way to start your trip. But while both meals were outstanding, we much prefer the local restaurant. Here dinner lasts a minimum of three hours. The waiters leave you to enjoy your food and your companion’s company, sometimes going too far, as it is often a challenge to get your check at the end of the meal. In contrast, Parione left us with the sense that we were being rushed, perhaps so the table could be turned over to another American couple after we left. Our waiter at Parione was a character, making jokes and yucking it up with us, but all of this was in flawless English, which sadly makes you forget you are in a foreign land. Not to say that our experience was in any way unpleasant; the food was excellent and the evening enjoyable. It’s just that the slickly packaged Parione made us feel as though we had dined at a very high end sort of Epcot. It looked like Florence, smelled like Florence but never quite felt like Florence.

The final point in favor of our local favorite occurred when we pushed away from the table. The night before at Parione we had struck up a pleasant conversation with a nice couple from Nova Scotia. As we left that restaurant we exchanged handshakes and goodbyes. The following night as we stepped away from our table, the distinguished Italian couple sitting to our left and with whom we had not spoken during the evening turned to us and wished us a good evening. By this simple gesture, we felt we had been welcomed into the fraternity of Italian diners, as sort of honorary Italians, and that made all the difference in the world.

* * *

For those of you who regularly read this blog, in which we have been recording our culinary travels in Italy for the past several years, you already know that we deserve to be members of the fraternity of Italian diners. We eat so much, so often, in so many places in this country, in fact, that if it had a dining Hall of Fame we would have been inducted into it already.

And if these future Hall of Famers have a new favorite place in Florence, it has to be the Teatro del Sale.

The Teatro del Sale (Via dei Macci, 111/r, Florence, 055.200.14.29, www.teatrodelsale.com) is a cross between a night club, social club and restaurant. It was established in 2002 by the owner of the popular and successful restaurant Cibreo, an expanding empire which now boasts of one of Florence’s best upscale restaurants, a more downscale caffe, a gourmet food shop and now, the Teatro del Sale. This complex is a stone’s throw away from the Mercato San Ambrogio, an outdoor fresh food market that is one of Florence’s best and definitely worth a visit in its own right.

The Teatro is housed in a former theatre and has been configured to include a gourmet shop, an expansive kitchen which can be viewed from the dining area behind a long plate glass window, seating for nearly 100, a stage for evening performances and a couple of comfortable sitting rooms for members. The key word here is members, for the Teatro is a club or circo-lo, open only to members. Membership is open to anyone, however, for a nominal €5 and runs from the date of joining until the following July. We originally joined a year ago and our classy little membership card, our names and membership numbers inscribed with a gold pen, announced us as the 57,000th member. Good Lord they sell a lot of memberships. The entrepreneur inside begins to scribble calculations on the back of a napkin.

We have only been to the Teatro for lunch, which runs from 12:30 until around 2:00. Like the dinners there, meals are served buffet style. Members find a table or a space at one of the longer communal tables and watch the kitchen staff preparing pasta and sauces, while grilled meats rotate on skewers in front of a large wood fire. Then a small opening in the enormous plate glass window swings open and the head chef shouts out in animated Italian what is being served. The antipasti has consisted of a dozen or so items, laid out on a central table, including polenta with cinnamon, pickled beets, pickled fennel and other grilled vegetables, a variety of cheeses, sliced prosciutto and other cured meats, several salads and thin slivers of toasted schiacciata, a Florentine version of foccaccia, which has been soaked in olive oil. As the food is set on the table, the members swarm about, jostling to get to the food before each other, Italians not being known for their skill in queuing up.

Heaps of food are taken back to the tables and a quiet falls over the room. Occasionally someone is elected to refill the table’s water jug or to get a fresh bottle of water. Handfuls of drinking glasses are transported to the entrance hall where a dispenser filled with very drinkable house wine is constantly in motion. Within a quarter hour or so the window swings open and the chef is shouting out the name of today’s pasta, and an enormous pan, perhaps two feet across, is passed through the window and transported to the serving table.

