Every Day in Tuscany (28 page)

P
ETTO D
’A
NATRA
G
LASSATO AL
C
ARAMELLO
S
PEZIATO E CARCIOFI
Duck Breast with Caramelized Spices and Artichokes

Marco Bistarelli, the chef and co-owner, with his wife, Barbara, of Il Postale, shared their recipe with us. Marco recommends the Anatra Muta for this recipe, what we call the Muscovy Duck, and specifies a female duck.

Serves 4

Salt and pepper

2 duck breasts, about 8 ounces each, skin left on

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

8 tablespoons butter

3 sprigs of thyme

4 garlic cloves, peeled Peel and juice of 1 lemon, separated

4 whole fresh artichokes

Handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Dash of white wine (about ¼ cup)

1 cup sugar

20 juniper berries, ground

20 seeds of coriander, ground

20 grains of pink peppercorn, ground

10 whole cumin seeds, ground

Sprinkling of curry

2 fresh chilies, seeded and diced

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper the duck breasts on both sides. Put the oil, butter, thyme, and garlic in a cast-iron pan, sauté 1 minute, then add the lemon peel and duck, skin side down, and cook until the meat reaches a temperature of 125 to 130 degrees F (measured with a cooking thermometer). Remove and keep warm. Reserve the remaining garlic and butter mixture.

Meanwhile, remove all the leaves from the artichokes, spoon out the thistle, and quarter the hearts. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the lemon juice and artichoke pieces; cook until the artichoke hearts are tender. Submerge the artichokes in a bowl of ice water to stop them from cooking.

To the sauté pan with the garlic-butter mixture added, mix the chopped parsley and white wine, and add the artichokes.

Prepare the spicy sauce by slowly cooking the sugar with the juniper berries, coriander, pink peppercorns, cumin, curry, chilies, and balsamic vinegar until they caramelize slightly.

Reheat the duck in a second sauté pan, adding the spiced caramelized sauce, and let it rest. Cut the duck into slices and place it on a serving dish, spooning over them the artichokes and the sauce.

R
ISOTTO CON
T
ARTUFI
B
IANCHI
Risotto with White Truffles

When our friend Fulvio and his wife, Aurora, came to see us in the United States, they brought a gemstone-like white truffle, known as the Alba truffle, the kind found in the Piedmont region of Italy, which we immediately included in our dinner that night. He even brought a truffle slicer. Fulvio had made his Barolo risotto for us before (included in
Bringing Tuscany Home
), so we’ve adapted his recipe for a truffle risotto.

There are truffles and there are truffles—so beware. We’ve had summer truffles that are woody and tasteless, and some in jars are a mere wisp of the real thing.

For all their reputation for being
molto caro
, very expensive, truffles, at least in restaurants in Italy, are used frequently, in season, shaved over pasta.

Serves 4

6 cups chicken stock

2 large shallots, finely chopped

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 cups
carnaroli
rice

½ cup white wine

½ cup grated
parmigiano

1 white truffle

Heat the stock and keep it at a simmer. In a separate stockpot, sauté the shallots in the oil for 5 minutes, then add the rice and mix to coat. After 3 minutes, start to gradually ladle in the stock and wine as the rice absorbs the liquid. Keep stirring and ladling in more until the rice is done, al dente. Stir in the grated
parmigiano
, and season to taste. At the table, shave the truffle over the risotto.

August Begins

Salve, caro—

Super-duper crazy-hazy here. Festival ends tonight and has been intense,
magnifico
. Pizza party for twenty today, bocce tournament, darts, swimming. Willie is in
paradiso
. Driving all over Tuscany. Can’t count the houseguests. My mind has turned into a
fungo porcino
. My blood has turned into Brunello. Miss you—why did you go? Catch up soon … xxxxx F

—
EMAIL TO
A
LBERTO

AUGUST BEGINS CALMLY ENOUGH. MORNING
walks to town. In and out before tourist din fills the piazza. The gathering of marjoram, thyme, and sage, tying bunches with string and hanging them to dry. My stack of summer reading diminishing during quiet afternoons. We spend mornings at Bramasole, working on writing projects, cooking, tending the roses, then nights at Fonte for moonlight swims. Ed fires up the grill and we roll out pizzas or slide a
pasta al forno
into the bread oven. Late-summer kitchen darlings are thinly sliced vegetables, any vegetables, layered with lasagne,
parmigiano
, and béchamel. This is so light and, at the same time, rich. The Cardinali and the Callichia families come out on Sunday afternoons to lounge, swim, and cut a watermelon. Aurora brings a plum
crostata
. I make sage shortbread and put out a platter of cheeses, prosecco, water, and a cooler of lemonade. They all arrive with backpacks because the Italians bring several suits to a pool or beach. After each dip, they change into a dry suit. They go through three or four suits, managing to change—years of practice—under a wrapped towel. Watching Claudio maneuver, I think that there are endless cultural differences between us and the Italians, large and small. “Why so many bathing suits?” I ask.

“Wet
costume
?” He grimaces.

Italians also bask in the sun. My dermatologist arms me with SPF 50 sunblock; I’ve had two suspicious spots burned off, blamed on my days on southern beaches. But here are all these
bronzati
bodies, the older women in bikinis looking quite fine. A paleface, I’m stationed under the umbrella. Ed cavorts in the pool, but I know he has secretly lathered SPF 30 over his face.

When the afternoon cools, we play
bocce
and I’m grudgingly applauded for my “luck.” Another cultural point. If they play
bocce
as a birthright, isn’t it
wrong
for an American to knock their balls, so to speak?

