Every Day in Tuscany, page 23
The fountain out front could be at an upscale branch bank, but at least it’s providing some relief for the backpack-laden tourists who are wading. Willie would like to join them. Instead, he counts it as number three in his cataloging of fountains spotted. By lunchtime, he’s up to ten, including the three in the Piazza Navona.
Roma, the day after Ferragosto—did the Apocalypse happen and we missed it? I know many restaurants close now, know the Romans go on vacation, but who could think that the streets would be empty of traffic, so many shops shuttered, even the bars closed? Suddenly the buildings are prominent, also the trees, river, and sky. There are tourists in big clumps at the major sites but otherwise, turn down any enticing street and it’s yours. Serene blue plumbago blooms on windowsills in front of closed curtains. Gone fishing. Along the Tiber, the drying leaves of the sycamores rustle with a hint of fall and the light falls in golden bars. Inside the Pantheon I get to see Willie look up at the great round opening from the classical world. When we were here in March, Alberto laid down on the floor under that heavenly aperture, arms and legs out like the da Vinci drawing. If one of us did that today, we’d be trampled. “Agrippa,” we tell Willie, “a very important builder a long, long time ago.” When we near the Trevi fountain, Ed puts his hands over Willie’s eyes until he’s right in front. The expression on his face! Elation unadorned, pure and plain. Many coins are tossed. This makes eighteen fountains for the afternoon and after this, no reason to go on. We walk to Campo de Fiori, which enfolds the memory of Field of Flowers, and then are lost for half an hour as we search for Pierluigi, one of the few restaurants remaining open in late August. We should have called—all tables are booked. But in the Italian way, a table is brought out and we are seated in the stately piazza, where we have a fine dinner on a perfect Roman evening. The waiter asks Ashley, “Would the young man like pasta with tomato sauce?”
Willie considers and replies, “I’ll have the grilled sea bass, please.” Oh, yes! Our gustatory training is working.
We each have something pulled out of the sea and drink a summer white from the Alto Adige.
We taxi back, all exhausted, fall into our beds, and in the morning we are off to the airport, and they are gone, gone, gone. On the way to Fiumicino, when I pointed out a stand of ruins, Willie closed his eyes and said, “I can’t see any more. If I see any more, I will miss Rome too much.” A response any passionate traveler recognizes.
WE’RE JUST TWO now in Trastevere on a quiet Sunday morning, the cobble streets shining from a light rain, a cat asleep on the hood of a Cinquecento, fragile grandmother-handkerchief scent of oleander, intimate churches in neighborhood piazzas, seven bright T-shirts strung on a line with the same blue, blue sky above that Agrippa saw when he gazed through the open eye of the Pantheon. I feel a bit lost, lonely. Love, I know, spares you nothing. Always the motions within a family involve a giving, a taking away, an abundance, a loss. And the small departures accent the future day when the big green wave sweeps you under and those left pick up and go on.
At a bookstall—why would this be open when all else is closed?—I find an old brown book stamped in gold: Venice by Augustus J. C. Hare. The little volume distracts me with its woodcuts and quoted poetry, classical references and the Victorian approach to travel—leisurely, erudite, practical. Listed inside are his many books on Italy, France, Spain. I do love a traveling man. Or woman. Vernon Lee, for one. Back at the hotel, I read her book The Spirit of Rome, published in 1906, which reads like a journal but with a writer’s passion for language and image. I like her description of coming upon the little corpse of a kingfisher: “sky blue breast, greenish turquoise ruff, and glossy dark back, lying in state, as dead birds do.” Her writing about Rome affects me like quick, vibrant watercolors. She describes the old olives in the hills as “pruned square, but of full dense foliage, not smoke-like but the color of old dark silver.” I love descriptive writing when it takes you there. She can be slapdash and elliptical, but often I come upon paragraphs so wise that I copy them in my notebook:
I feel very much the grandeur of Rome; not in the sense of the heroic or tragic; but grandeur in the sense of splendid rhetoric. The great size of most things, the huge pilasters and columns of churches, the huge stretches of palace, the profusion of water, the stature of the people, their great beards and heads of hair, their lazy drawl—all this tends to the grand, the emphatic. It is not a grandeur of effort and farfetchedness like that of Jesuit Spain, still less of achievement and restrained force like that of Tuscany. It is a splendid wide-mouthed rhetoric; with a meaning certainly but with no restriction of things to mere meaning.
