The great bruschetta-off

The food here is everything I'd hoped. If, in my bumbling-foreigner way, I'm choosing the poorer ristorante, trattoria and pizzeria, I can scarcely imagine what the good ones dish out.

Last night, I had good ol' tomato-and-basil bruschetta before a bloody divine spinach-and-ricotta ravioli in a sauce of sweet cherry tomatoes, zucchini and (I think) eggplant. The buschetta tasted rather similar to the one I make at home, which pleased and disappointed me simultaneously. Presumably this means I make a passable tomato-and-basil bruschetta. But, while I'm here, I want some kind of culinary transcendance, not confirmation.

Speaking of transcendance, I leave you with a piece of art I bought from some back-street Caravaggio near the Spanish Steps. Simply glorious. God onlyknows how somebody else didn't snap it up before I had the chance. It'll look divine on the bedroom wall back in Oz.

I call it "TomKat".