Every Day in Tuscany (23 page)

W
E SET THE
table inside because the forecast says rain. Once when I heard the report, the meteorologist apologized at the end and said he was sorry but he’d read last week’s weather. So, we’ll see. No clouds all afternoon when the Alfonsos come up for a swim. Gilda is coming to help us and she will bring several dishes. I know because when she starts up her bread oven, she just won’t quit.

I could dine on the flowers alone—face-sized white hydrangeas in a white pottery bowl. We often have casual dinners but tonight—glasses for each wine, place cards, two
secondi
(Italians often serve two entrées but I usually serve one), candles in hurricane lamps, and the napkins Melva gave me. They’re the size of head scarves and monogrammed with the initials of someone long gone. We leave a small flashlight beside Placido’s place, as we always do to tease him because he complains that he cannot see what he’s eating in dim candlelight.

Alberto takes the children home, settles them in for the evening, and returns with the other adults. They arrive just as Melva and Jim and Placido and Fiorella are turning in the gate. How joyous to see this phalanx of friends, faces brushed with late sunlight, crossing the grass in their summery colors of pink hibiscus, saffron, aqua, and lemon.

No rain at all. Gilda brings out an
aperitivo
she’s invented with grapefruit juice and Campari, so pretty in the glass pitcher with floating tiny berries and mint leaves. We serve the
crostini
and slowly move to the table.

THE MENU

Fiori di zucchini fritti
Fried zucchini flowers

Crostini:
Aglio arrosto con noce
Roasted garlic with walnuts

Tre pomodori (arrosti, secchi, e freschi)
Three tomatoes: roasted, sun-dried, fresh

Gorgonzola e salvia
Gorgonzola and sage

P
RIMO
Lasagne con tartufo e besciamella
Truffle and béchamel lasagna

S
ECONDO
Anatra con miele e arancio
Duck with honey and orange

Faraona arrosto con pancetta
Guinea hen with pancetta

C
ONTORNI
Patate arrosto al forno
Potatoes roasted in the oven

Bietole con aglio e pignole
Chard with garlic and pine nuts

Insalata del orto
Salad from the garden

D
OLCE
Pesche ripiene con mandorle e mascarpone
Peaches stuffed with almonds and mascarpone

Torta di susine
Plum tart

After dessert, Tony takes up his guitar and we all sing “Guantanamera,” “Ivory Tower,” “Blue Moon,” and several Beatles songs, Tony’s specialty. He and Alberto harmonize. I love it when Tony shifts to falsetto. Clearly, they’ve done this before. Uncle Nico tells stories of Rome when he lived there in the seventies. Placido and Carlos talk hunting. We plan an excursion to the Etruscan tombs. Talk, talk, talk. On into the night.

In summer, every day turns into an adventure. Just a morning in the piazza is adventure enough, but the trips and cooking marathons and
bocce
matches draw all of us into closer and closer circles of friendship.

Riccardo and Silvia celebrate their anniversary with a party at their cooking school. They’ve recently converted an outbuilding at Il Falconiere into a large kitchen with a long table for prep work and, later, dining. Like everything else they’ve accomplished at their sybaritic inn, the teaching kitchen has a welcoming atmosphere and particular character. Riccardo and Silvia embody not only the Italian concept of
la bella figura
but also the more subtle
sprezzatura
, the art of making something difficult look easy. Their sense of décor never falls to standard-issue thinking. Silvia could be a flip-this-house maven, if she were not busy realizing her own projects. Whatever she touches turns to
Silvia
, and that’s a fine thing.

Riccardo meets everyone under the wisteria pergola.
“Sempre bella,”
he welcomes each woman. Always beautiful. And, “How is it that you are returning more beautiful than before?” To the men,
“Grande!”
and a hug, which is short for
“Grande amico,”
great friend, the affectionate way local men greet each other.