I second that. Rome constantly outdoes itself. I like her choice of “rhetoric,” in the sense of effective speaking or writing. As though Rome were a revelatory book to read, which it is.
This is the first time I’ve been back in Rome since I read Vernon Lee. Often as I meander, I wish for the companionship of dead writers who’ve given me an intensely personal view of a place. I envision her as she appeared in John Singer Sargent’s portrait—wire-rim glasses, eyes as dark as black olives, severe and professorial except for the partially open mouth, which gives her a tentative quality. Her book about Rome is all observer; she’s not there except as the eye. But there’s the gift: We see as she saw. And now and then a door swings open and you see what you’ve always known but never put into words:
I find that the pleasure I derive from churches is mainly due to their being the most inhabited things in the world: inhabited by generation after generation, each bringing its something grand or paltry like its feelings, sometimes things stolen from previous generations like the rites themselves with their Pagan and Hebrew color; bringing something, sticking in something, regardless of crowding (as life is ever regardless of other life): tombs, pictures, silver hearts and votive pictures of accidents and illnesses, paper flowers, marbled woodwork, pews, hangings. And each generation also wearing something away, the bricks and marble discs into unevenness, the columns into polish, effacing with their tread the egotism of the effigies, reducing them to that mere film, mere outline of rigid feet, cushioned head and folded hands …2
IN ALBERTO’S HONOR, we visit the Caravaggios in the Palazzo Barberini. He loves Caravaggio’s light and shadow, his force driving through his brushes directly onto the canvas. These two are unusual. A powerful, subtle Judith lopping off the head of Holofernes, who looks scary and very real. Then there’s the most mysterious painting of Caravaggio’s I’ve seen, shadowy Narcissus gazing into a dark pool.
ALMOST AS FINE, for dinner a plate of tiny veal meatballs with artichokes and caramelized cherry tomatoes, served with two crisp slabs of grilled polenta. And a waiter named Pasquale who brings over morsels to taste and insists on selecting the wine. A warm night in Rome and everyone left in the deserted city dines outside. I feel that I’ve lived here for a thousand years.
Roma non fu fatta in un giorno, the verbs reinforcing the remote past. Though not built in a day, though not knowable in a lifetime, Rome can be absorbed in a few hours: buildings, ruins, streets, the sound of bells, colors imprinting forever inside the mind of the blissful observer. Of the great cities, Rome has the biggest heart. In this end-of-August silence, I can hear it beating.
PURéE DI CANNELLINI CON GAMBERI E POMODORI Purée of Cannellini Beans with Prawns and Cherry Tomatoes
Villa La Massa, one of the premier hotels in Italy, is located just outside Florence. Head chef Andrea Quagliarella gave me this one. The unusual pairing reminds me of the southern classic shrimp and grits.
Serves 6
1 pound cannellini beans
20 prawns, shelled, cooked, and seasoned
12 shrimp, shelled, cooked, and seasoned
2 ripe tomatoes, chopped
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 small bunch of fresh thyme, coarsely chopped
Salt and pepper
Soak the beans in water overnight, bring them to a boil in abundant salted water, then simmer for about 2 hours. Purée with enough cooking water to form a light cream and pour into soup plates. Add the prawns and shrimp with some chopped tomatoes already mixed with oil and thyme. Add some more extra-virgin olive oil and fresh ground pepper.
PLACIDO’S STEAK
Placido, known from childhood as “Plari,” is a grill master. Whether it’s porcini, slabs of pancetta, guinea hens, pigeons, or little birds—he times by instinct and smell and also remains perfectly at ease. He mans the grill at Ombretta and Piero’s annual Ferragosto party, where Lina sings as he cooks and everyone dances on the terrace. We all come to the festa with steaks in hand.
First, we go to Claudio’s, the macelleria right inside one of the Cortona gates, and ask for the same kind of steak that Plari buys for himself. Antonella, all dressed up behind the counter, selects a hefty piece and whacks at it a bit. We walk out with gargantuan steaks from those famous, huge white cows called Chianina. Tuscans like their steak al sangue, bloody, so grilling time here is approximate. After the steak is lifted from its oil bath, you can dip in slices of bread and grill them for quick bruschette.