By now the dining room is as full as it will get, for members know that they can come late and get all of the antipasti they want. If they arrive late for the pasta, they fear, there will be none left for them, so a wave of diners has been arriving for the fifteen minutes or so before the arrival of the pasta. And when the pasta is announced it puts the commotion of the antipasti to shame. It is as though the diners are sharks and someone has poured gallons of blood onto the table. Elbows fly with such precision that an NBA player would be proud, shoulders slice through openings in the human wave like surgical lasers and, when not being served by one of the waiters, pasta is heaped on plates in monumental piles that would make Richard Dreyfuss’ character in Close Encounters proud. Italians love their pasta.

And so they should. We are given relatively small portions cavitelli pasta with a rich, silky tomato basil sauce, doled out on small desert plates. It is so incredibly satisfying that we sneak back for seconds, which is no problem as hardly a dent has been made in the enormous basin of pasta. So incredibly satisfying that later when I am having dessert, Suzy opts for yet another plate instead of chocolate cake.

The mixed grilled meats, rotated on skewers over a wood fire and which are the final course are often a bit of a letdown. This not because they are disappointing, but because there is little room left in our stomachs. We do our best to locate adequate intestinal space and finish off a healthy portion of chicken and lamb which have been seasoned with rosemary.

So nearly two hours after having wandered into this old theater we stumble out, our bellies distended and our brain cells diminished, the bright Florentine sun causing us to squint and adjust to the reality that much of the day remains ahead of us. At €15 for lunch, this is the best deal in the city and as two of the exclusive fraternity of 57,000 members we are proud to be recognized as members of the club.

So it’s off to Avis, by way of Vestri, Florence’s premier chocolatier, where we pick up a small cup of creamy drinkable chocolate and begin the ordeal of driving through Florence back to the Pierre Hotel to collect our baggage. After less than 48 hours we have to leave our favorite city, bound for Perugia and a whole host of new culinary and cultural adventures.

Stay tuned.

A presto,
Bill and Suzy

Day 2 - Florence

What fit of madness can explain why an overweight, unathletic, out of shape man in his late forties and his wife would choose to spend their first full day on vacation, after nearly twenty four hours of travelling across the world, on bicycles, pumping and straining to reach an ancient hilltown when a perfectly good city lay before them right at their feet? I struggle with that question the following morning as my legs tremble from their recollection of our adventure yesterday and my bottom still retains the unpleasant memory of a hard, unyielding bicycle seat which was its host for nearly six hours.

We awoke at an unpleasantly early hour, assisted by the confusion of our body clocks, which have not yet adjusted to local time but which have lost track of home time already. We dress in the athletic gear that we have optimistically brought along with us and looking completely ridiculous, depart our hotel, the well-situated Pierre (Via de’Lamberti, 5, Florence, tel. 055.216.218) just off the Via Calzaiuoli and a stone’s throw from the Duomo. Although running a few minutes late we charge into the hotel’s breakfast room for a quick cup of coffee and a bite to eat, drawing disapproving, or at least unbelieving looks from our fellow hotel guests at our unusual and inappropriate attire (please don’t worry yourself, we were clad in workout gear – shorts and tee shirt, not bike shorts), a situation that is hard to swallow from anyone who has put up with the hoards of wacko tourists in this town as we have. We feel a definite lack of comfort as we descend into the depths of “them.”

We hurry down the street toward the Ponte Vecchio, making a left hand turn along the Arno river toward our destination, the much more recently built Ponte alle Grazie. This bridge connects the oltrarno (the other side of the Arno) with the main side of the city, connecting with the Via de’Benci, which runs up to Piazza Santa Croce. This bridge, where we are to meet our tour guide, served as our daily transit point to central Florence nearly twenty years ago when we lived here for the summer as student, wife and newborn son. Every corner, alleyway and building in Florence bring back some sort of memory of that trip or one of the many other visits we have made to this exceptional place.

We are unaccustomed to rising this early in Florence while on vacation and there is a very different feel and look to the town as it, too, is shaking off its previous evening’s slumber. Workers outnumber tourists as they charge past in their stylish Italian outfits, sidewalks and streets are wet from their daily washing and the sun has yet to rise above the buildings, leaving the streets in relative darkness and the air cool, heavy and fresh. In our shorts and tee shirts we begin to wonder if have dressed appropriately for the day.