We’ve arrived at six, plenty of time to prepare a goose sauce for pasta, lamb
en croute
, and a scrumptious chocolate dessert. Richard Titi, the chef at Il Falconiere, spends the first hour with us before he has to go down to the main kitchen. We are given aprons, a glass of wine, and a few tips about kneading, whisking, carving the lamb. Silvia keeps everyone on task but the noise level of fifteen cooks starts to rise. As the lamb slides into the oven, some drift to admire the dusky light on Riccardo’s vines and the view of Cortona. Finally, a few other guests arrive and we migrate to the oval table in the garden, ready for several hours of toasts to the day twenty-five years ago when this amazing couple stepped into marriage.

A
LBERTO AND HIS
family take off for the Dolomites, Carlos goes fishing, Tony and crew pack the van and go sightseeing. I get down to work on ideas for my furniture collection. Ed works with Giorgio, pruning the olive grove. We scatter and come together and scatter. But on the night of the World Cup, we all gather, with every other live soul in town, in Piazza Signorelli, where a large screen has been mounted in front of the bank. Everyone is there except the Cardinalis, who stayed home to watch. Placido maintained that it would be a madhouse in town.

Italy plays France. This is big. Culmination of sixty-four matches. All around the piazza, people are leaning out their windows, shouting at every kick. Somehow Carlos has found plastic chairs inside the museum courtyard and set up our cheering section right out front. Most people are too excited to sit. The crowd breaks into a soccer chant everyone but us seems to know. The Alfonso kids, wearing bright blue team shirts with players’ names on the back, bounce around. They’ve painted Italian flags on their faces. At each good move by Totti, Del Piero, Grosso, or Zambrotta, the child with that name emblazoned on his back takes it personally.

The sportscasters seem about to pop. They shout
“Incredibile! Incredibile!”
and
“Bello,”
and at each triumph the players tumble with one another like a pile of puppies.
“Forza Azzurri!”
“Go, Blue!” The tension mounts. Everyone stands now. They could hear our cheers and moans down in Camucia, if anyone were listening to anything other than the match. Banners sway to the rhythm of spontaneous songs and the theatrics on the field are matched in the piazza. When the ball bongs on a player’s chest or head, hundreds repeat the action with their fists.

The explosive moment comes when Zidane, star French player, literally head-butts an Italian. This loss of cool probably cost the French the Cup, because Italy gets a penalty shootout and as the ball hits the net at 5 to 3 Italia, the entire piazza erupts as though a world war has ended: spraying water bottles, screams, hugs, dancing. This joyous moment echoes in every single piazza in Italy. The players on the screen kiss the trophy. They embrace one another, their faces pure bliss. We’re in a bacchic rite, an ecstatic mob pulsing through town. Victory! Motorcycles appear with four or five riders precariously weaving through the hundreds of us. Several girls are draped in the Italian red-white-green flag. Marco appears with a jeroboam of Chianti Classico and paper cups. Suddenly we spot the red hat of Placido. Fiorella waves and grins. We weave through—how many times have we each been kissed?—and greet each other as if we’ve made it off the
Titanic
. Of course they
had
to come to the piazza to rejoice. Three boys attempt to kick a soccer ball. Kids in jeeps and convertibles cruise through the closed-to-traffic street. Who cares tonight? The
carabinieri
and
vigili
twist and shout, too. Firecrackers startle us—violence? Then we laugh. We’ve—none of us—ever experienced such a night. Some stay until sunrise.
Forza Azzurri!

O
N THEIR LAST
evening, the Alfonsos throw a big party for all their friends. Paolo, who owns Trattoria Dardano, offers to help man the pizza oven. Their house is an eagle nest with a stupendous view over terraced hillsides as dreamy as a page out of a medieval book of hours. Below lies the lake where Hannibal defeated the Romans in 217
B.C
., Bramasole’s roof (oh, needs work), and the sweet valley dotted with ancient houses. People arrive and keep arriving. Joy, Susan, and Dorothy, three graces, serve
salumi
and several salads. They’ve placed bouquets of sunflowers on every table and stone wall.