T
HEN
A
SHLEY AND
Willie arrive at the Rome airport. We wait while the customs doors swing open and dazed passengers find the light of day. Face after expectant face, drivers flashing name signs, joyous reunions, people controlled by their mountainous luggage: Finally I spot Ashley’s pink sweater, Willie pulling his red and yellow suitcase. He runs into my open arms, almost knocking me backward.
Grazie mille
to the travel gods, they’re here. Safe and here. I exhale the long breath I’ve held since they departed the United States.

We’re so excited that Ed misses the “Firenze/Nord” turn and we meander in a backwater of Rome for a half hour. Just what you want to do when you land from a transatlantic flight.

T
HE TEMPO QUICKENS;
our lulled days are over. Willie runs around the garden, visits every room, naming and therefore reclaiming what he remembers. With no luck, he tries to fit into his rustic highchair, where at six months he had his first taste of pasta with ragù. He finds his bow and arrow, books in Italian, and various soccer balls Italians continue to give him. Ashley locates her sandals, bathrobe, and bathing suit. Their rooms fill with the happy scatter of their summer clothes. As she has each time she’s ever entered my house, Ashley says, “I’m hungry.” She’s delirious to find that Gilda has brought her an eggplant parmigiana and a roast chicken and I’ve baked a berry crisp and a chocolate cake.

Ashley loves to spend several hours in town every morning, ordering coffee in a couple of bars, sitting in the piazza talking and absorbing
Italy
. Willie, six now, has a standing order for his
merenda
, a ham and cheese
panino
with a
limonata
, lemon soda, at Bar Signorelli. He’d rather be at Fonte with Albano, who lets him help with the pool filter, the locks, the
orto
. He does appreciate the toy-sized trash truck collecting toy-sized trash bags, the street worker raising a cloud of stone dust and Benito opening the old green doors of his Antica Drogheria. The shop closes up so tightly you’d think the Guelphs were about to storm the city and steal the
pappa reale
, artisan honey, pecorino from Pienza, and dried
funghi porcini
.

A moveable feast of friends stops at the table; they visit, share the
Herald Tribune
—a tradition even though more up-to-date news is available on the Internet—and we linger as the protecting shadow recedes and the dog-day sun falls full upon us.

S
INCE
A
SHLEY BUYS
all their clothes during her annual visit, we must shop. We drive to special stores we know in Umber-tide, Chiassa Superiore, the Prada outlet, pop into the small shops in Camucia—one as chic as any in Florence—and the dreaded Val di Chiana outlet mall, where she finds great tops. She has an unerring instinct for what looks good on her and whizzes through before I’ve looked at the first rack.

She wants lunch out so she can visit all the
trattorie
during her so-brief two weeks, all the time she could manage this year. We eat
ribollita
, though it’s a winter dish, roasted guinea hen, and pots of the ragù she dreams of back in the U.S.

By afternoon, Willie gets to run free at Fonte, play in the pool, and aim with his adored crossbow, a
dangerous
medieval weapon in a miniature version. Ed ratchets down a few decades and they invent fantastical adventures as the arrow is launched toward the target. When we try to get Willie to rest, he insists he does not need a nap. Usually, after a couple of chapters, he drops off because he was up late the night before.

Inevitably, we are going to be out late again and this year he so much wants to be included, not left with a babysitter. We’re inclined to take him out. He’s here such a short time and I miss him terribly when he leaves. He’s interested in everything, more fun than anyone, and his pleasure shines. During their annual visit, I spend my insomniac hours dreaming that we all could live here permanently. By day, I am practical.

A
UGUST BECOMES A
constant round of dinners. Every Italian on vacation—that’s almost the entire population—decides to have a party. Placido threads the spit with pigeons and chicken. Willie eats two bowls of Fiorella’s pasta with tomatoes and basil. We are twelve at their outdoor table. Willie and Claudia, an eleven-year-old beauty who’s been his friend since he was two, run off to see the falcon and Placido’s horse Zucchero, who slid and caused Placido’s near-fatal accident. At Melva and Jim’s, we grill steaks and it starts to rain. We grab everything off the table and run indoors, then it stops and we take our peach pie outside. At Claudio’s camp in the hills, we dine under a pergola with Edo and Maria’s Argentinean guests. Aurora serves her chocolate torte
and
a birthday cake for Claudia. At Edo and Maria’s summerhouse, they’ve set up a salon outside—lamps and rugs, even paintings propped up on a sideboard. With Edo, expect the unexpected. He mans the grill, turning out steaks and sausage and hunks of pancetta, crackly and melting in fat. The wine flows and the night flows for a long time.

Then the Tuscan Sun Festival begins and August really heats up, literally and figuratively. This is our sixth festival, so I know to expect the greatest music and the latest nights. The concerts begin at nine. Because the festival takes place in the Teatro Signorelli, the audience is limited to 350. The Teatro, a nineteenth-century opera house with five tiers of boxes, offers not only excellent acoustics but an intimate connection with the musician—every grimace, twinkle in the eye, every flung drop of sweat. The noisy air-conditioning must be turned off during the performances, then switched back on during the interval. Hence, the sweat. Everyone files out for intermission, passing the watchful eyes of Luca in the form of a white plaster bust. Whether movie, lecture, or concert, intermission is a must in Italy: No Italian can go for two hours without talking.

Afterward, the musicians and those of us associated with the festival proceed to dinner in the courtyard of the Etruscan museum. Sometimes, there’s more music at the dinner.

These are heady days. Joshua Bell plays “The Four Seasons” with enough muscle to revive this familiar piece. José Cura’s voice wants to push back the walls of the small theater. I watch Willie clap his hands above his head and shout
“Bravo!”
The Bolshoi Ballet performs in the filled-to-seams piazza. Willie squirms, as he does not in concerts. I have to admit, ballet seems …
archaic
. Fitting, I think, for my continuous sense of time folding back in the piazza.