Taste & See
on extravagance, our trip to Italy, and being gobsmacked in the best possible way
You are my desires, King
Love is all I'll ever need
You are my delicacy
C'mon, c'mon to the dinner table
I always knew we would eat well.
This is a given, I suppose, when planning a trip to Italy. When you think of Italy, you think of fresh bread and handmade pasta and creamy gelato. I’ve loved Italian cuisine ever since I was a little girl sprinkling parmesan cheese all over my mom’s spaghetti. When I turned eighteen, I landed a lucrative job waiting tables at an Italian restaurant called Strizzi’s. The money was great. The discounted food was even better. Even though it’s been twenty years since I worked there, I can still close my eyes and taste the rigatoni bolognese, made with pear tomatoes and roasted peppers.
If pasta is a love language, it is certainly one of mine.
Our first evening in Florence, jet-lagged and haggard, Brett and I sat on the patio at La Duchessa after something like 30 hours of travel and pored over the menu through droopy eyes. I ordered the risotto with caramelized cacio and pear; he ordered the ravioli stuffed with Lampredotto beef and green sauce. After eating little more than granola bars and beef sticks along our journey, this single meal redeemed a multitude of sad snacks. I ate every morsel of rice on my plate, lapping up the buttery sauce with a spoon the way a kid scoops up the last drops of melted ice cream.
We slept—this is not an exaggeration—twelve hours that night.
The following evening, we dined at La Duchessa again, this time with our entire group. I overshot my stomach capacity on the first course, a stuffed pasta served on pork ragu. Again, I cleared my plate, completely oblivious to the fact that we were just getting started. Out came more food. And more food. And again, more food. Platters filled with meat and potatoes and more meat and more potatoes, and more pasta and more bread—so much bread!—to drench in olive oil.
I don’t need to tell you how grateful I was to not be wearing hard pants.
The meal progressed slowly, set to a pace that I’d quickly learn is the way of Italian culture. Here, people do not scarf down their food in minutes, inhaling leftovers over the kitchen sink. Here, they savor. Every bite, every course. Eating is not merely about sustenance; eating is an experience. The act of sitting down to enjoy a meal is not only about the food—it is equally about the company.
That first group meal set the culinary precedent for the rest of the trip: every night we would convene around the table for no less than three hours, in a multi-course meal served alongside wine and meaningful conversations.
God quickly brought to mind my word of the year: linger.
The following day, Brett and I—along with our friends Robin and Matt—ventured all over Florence looking for Procacci, an eatery I had accidentally noted as a good spot for paninis instead of what they actually serve, which is finger sandwiches. It didn’t matter, though. Within minutes we were caught in torrential downpour, scooting further and further under the patio awning laughing at the absurdity of the crazy rain while making friends with a man named Marco who confidently told us Procacci is the best restaurant in all of Florence.
“I eat lunch here every day,” he told us, explaining that he owns the jewelry store around the corner.
Procacci, a “classic Florentine watering hole” according to Conde Nast, is known for their truffles. The whole menu read a bit bougie for our tastes, but we ordered a plate of salami sandwiches lathered in truffle cream and they did not disappoint. We sat there for hours watching the rain, and eventually bought $5 umbrellas from a very smart man who knows a good opportunity when he sees one.
Later that day, our entire group ran what felt like two miles in what I can only describe as a monsoon. We arrived at Trattoria 4 Leoni drenched from head to toe, where we feasted in a private dining room on their famous pear ravioli and oven-baked lasagna. Lest you think two hearty pastas were enough, once again, the pastas were simply the warm-up for the meat, the “bistecca alla fiorentina”—also known as the largest board of rare steak I’ve ever seen in my life.
After two pasta dishes, a significant amount of meat, various sides and fresh bread, none of us hesitated to order tiramisu when the dessert menus appeared.
The next day I ate half a pizza, literally half a pizza, followed by two scoops of cioccolato and nocciola gelato in a waffle cone, and the fact that I was still standing after consuming that much dairy—without even a hint of a stomach ache—should tell you everything you need to know about the quality of ingredients in Italy.