We arrive a minute before the appointed hour and there waiting for us is our guide, Steve, a young man on leave from college back in Missouri, who guides groups of cyclist ranging from two people to twenty from Florence to the hilltown of Fiesole, some number of miles up and away from Florence. We meet Sue and Laura as well, two middle aged women from Virginia who will round out our group. Steve greets us all, shows us to his van and we weave our way through traffic to the outskirts of town where his employer, I Bike Italy (tel. 055-234.2371, http://www.blogger.com/www.ibikeitaly.com) stores their bikes in a small locked garage. We are assigned mountain bikes, each with its own name (mine is “the Promise,” Suzy’s is “Up and Away,” others, such as “Crash and Burn” and “the Mangler” thoughtfully not assigned today given the small group).

As we don our helmets and listen to Steve’s introduction and instructions, anticipation is rising and each member of this unlikely group seems to be trying to hide a case of nerves, as none of us has ridden a bike since childhood. We alight from the garage area to begin our first segment, a short ride onto the main road, across a bridge and along a country lane where we will assemble in front of a gate with a plaque that welcomes us the countryside that inspired the setting of Boccaccio’s Decameron and has inspired countless other authors and artists since. Our group makes it to the first checkpoint intact, but already there is grumbling and complaining among us, even though the ride has been perfectly flat.

We head out for our second segment, where we begin our ascent to Fiesole, the road a gentle incline punctuated with short, steeper segments that challenge us and cause at least a couple of us to dismount and walk our bikes for a spell. It is during this segment that it becomes apparent that the genius who came up with the line “it’s like riding a bike; once you learn you never forget” had never met Laura. Not a half an hour into our trip she has crashed her bike (getting on it, mind you, not riding it), has cut her arm and has given up on riding to Fiesole. Steve has to pedal back to the garage, get the van, pick her up and run the trip from a van, rather than from his bike. I can only imagine how incredulous (read, pissed off) he is, but he betrays no ill will.

We stop several times along the way to Fiesole, getting directions to our next checkpoint from Steve and stopping to enjoy some of the most amazing views of Florence imaginable. From the hills above town the entire ancient renaissance city is visible, the famous Duomo of Brunelleschi rising above everything, providing a frame of reference from which you can find the church of San Lorenzo, the Pitti Palace, the Piazza Signoria and all of the other famous buildings that one discovered and fell in love with in Art 101. A hazy layer of smog blankets the entire valley, obscuring the view somewhat and reminding us that this town is not just a museum piece, but the center of an industrial area in a modern economy.

By now the sun is high in the sky and temperatures have warmed somewhat. Still the air is slightly cool and crisp but the burning in our legs and sweat generated by this unusual activity make us glad we have dressed as we did. We are getting accustomed to and even possibly adept with the gear shifters on our bikes and the dismounting and walking up hills has become less frequent, even as the hills have become steeper. On some of the steeper inclines our feet pedal furiously as our bikes, in lowest gear, inch forward at a ridiculously slow rate. But we are captains of our own ships now and each of us (except Laura) is determined to arrive safely in port at Fiesole.

And so we do arrive, around noon, in the main square of Fiesole, sweat streaming from our pores, chests heaving and each of us emitting more odor than the Italian national soccer team. But we have done it. We have achieved what seemed impossible a few hours earlier. As we began our trip we were nervous about our ability to even ride a bike. As we mounted the first few stages that concern gave way to doubts whether we would have the stamina to make it all the way, whether on bike or on foot. Fiesole seemed a long walk away. As we entered the piazza, we did so as different people. Despite a rather steep final ascent I was damned if I was going to dismount and walk into town. Summoning every bit of energy I pumped my legs and ignored the burning and broke through into the piazza. For a moment I was Lance Armstrong, and I could imagine the short, heavy Italian matrons lined up at the bus stop cheering and going into a frenzy over my nature-defying achievement. Such is the mind of the cyclist. Or so I would imagine.

Suzy and I wander around the main piazza, our first visit here since our first trip to Italy when Bill studied law at Georgetown University’s summer program in Fiesole. Despite its proximity to Florence, this is a town largely unvisited by the tourist hordes and little has change in the decades since our last visit. After walking up to the belvedere that affords a spectacular view of Florence below, we return to our bikes to learn that our victory over Fiesole was only pyrrhic. We are far from over. A forty five minute ride is required to reach the restaurant where we will have lunch and another couple of hours remains on the program. These I Bike Italy people are very good at managing egos and expectations, indeed.

