Pasta agli Ulivi

Today I inform the Ladies that they will have to do without my translation services today. An intrepid band, they'll be more than fine. They're off once more to explore the town of Todi, eager to see as much as they can while they're here. I'm all for adventure, but after three days of day trips, I need to stop and regroup. Socially, I'm like a cheetah, at my best in measured spurts followed by contemplative refueling. And so I've elected to be here at the villa for the day. I'll savor more of what's close at hand; an intoxicating view that never disappoints, the olive groves I love so much, the natural rhythm, the silence, and a lesson in hand-made pasta and cookies that awaits in La Palazzina's kitchen.


Making my way up the dirt road or strada bianca to the villa, I take my time. The air is light and very warm, tempered by a small breeze. It will be hot today. I watch a gardener planting and grafting olive saplings in a small clearing in the grove set back a bit from the dirt track. Like me, those treelings begin a day of discovery in new ground, getting the feel for things around them with the guidance of a helping hand. I wonder, do trees remember the day they were planted?

I reach the villa's gravel drive, and stones crunching underfoot signal my arrival. Eliana meets me on the terrace with a wave, then leads me back into the kitchen, the villa's inner sanctum, where I will learn to fashion two types of pasta. The first will be pici, a typical Tuscan pasta that will be served to guests this evening. The second will be cavatelli, annoying to make they say, but satisfying to eat, especially because they hold sauce or ragu' so nicely. Eliana introduces me to chef Rocco, who has mounds of dough at the ready. He'll be my teacher, and I a willing disciple or perhaps sorcerer's apprentice, depending on how things go.

Rocco has set me up with the requisite rolling pin and large wooden board. He recommends wood or marble as the best surfaces for the board, and now I'm armed and ready to go. We sprinkle cornmeal on the surface of our boards to keep the dough from sticking, then we each take a round of dough. We roll it to a thickness of about a stick of Trident gum, and Rocco directs me to cut a few pieces the width of about one of his fingers, or two of mine.

Now the fun begins, and it's all about me following Rocco. His hands, wrists and arms are genetically engineered for making dough. They're strong, sturdy and deft. Watching him, I begin rolling a strip of dough with the heels of both hands, working from the center out. As I work the dough it rolls from a flat strip into the shape of a tube, lengthening and thinning out as I go. My technique is uneven, creating bulges and paper-thin spots along the roll, and Eliana murmurs "un po' brutto," so I fold it in on itself and start again. "Molto meglio", much better; she approves of my second attempt. I pick it up and toss it into a little pile of cornmeal that Rocco has scattered between our boards. Ta Da! My first piece of pasta! Mind you, in the same amount of time, Rocco has made about 10 pici to my one. Still he smiles his approval and tells me it's a process, a technique that takes a few years to perfect before you can reach of pace of say, two kilos' worth in an hour.

Making pasta is a tactile art, and I'm learning to let the dough touch me and direct my shaping it, instead of the other way around. As the minutes pass I become more comfortable with the task, more aware of the need to surrender some control. I relax my shoulders and let my hands feel more of the dough, its texture, its destiny. Rocco can sense the change and he nods. I watch him work for a few moments. I'm impressed. His hands are poetry in motion, spinning the dough as if on a distaff.

We fall into our own separate culinary rhythms, each with our own thoughts, and for a few minutes, the only sounds in the kitchen are of the rolling dough softly scuffing against grains of cornmeal, the bird songs through the kitchen window, and water coming to a boil on the stove. In these moments my grandmother comes to mind, my Nana, a warm and happy presence. I imagine her here in the kitchen, reaching for an apron and a mound of dough. I have inherited her hands; slim, with long fingers, and ideally suited for all the instruments she played effortlessly - piano, guitar, mandolin and ukulele. Unlike her, I play none of them, and now wish I did, because then I'd have more tensile strength for making pasta.