There’s so much more I could tell you about the food, about the restaurants, about the generous breakfast spreads we enjoyed each morning: eggs, bacon, fruit, yogurt, croissants (the croissants!), meat, cheese, nuts, tiny jars of marmalade and Nutella. I could tell you about the wine and the Prosecco and the Aperol Spritzes. I could tell you about the ambiance, how we ate on the most charming patios you can possibly imagine, surrounded by flowers and twinkling lights, listening to a steady soundtrack of church bells ringing. One night we ate next to a fortress (a fortress!), passing plates of pasta and grilled sausages around family style, clinking wine glasses as the sun slowly dipped behind a row of wild lavender.
Extravagant is the only word that comes to mind.
Extravagant, as in:
exceeding the limits of necessity
a degree too great to be logical
beyond any reasonable expectation
This trip has been in the works for years, generously planned by my literary agent, Jenni Burke, as an intentional time to pour into her authors and their spouses. In preparation for this trip, we were given the following charge: This trip is not about output; this trip is about input. You are not here to create content; you are here to receive beauty. This is not a time for production; this is a time for renewal.
Talk about extravagance.
Nine months before this trip, Brett changed jobs—a transition that unexpectedly wreaked havoc on his mental health and catapulted him into his first experience with panic attacks. While the details are not mine to share, I will simply say this: healing has been slow, and Brett and I both showed up to Italy feeling empty and fatigued. And yet, from day one, we were not alone. All around us, hearts cracked open immediately: loss, grief, anxiety, friendship breakups, complicated career pivots, illness, unanswered prayers, estrangements, death, fear about the future. Not a single person showed up to this trip as fine, great, everything in my life is good.
On one particular day, we skipped out on the excursion du jour to stay back at the villa and catch up on rest with a few others. Imagine our surprise when we sat down with another couple at lunch and heard the husband confess that he had suffered two panic attacks the exact same month Brett had.
“I thought I was having a heart attack,” he said.
We nodded in familiarity. I squeezed Brett’s leg under the table. In one conversation, the sheer isolation of this private struggle dissipated into the air.
This, too, is a form of extravagance: being surrounded by a group of people who are willing to be honest and vulnerable for seven straight days.
Dumb as it sounds, my greatest anxiety before leaving was that I would get sick. Weeks before, I began drowning myself in vitamin C and electrolytes, stocking up on every hand sanitizer and supplement I could get my hands on. Two days in, I got sick anyway. I still don’t know if I had allergies or a head cold or even Covid (which Brett came home with), but for half the trip, I felt like a shell of myself, a colorful sweater that had lost all its pigment. And still, God met me there. Other women on the trip had come armed with medicine. A very nice pharmacist loaded me up with allergy tablets and cough drops. Perhaps most miraculously—despite the fact that I was congested and hoarse and sniffling and gross, nobody hesitated to sit next to me.
This, too, is a form of extravagance: even though I felt like garbage, I’d still call this one of the best trips of my life.
One night at dinner, another writer and I realized we had grown up in similar church denominations. This unexpectedly made way for me to share a portion of my testimony with the table, explaining that despite growing up in church, attending Christian school, and being raised surrounded by Christian everything, I somehow arrived at adulthood without a clue what the word “grace” even meant.
I recapped a handful of turning points, one of which involved studying the book of Galatians in my early twenties with a new group of friends. I still remember sitting on the couch, eyes bugging out of my head like a cartoon character. “Freedom” in Christ? Huh? I did not feel free at all. I grew up shackled to my own striving, a bottomless pit of toil and sweat and desperate rule-following, all in a pitiful effort to earn God’s favor. For most of my life, I viewed God as a scary tyrant in the sky, clipboard in hand, keeping a diligent log of every good and bad thing I had ever done. I tip-toed around in constant fear that I was one slip-up away from an eternity of fire and brimstone. For more than two decades of my life, I spun on a hamster wheel of good works, exhausted, going nowhere, chains of legalism wound so tightly around my neck, I could barely breathe.
All along, I had been trying to save myself.
All along, I had been failing miserably.
And the thing is, when you don’t have a proper understanding of grace, it isn’t that impressive of a concept. When you believe grace is somehow still contingent on you, there’s no awe involved. When you believe salvation hinges on your own ability to perfectly adhere to a long list of rules, you miss the total and complete sufficiency of what Christ did on the cross. For you. Broken, tired, selfish, still-messing-up, still-falling-short, running-and-going-absolutely-nowhere you.