Serves 1 or 2
1 big thick T-bone steak
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
Rosemary, minced
1 garlic clove, minced (optional—Placido does not use it)
Cut gashes in the strip of fat on the outside of the steak so that it doesn’t curl up in the heat. Prepare a pan large enough to hold the steak. Add oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and garlic.
Place the steak on the hot grill. Do not touch it for at least 2 minutes. Turn over and cook for another 2 minutes. Bathe the steak in the oil bath on both sides, sprinkling more salt and pepper. Serve warm.
100 Jars of Summer Sun
“IT’S BEEN DRY OTHER YEARS, TOO—porca miseria. Why are they so rambunctious this year—sniffling out the damp roots under my oaks?”
“Hunting season has just been extended for this fall—there’s a population explosion.”
“One came eye to eye with me while I was in the pool. He leaned down and took a slurp.”
On the third Sunday of each month, an antiques market takes place in Piazza Signorelli. Everyone comes to mingle and look at bells, books, tools, and baskets. But this late-August morning, hardly anyone examines the andirons and old postcards of Capri. They are talking boar.
I’d like to look at the vintage cooking utensils, but no. Even Walter, our elegant architect, has had an invasion. Over his shoulder, I see a man aiming an imaginary rifle.
“Put out a bag of corn every night for three nights. On the third night, when there’s a crowd, shoot them,” Riccardo advises.
“Shoot—are you mad? You can kill a person in Italy easier than killing a boar off season.” Paolo makes the gesture of crossed wrists, signifying imprisonment.
Ed recounts our saga. The irrigation comes on at dawn and shortly thereafter, a battalion invades.
Rob tells us, “I slept outside on a cot for three nights and they stayed away. On the fourth night, I slept very soundly and woke up at dawn. The ground all around me was ripped away.” They’d frolicked around him, chomping his new lawn, possibly nosing his toes. The head of the Cinghiale squadra mumbles as he moves away, “Go sleep with your wife instead. Unless you want a tusk up your ass.”
In the afternoon, we walk the fence at Fonte, noting scuffle marks where they’ve squeaked under. Ed decides to build a wire fence behind the electrical and barbed wires. This war against the cinghiale is beginning to seem Sisyphean. I pick up windfall apples and sling them into the woods, hoping to slake their thirst.
THE APPLE TREE branches bend under the weight of the fruit. When we bought Fonte, the tree was tangled with vines and full of dead branches. Beppe and Armando pruned and cleaned for a day and now it repays with lavish crops of old-style, small apples, hard, tart and sweet. Boars love the taste and so do I. They’d probably gobble up my late-summer rustic tart with an unformed crust. Just roll the pastry out, slide onto a cookie sheet, pile in sliced, lightly sugared apples and chopped walnuts. Dot with butter, and fold the edges of the pastry around the fruit. Bake in a 350 degree F oven until the pastry looks toasty. So very delicious dabbed on top with a mixture of sweetened mascarpone and whipping cream.
Ed will be pleased tonight with the tart. All day he and Albano have been digging holes in search of a leaking tube. So far no luck. The wet spot extends for fifty feet and doesn’t seem wetter in any one place than another. Ed called the plumber and he answered from the beach at Rimini. A bad leak can take down a hillside. We’ve had enough of that.
On such days, I feel too ashamed to loll by the pool reading and feel that I should be as industrious as they. I decide to make Ed’s favorite pasta for dinner and to set the outdoor table out-of-mind around the corner from the wet spot. We’ll face the chestnuts and the view of Cortona instead. I start in the orto with a basket of ciliegini, little cherry tomatoes, some of which are splitting on the vine. I eat as I pick, understanding with each burst of quintessential flavor, that, yes, tomatoes are a fruit.
I wish Willie were here to help make pici. It’s the best pasta to make with a child—or an adult. As I measure the flour and crack the egg, I think of how much he’d love to thrust his fingers into the gooey mix.