Especially for the cavatelli. If pici are about the heel of your hand, then it's all in the first three fingertips with this pasta. You need fingertips of steel and a quick, light touch to spin the little pieces of dough into shape. If you fail to apply the right pressure and don't flick your fingertips under quickly enough, the dough won't spin, and you finish with sore fingertips and divoty dough. After a few missed spins and stung fingertips, I'm soon flicking like an able apprentice, and my cavatelli look like little British bobby's whistles. Perfetto.

After Rocco and I finish the pici and the cavatelli, Eliana announces lunch, and I ask her when I should come back for the cookie session. She shakes her head vigorously, "No, no, stay. You're having lunch with us, the family, with Rocco, Silvano, and me!" I'm moved by the gesture, and so happy to be welcomed like this. We gather at a small table in a room off the kitchen and Rocco serves some of the pasta we've just made - drizzled with mild chili pepper oil...elysium. We chat amiably together, breaking bread, sipping wine, chatting about the cooking show we're watching on television, and over the latest match results of a favorite soccer team. I can't stop smiling, I'm so happy. I love these people and this moment. I truly do. Our embrace when work and the meal is done affirms that the feeling is mutual.

Walking home mid-afternoon, I pass the olive groves. The gardener is still at work, focused and dedicated, planting and grafting the young plants that will grow into gnarled, wise and bountiful trees. Their branches will flutter a silvery green like so many banners of welcome to future guests here. What have they learned since this morning? I make a silent promise to sit among their elders later and tell them about my day in the kitchen. I will listen for their quiet reply.

Later that evening, the Ladies and I gather around our own table at Il Colombaio. As they recount their joyful day in Todi, we dine on pici and a meat ragu'. My fresh-baked chocolate shortbread cookies go down nicely with a sip of wine and a cup of tea. All days should be flavored with moments and memories such as these.

Voice Lessons

May 2009...This is my first trip back to Italy in 15 years. When I left Rome in 1994, I was nearly bereft of everything one would identify with me. Nearly bereft of peace, of physical health, of trust, of national identity, of almost my own psyche. Most dangerous of all, nearly bereft of my greatest strength, my inner voice. I had barely survived an experience that crushed my spirit, mind, and body and drowned out my voice. It had happened here, in Italy, in a country I love and have loved since the day I first arrived, and at the hands of one its own. I've come back to restore that voice, and wipe away the blemishes that person left on the face of my Italy.

One of my goals then for this trip is to sink in roots, dig deeply and experience Italy in a manner that's joyful, echoey, and personal. I'm finding it in the silent glory of the landscape, and I'm making similar connections with like-minded people - Silvano, Eliana, my magi in Sarteano.

A writer named Murray Bodo once likened St. Francis of Assisi's prayer life to a dive into an underwater cave and then a gradual, continuous descent during which Francis explored so deeply that he discovered an indescribable serenity and communion with God, and also came face to face with himself and all his fears, struggling to the point where he thought he'd never make it back to the surface. But he did, and knew he had to dive again, explore again, encounter God and himself again, and then share it with others.*

Francesco Bernadone, St. Francis, did all of that here, in this country, in caves in these hills, and in mountain caves of his native and nearby Umbria. I want to do that too. I want that troubador of a saint who once improvised a viol bow from a tree branch because he so wanted to celebrate his love of God and Creation, to dive with me into the mysterious abyss and recover the joyful and trusting voice that drowned here all those years ago. It's mine, and I'm going to salvage it.

* "Francis: The Journey and the Dream" by Murray Bodo, O.F.M.
For more information about the book, go to:
http://catalog.americancatholic.org/product.aspx?prodid=A16819&pcat=304

Arte al Pomodoro

We’re all taking a rest day at Fattoria La Palazzina’s Il Colombaio. Time spent journaling, resting by the pool, reading, soaking up the landscape.