When you believe religious productivity is your one-way ticket to heaven, you miss that glorious moment when Jesus pulls you off the hamster wheel. You miss the freedom. You miss the joy. That is all to say: you miss the entire point. You miss the fact that the Gospel is, indeed, good news. Some might even call it extravagant news.
Extravagant, as in:
God’s love, exceeding the limits of necessity
God’s mercy, a degree too great to be logical
God’s grace, beyond any reasonable expectation
Anne Lamott once described grace as something that scoops you up in a wheelbarrow and tips you out in slightly better shape. This is how I would describe our trip to Italy: my body showed up hungry, and came home full. My heart showed up heavy, and came home light. My soul showed up weary, and came home refreshed.
Just when I thought I couldn’t see anything more beautiful, I saw yellow flowers growing out of a fortress wall. Just when I thought the view couldn’t get any better, the sky turned a different shade of pink. Just when I thought I couldn’t be encouraged any more, a woman I deeply admire and respect sat next to me on the bus and mentored me for 45 minutes straight. And just when I thought I couldn’t possibly eat anything else, someone placed a delicious dessert in front of me made with my all-time favorite ingredient—Nutella.
Talk about extravagance.
Every day we were ministered to, prayed over, and left alone in the garden with our journals. We ate like royalty, all the while being immersed in beauty, nourished emotionally, and carefully shuttled from sacred place to sacred place.
I experienced God’s goodness over and over again, not just in the striking art and the fresh pasta and the magnificent views, but also in the generosity of presence from every other person on the trip. There was never a shortage of listening ears. No shortage of prayer. No shortage of encouragement doled out, from the bus rides to the dinner table to the side of the pool. Everywhere you turned, someone new appeared, ready to speak life over you.
There have been a handful of moments in my life where I have been on the receiving end of something so intensely lavish, so extravagant, so over-the-top, I am completely unmoored by it. Those moments when you think, This is too good to be true. Those moments when you think, I don’t deserve this. Those moments where the only response is bewilderment, awe, and straight-up astonishment.
Bewilderment that after spending half my life marked by a somber and rigid faith, the Gospel means I can actually live marked by inexpressible and glorious joy. Awe that I’ve been set free—wholly and completely—from the ruthless, unrelenting race of the hamster wheel. Straight up astonishment that God’s love and mercy and grace extend all the way to broken, tired, selfish, still-messing-up, still-falling-short me.
All of it is too good to be true.
And yet it is.
When people ask about our trip to Italy, I will tell them about the food, the people, the flowers. I will tell them about the fortress, about Michaelangelo’s David, about running around Florence in the pouring rain. I will tell them about singing in a church built over 700 years ago. I will tell them about the day I cried by the pool. And of course I will tell them about the stuffed focaccia.
But mostly I will tell them how God scooped me up in his wheelbarrow of grace for the millionth time, reminded me to taste and see that He is good, and returned me home in slightly better shape.
I’m off Instagram for the summer, but Kaitlyn did an amazing job creating reels for each day of the trip, if you’d like to see more:
Day 1 - Abide
Day 2 - Beauty
Day 3 - Weakness
Day 4 - Rest
Day 5 - Remembrance
Day 6 - Vocation
Day 7 - Friendship
Special thank you to Jenni Burke for creating this once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of us. I am beyond grateful to be represented by an agent who believes rest and play are part of a writer’s job description. ❤️
To be clear: the food and flowers were incredible, but the people were even better. Special thank you to Jess and Hosanna for taking me under your wings that day by the pool. To Asherita, for your beautiful prayer over me. To Nick, for your powerful prayer over Brett. To Ruth for those 45 minutes on the bus. To Robin and Matt for the company and laughter and always being our security couple. To Emily for your companionship (and for making books my daughter loves to read). To Kaitlyn for paying me the highest compliment known to a writer. To Jamin for the excellent teaching (and sweet Kristin, thank you for all the meds!!). And to Seth, who quietly and humbly serves in the background, without whom none of this would be possible. Thank you for loving and supporting Jenni so well, which I know equips her, in turn, to love and support all of us.
That Galatians study! I loved that little nugget. Besides now being very hungry, I am also so happy to get a little glimpse into God’s extravagant love in your life.
This was such a treat to read, as if we were somehow in Italy with you. Thank you!