Platform heels, baby.

What a weekend.

I have some smart friends.  Some of them are clever enough to live in more friendly places, climatologically speaking.  In one friend's case, home is Milan.  And for one perfect weekend, I too was a Milanesa.  (Well, I pretended to be anyway.)

At base, I'm not a shopper, never really have been, but boy, Milan could convert a girl. First of all, there are the innumerable culinary treats.

 Here are two different kinds of beautifully stuffed peppers.

 And of course the porcini--I am definitely a funghi girl.

You look at fresh pieces like this and you immediately want to make risotto.  Or you do if you're a Milanesa. Like me.  This past weekend, I mean.

I cracked when I saw the rhododendron honey.  Never even seen that one before.  But then I thought of the jar, broken en route, honey seeping into the stitching of my brand-new, perfectly fitted, taupe leather gloves (because you have to buy gloves while in Milan, it's the unbreakable rule).  There are really only two specialty shops for the aficionados, one of which is Sermoneta. I resisted buying the jar: gloves combine poorly with honey in a carry-on, even if the honey in question is rhododendron (which would taste like what exactly? Blueness?)

Even in Italy, you can't get away from beautiful French things. I know, don't judge a book by its cover, etc, but I fell a little bit in love with this canister.  It made me dream. 

We also browsed the G. Lorenzi, family-owned cutlery shop, founded in 1929 and a Milanese landmark.  Lorenzi is known not only for every possible permutation of a knife, but also for highly specialized items in bone (an orange peeler anyone?)  I couldn't afford the truffle slicers I admired, although surprisingly there was a whole range possible.  I even saw some lovely shoe horns in bone for as low as 5 euros.

As I don't need a shoe horn or a filigreed pasta knife, I settled for some toothpaste: they had toiletries to go with their leather toiletry cases.  We're not talking Crest, mind you, this was Marvis toothpaste.  One of their most popular flavors is Jasmine mint, but there is also ginger mint, and even licorice.  I chose cinnamon mint (too bad they don't offer chocolate-flavored toothpaste, as they do in Japan).  In Milan, Marvis is a fraction of what it costs beyond Italy's borders. And now, I'll undoubtedly feel that extra touch Italian, just by brushing my teeth.  Right?

What do you think of when you think of Milan, besides risotto and maybe osso buco?  Money.  This is the northerly business epicenter of Italy.  There is money.  Combine Italian men and money, and you seem to get Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Ferraris.  Sometimes five red ones, all in a row, as you can see below.

For the men and women who aren't into cars, there is ample choice of design furniture.  Ceccotti furniture stands out in particular for an extreme purity of line, craftsmanship and sensuality, classical with an art collector's twist.  Think I exagerrate?  Go to their site, check out the Manta desk, or the Bean desk, or any of Lazzeroni's dining chairs.  Really, to touch the silken lines of a Ceccotti piece is to gently and irrevocably fall in love. (Below is a dress boy, weirdly lightweight and perfectly formed.)

And of course there is the fashion.  Here are some Pucci scarves adorning the shop entrance.

We spent a lot of time wandering in and out of shops, looking at the latest collections, admiring the fabrics and the exquisite cuts, but when I arrived home, I realized the food images dominated.  Quel surprise. You know by now that my stomach is where my passion lives.  These are marzipan fruits--with brown spots for authenticity.

Of course there was the obligatory gelato stop.

The single most divine dish of the weekend?  Tough call, but most likely a simple bowl of fresh burrata, a kind of creamy mozzarella, combined with cherry tomatoes and good pesto.

We walked off the burrata by strolling deep into the night, as one does when one is from Milan: in heels, laughing, talking and generally carrying on.