Nearly an hour later we arrive at La Panacea, a small trattoria set in a cool garden outside the town of Olmo. Despite the fact its business card proclaims seafood as its specialty, we enjoy typical crostini topped with chicken liver pate and bruschetta topped with flavorful tomatoes, basil and local olive oil pressed at an estate a short five minute bike ride down the road. We follow that with heaping plates full of spaghetti with pesto sauce and penne with tomato sauce, carbo loading for our return trip. The trattoria Panacea lives up to its name, the food, relaxation and most of all the padded chairs a panacea for us.

Before descending back to Florence, we stop at the Fattoria di Montereggi, a winery and olive farm where the proprietor bottles modest quantities of chianti and extravirgin olive oil. Steve shows us entire operation, from the plants to the pressing equipment, explaining how wine is fermented and olive oil obtained from mashed olives. We then get to taste a little, buy a little at insanely low prices and begin our downhill coast back to the outskirts of Florence. Along the final leg, a steep, windy road that skirts Settignano, the childhood home of Michelangelo, and passes a number of castles, we barely have to pedal at all, using our breaks constantly as the pine forest whizzes by. Never have I loved gravity so much. Thank you, Mr. Newton.

After checking in our equipment, Steve drives us back to the Ponte alle Grazie and we say our goodbyes. It has been about eight hours since we first met and it is still our first day in Italy. The strenuous activity has perhaps made us forget our jet lag and has definitely filled us with an overflowing sense of well being. As we return to our hotel, legs tired and bodies aching, we are beaming, smiles creasing our faces. We pass an old fashioned barber shop and we stop in for a quick haircut (Matteo Parrucchiere, Via dei Neri, 26/r). The barber finishes up trimming the mustache of a man in a beautiful plaid wool jacket who looks like he stepped directly from the set of the Godfather and begins plying his trade on my head. Twenty minutes later I am transformed, confirming my belief that Italy produces the best barbers in the world. It is a thoroughly enjoyable visit.

Back to the hotel for a hot shower and dinner reservations at our favorite restaurant in Florence. More on that tomorrow.

A presto.
Bill and Suzy

Day 1 - Washington-Milan-Florence

Rather than a smooth, flowing moving picture, today’s account of our adventure is a choppy, jerky series of still images, garnered from snatches of consciousness and punctuated by periods of deep, if unrestful sleep. It is a travel day, from Washington, DC to Florence, by way of Philadelphia, Frankfurt and Milan, but despite nearly 36 hours of planes, trains and automobiles (not to mention Pullmans), we have arrived at our favorite destination in the world – Florence.

Not much noteworthy to report on the flight over, other than the inevitable hassle that occurs when one flies on a codeshare operated flight, which has, unfortunately, become more common as the struggling airlines seek ways to increase their revenues. We have booked our tickets through US Air, having snagged a ridiculously low business class fare, but the routing takes us across most of western Europe, which is tolerable given the width and pitch of the seats, with two of the flights operated by US Air and one by its codeshare partner, Lufthansa. While US Air is happy to collect the ticket revenue for the Lufthansa-operated segment (Frankfurt to Milan), they act utterly powerless to help out with such mundane details as getting us seats together on the Lufthansa flight. They seem to be asking for the ugly American to rear his ugly head.

No worries, however. The flights go smoothly, other than an incredibly loud and possibly drunk woman sitting across the aisle from us on the Philadelphia-Frankfurt segment, who keeps her seatmate, aislemates, cabinmates and, probably, flightmates, all up to date on all the details in her miserable, unnoteworthy life. Thank goodness for the amenity kit provided by the airline, with its earplugs and eyeshades. With one earplug inserted (on the conversation side of my head) and noise-cancelling headphones blaring Louis Prima tunes, I am just about able to drown out her droll dithering.

We are excited that our multi-hour layover in Frankfurt will be eased by a visit to the Sheraton airport hotel, compliments of US Air. After toting our carryon bags for a mile or two we arrive in the lobby and the front desk attendant begins to arrange a day room for us, where we can shower, get an internet connection and check in on the fate of our beloved Red Sox.

Disappointment greets us, however, when she returns to tell us that there are no rooms available. We trudge back to our gate and after another mile or so, aided by dozens of fifty foot segments of moving sidewalk, we enter the Lufthansa business class lounge where half the German population seems to have called seatbacks, taking nearly every chair, couch or stool. After a protracted search we do find a couple of seats and also discover that the lounge also has a shower facility, which I sign up for.