Ed has the ambition to try every pasta in Italy. Our local mom-and-pop-sized grocery store carries fifty-something shapes of dried pasta. The Bottega della Pasta Fresca, just inside the Porta Colonia gate, turns out wheels and Mexican hats and pillows and snail shells. The number of different pastas in all of Italy must approach infinity. On every trip we collect a new orecchiette, the ear-shaped pasta that is so delicious with broccoli heads, or packages of conchiglioni, giant conch shells for stuffing with shrimp, or strozzapreti, the “priest strangler,” which once was fed to priests at Sunday dinner so that they were too full to eat much of the expensive meat served after the pasta course. I developed a passion for fregula—almost like Israeli couscous, only more delicate—in Sardegna.
We like the fanciful figurative language of pasta. The names bring a smile as you drop the box into your basket. Dinner is already getting off to a good start. Farfalle, butterflies, remind us of our garden, swarming with white and purple wings all summer. The sounds in fusilli twist like the curly pasta. Mezze maniche, half sleeves, look exactly like sections of a sleeve for a fat little arm. Hail is much feared locally because it can destroy the olive flowers at a critical moment. But a Tuscan pasta has been christened grandinine, tiny hail balls. Occhi di pernice, the miniature rings used in soups, resemble the eyes of a partridge. Lilies, stars, cock’s combs, radiators, elbows—good nouns of everyday life seem to adhere to pasta.
Despite our fascination with names and shapes, Ed’s progress toward eating all the pastas in Italy is distinctly hampered. After scanning a trattoria menu, he often says, as though it were a discovery, “I think I’ll have the pici.”
And I usually respond, “Yes, that sounds good.”
Pici qualifies as the most robust of Tuscan pastas. No one seems to know the meaning of the name, though the De Mauro unabridged dictionary says the word came into the language in 1891. I think in these Tuscan hills pici has been around for eons, as essential as gnarly olive roots and bunches of grapes drying for vin santo in the rafters. Especially in the Siena and Arezzo provinces of Tuscany, pici appears on almost every menu.
In correct Italian, one says PEE-chee, but our local dialect slushes -ci sounds into -s sounds. Around Cortona, you hear PEE-she, just as you hear cappushino, instead of cappuccino. Pici, a plural like spaghetti, has no picio, singular, in the dictionary, though people in these parts offer a picio to a baby or pick up a dropped one from the floor.
Usually not included in cookbooks or seen on American menus, pici is the pasta closest to the Tuscan heart. Only the simple, down-home tortelloni in brodo comes close. We’ve had tortelloni in brodo every Christmas we’ve spent at our neighbors’ bountiful table. It’s quadruple the size of tortellini, those little meat-or cheese-stuffed nubbins of pasta whose shape was inspired by the navel of Venus. Fiorella’s herb and chicken tortelloni float in the hearty broth of an old hen, a dish that warms everyone at the holiday table. The plump squares are substantially stuffed, not just with a spoonful like ravioli.
I cover my pasta mound with a dishcloth for its brief rest, and take my glass of tea outside to watch the work. “I’m making pici,” I call to Ed.
He gives me a thumbs-up. “Soul food.” This late in the summer, he’s as tan as an Italian. I remember a friend’s description, the muscular poet. His workouts with kettle bells have pumped up his biceps even more. Shirt off, sweating, he flashes a smile and goes back to wielding the shovel. I’m happy that we’re having dinner alone. The greengage tablecloth, a few white roses, candlelight, and the moon—with the background music of snorting boar.
I like to make my strands of pici at least a foot long and about as thick as spaghetti enlarged three times, so that the bite is chewy and substantial. I’ve seen it almost pencil-thick, coated with goose sauce. Most of dried pici, available in every gastronomia, is quite scrawny by local standards. Although the dried variety works well, fresh is definitely best. A good bowl of pici brings you to the ample bosom of the signora who invented it when the larder was almost bare. Pici emerged from cucina povera, the poor kitchen, source of countless inventions in the repertoire of Italian cuisine. Surely the first pici maker had fieldworkers to feed at the end of winter when the prosciutto and salumi were gone. The thick shape of this pasta makes it seem like meat. It stokes the energy of wheat gatherers and olive pickers, as well as those now climbing steep streets in order to see a painting by Signorelli.
