In Italy, a gastronomia is a food shop that typically serves ready-to-eat meals, such as pasta, meat, or vegetable dishes. Even though I’ve shopped at many gastronomie in my travels, especially in Friuli-Venezia Giulia while doing research for my cookbook Flavors of Friuli: A Culinary Journey through Northeastern Italy, none stands out in my memory as being particularly significant. Therefore, this is the only one of my dollhouse shops that has not been at least partially inspired by a specific real-life location.
Given that it’s intended to be entirely fictional, I’m creating this shop to be what I would consider the ultimate gastronomia: a store that carries a little of everything, food-wise. Occasionally, a gastronomia will also sell cheese, salumi, bread, produce, and/or other grocery items, particularly in smaller towns that don’t have as many specialty stores—at least that was my experience in some of the villages in the Carnian Alps. And since there are so many different types of food items I’d like to someday make from polymer clay, this type of shop seemed my best choice. After much thought, I decided to call the shop Gastronomia Furlan, after the name of Friuli’s native language.
In my cookbook, I have a section on the architecture of the Carnian mountains. Buildings there are Alpine in style, either constructed of whitewashed stucco or wood, or often both. I’m making use of that style here, with a wood stain called “special walnut” for the trim and white stucco walls.
When I was testing stucco techniques for Gelateria Bocelli and Osteria Al Vecchio Stallo, I played around with both dollhouse mortar mix and plaster of Paris. I ended up using the mortar mix for both dollhouses, as well as for the sidewalks, but have used plaster of Paris here. Mixed with white paint and applied with a brush, it gave a much smoother appearance, which I think looks quite realistic.
Since the two side/back walls will not be visible, I didn’t bother with the stucco effect and just painted them white.