I truly believe that a bed and/or a shower during a long flight is (as Donkey might say) one of the most refreshingest things in the world. Many years ago, while traveling to Italy with my parents we punctuated our layover in Zurich with a 4 hour nap in a day room operated by the airport, a particularly pleasant transatlantic crossing that conjures itself up on occasion. Today, as the hot water relaxes the tired muscles that had crabbed themselves into tight, twisty knots at the sound of hours of Ms. Platitude’s transoceanic blathering, a sense of wellbeing re-emerges, even though we are only about half way to our destination. I highly recommend a hot shower for the tired traveler.

We arrive in Milan’s Malpensa airport in the late morning, nearly a day after we had begun our travel. It has been several years since we have flown in here, opting for Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport (Fiumicino) for our recent transits. Despite all the hype about Malpensa construction and upgrade, it (or at least the terminal at which we arrived) remains a tired, rundown, unappealing welcome to the country. Well, we Americans have JFK, so we’ll call it a draw.

Outside the terminal two busses, or Pullmans as the Italians like to call them, wait to whisk passengers to destinations in downtown Milan, including the Stazione Centrale, or central train station. A high speed train will also take you from the airport to central Milan, but for some reason it pulls into the Cadorno Station, which requires a taxi or other form of transportation if you are taking a train to Florence or Rome. Just under an hour later, and €6 lighter we arrive at the Stazione Centrale, Milan’s main train station.

It has been several years since we have travelled through this station and as we approach the monumental doorway we recall how rundown the station was on our last trip, scaffolding everywhere as they attempted to modernize the grim interior. As we enter we can see the enormous progress they have made in the intervening years – scaffolding has been removed and replaced with large wooden barriers that block off much of the floor space. It is still dreary and dreadful, but now the cavernous interior space has been so chopped up as to make it crowded as well.

We buy our tickets from the automated ticket machines which are incredibly simple to use, find our track and climb aboard the train, which is originating from this station. We have twenty minutes to run spare, so I run back to the station and buy some sandwiches, arriving back at the train a few seconds before the doors shut and it heads south. Disaster narrowly averted.
Mussolini may be long departed, but he left behind a fantastic train system. The fast trains between the major cities are first rate, clean, fast and on time, and our train is no exception.

After loading our luggage into the racks above our seats we drift off to sleep, waking every ten minutes or so. After an hour and half we reach Bologna, the culinary capital of Emilia-Romagna if not of all of Italy (or perhaps the world!), a place to which we will briefly return in a week or so. After departing the city we begin the final hour of our journey, crossing some of the most fantastic (in the fantastic sense of the word) scenery imaginable. I’m not sure I know how to define a crag, but looking out the window the word craggy jumps to mind (and that is not from my reflection in the window). Hills jut up into sharp peaks faced with sheer rock, peaks plunge into steep valleys and here and there bare trees dot the crags (Johnny, don’t forget to dot your crags). Some hills or mountains are ripped in two, gigantic faults splitting them apart. I have taken this train route a number of times and will never tire of it. It conjures up the image of the Mona Lisa, sitting for her portrait among the craggy hills of this part of the world.

At last we arrive in Florence, a mere twenty one hours after having taken off from Washington, D.C. we are somewhat tired, despite the naps and the shower, but we’re back in Florence, the birthplace not only of the renaissance, but of our love of Italy. It is about 5:00 in the afternoon and we have much to do, literally miles to walk, before we sleep – an appointment with our jewelry producer, renewal of our memberships to the unique and quirky dinner and social club, the Teatro del Sale, tasting a few glasses of wine at our favorite new wine bar, Coquinarius (Via delle Oche, 15r, Florence, tel. 055.23.02.153, closed Sunday night and open every other day from 9am until, as their business card says “late night”) and, of course, dinner. But today was about travel so we will end our story here. Perhaps tomorrow we will divulge some details about what took place this night, but then again we certainly will be regaling you with stories of our bicycle trip from Florence to the hilltown of Fiesole. Tune in tomorrow and if nothing is posted, please have the authorities begin searching for our bodies.

A presto,
Bill and Suzy