Priscilla paints a lovely watercolor of Il Colombaio. After a few hours, I wander over to take a peek. She tells me she’s taken some “tomato slices” with her rendering, and for a few seconds I’m lost. I see no sign of food. Must be the watercolors. I’m not a painter, so slicing tomatoes is lost on me as a technique. I lean in eagerly to decipher what she’s done. Apparently, the tomatoes are lost on Priscilla as well, because when I repeat the words, she looks up at me like the dog in the old RCA Victor ad, all cocked head and quizzical. In speaking them myself, I realize that ohhh, her actual words must have been “artistic license.” The afternoon sun has fuzzled my brain and ears. After a good laugh over my goof and gullibility, we vow that the phrase will become a joke for the rest of the trip.

Priscilla’s watercolor is beautiful, with or without tomato license.

We're in Some Very Hot Water

We’re off to take the thermal waters of Fonte Verde Terme in the aptly named hill town of San Casciano dei Bagni, or San Casciano of the Baths. The Val d'Orcia has a number of ancient and active thermal mineral springs, including Fonte Verde. It is the third largest thermal bath in Europe, and its waters serve up a cocktail of stress-relieving minerals, including magnesium, calcium, sulphur, and fluoride in a bath warmed by Mother Nature to a toasty 100+ degrees Fahrenheit.

We’ve never done anything like this, so we don’t really know what to expect. We have bathing suits, but do people go naked in the main pool? The attendant hands us our spa robes, slippers, and towels, and we make our way to the ladies' changing room, where a small sign announces that swimsuits are de rigeur. No bathing in the buff. My body relaxes in relief.

Reassured thusly, we don our suits and pass through the mystic portal to the spa pool. We blink back the midday sun, and look out at what resembles a huge resort pool. Smaller pools are reserved for guests taking specific treatments. All ages are represented at Fonte Verde. There are families, young couples, ladies who lunch, and older bathers. Beautiful bodies all. The ladies who lunch are off to the right in the shade of a portico, gabbing al fresco, dressed in bikinis, stilettos and designer handbags. A family or two is setting up camp at the long end of the pool, arranging chaises longues in strategic formations to better sunbathe and kibitz together. A man bobs in the water with his young son.

We drop our things on chairs and investigate the pool. No need to ease into it, because we know we won't get goosebumps from cold. I step into this epsom elixir, and the feeling is luxuriant. Warming my bones and muscles sore with travel and some chronic pain, I’m perpetuating an ancient tradition. Seeking relief when the healing waters stir. The water is about waist deep on an adult. I sink down until the water laps at my ear lobes, and survey the aquascape at periscope depth. At one end of the pool, four tall spigots arch overhead and gush with water. To one side, a thermal cascade splashes down in moving sheet, some 15 -20 feet across. For a bather sitting directly under this mini waterfall, the water’s effect is a pounding hydro-massage whose force can strip off, um, a swimsuit top. Really; it happened. Sitting behind the aqua sheet, a bather transforms into an Impressionist dream-like form as I glance in from outside. I paddle to the spigots shower and sample the benefits upon my shoulders and neck, then bob around a bit.

I last only 10 minutes in the super-heated water before a slight wooziness sets in, so I step out and head to a lounge chair to cool off and sip water. Our group spends another hour at the pool’s edge, chatting, laughing, and I take a few photos. We have a bite to eat, and join the spa ladies in stilettos. Interestingly, we’re the only ones wearing hats, but we don’t mind. Then finally, drowsingly, we repair to the showers, pack up, and head back to Il Colombaio, our bodies warmed, rejuvenated and purified by the therapeutic waters nestled in these Tuscan hills.

For more information about Fonte Verde, go to: http://www.fonteverdespa.com/index.html

Traveling Inward

May 2009...

I feel as if I belong here. After a gorgeous breakfast al fresco set on the grass outside Il Colombaio, the Ladies have gone to the Mille Miglia auto rally rolling through Radicofani. I stay behind to sink in some roots, and refresh my spirit in nature, human silence and retreat. I want more of this. I need more of this.

Since the day I knew I would be coming here, I have been craving sacred silence and prayer in the Lord’s created world, here in Italy, the birthplace of one of my spiritual heroes, St. Francis of Assisi. I am Christian, Catholic, and my spirituality is deeply Franciscan. I sit facing the valley and do what I have been longing to do. Here, outside in the hills washed in the rays of the morning sun, with only the sounds of Creation, I pray. Deep, silent, centering prayer, in a cathedral of cypresses and olive trees, ministered by avian angels. The swallows swoop and flutter, the cuckoos call in the distance. The valley spreads out before me, a wide altar prepared for holy communion.

My God, Glorious God, I love this view. I love this silence. No bustling, no planning. Just me, dissolving into this blessed landscape.

Mille Miglia - Italy's Road Rally

May 2009...

At Silvana's enthusiastic recommendation, Cynthia, Priscilla and Trish head to town to await the arrival of the cars participating in the Mille Miglia (1000 Miles) an auto rally that wends its way from Brescia to Rome and back, touring some of the most glorious landscape in Italy. Once a grueling and dangerous race, it now pays homage to the auto rally tradition at a more relaxed pace, giving the public a chance to revel in the passing cavalcade of vintage vehicles. This year, it's rolling right through Radicofani.

According to information on the rally's official website, this year's rally travels "clockwise in a circle on the fabled Mille Miglia roads crossing seven regions: Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, the Marche, Umbria and Lazio on the way down, adding Tuscany on the way back."

Would love to add our Ford diesel to the parade, but then there are all those hill stops and starts. Maybe next year...

Interested in the Mille Miglia? Go to the official website
www.1000miglia.eu/inglese/.../disposizioni_generali.html

Silvana da Radicòfani

May, 2009

We step into the small store, a true corner grocer, small, and longer than it is wide. And it carries a little bit of everything a person could need, from fresh deli meats, cheeses, and pasta, to sponges, wine, and dish liquid. As we’re taking everything in, the shopkeeper cheerily bustles in from the back room, and asks if she can help. We tell her we’re there for a few things, not the least of which is pasta to serve with pesto. She immediately recommends, the trionfetti. "They go best with pesto; they’re the right shape for that sauce.” The Ladies look around for other items on the list, and I ask about wine. We want a bottle that would most likely appear on a table in Radicòfani. In a way, cautious as I am, I suppose I’m also testing our shopkeeper to see if she’s going to recommend the expensive wine. I needn’t have bothered. She’s the genuine article, and recommends a $3 bottle of Tuscan red. Her sommelier’s task complete, she introduces herself – Silvana – and then, the games begin in the best possible way. Silvana dives in to advise us on everything they way the locals do it. It’s a guided gastronomical tour.

The Highlights:
Pici, which are very thick spaghetti, are distinctly Tuscan pasta.

Bufala mozzarella has stronger flavor than mozzarella made from cow’s milk.

You don’t need a €12 wine, the €1,50 (our $3 bottle) is welcome at anyone’s table here in town.

There's an annual auto rally coming through town tomorrow. It's a must see.

Silvana takes frequent verbal side trips during our tour, but they’re worth the extra time. First, she can’t help but tell us that she’s impressed four woman friends would just set out on their own for a foreign country. “You must all have very strong astrological signs.” That launches an inquiry into our signs. “Italians are very attentive to the zodiac,” she says. We don’t know if that’s true across the board, but we’re curious as to where Silvana is headed, so we indulge her. At least, I do, since I’m translating the exchange. Cynthia is Cancro, Cancer, and according to Silvana, the sweetest of all of us. Priscilla, Capra, Capricorn, is the toughest, most stubborn of all of us. “Dove vuole arrivare…arriverà,” she says, pounding her fist into her palm. Translated, that means, Priscilla gets where she wants to go, and gets what she wants. Trish and I are both Arieti, Aries, passionate, strong and loyal. So in the first 20 minutes in the shop, we’ve got wine and pasta, and a side of astrology. This is giving “one stop shopping” a new meaning!

And we’re not done yet. We need meats and cheese, and turn our thoughts to coldcuts, salumi. Silvana is eager to ply us with taste samples of everything on offer to help us find exactly what we want: mortadella, prosciutto, formaggio, salsiccia, ulivi, pomodori secchi. First up, formaggio, cheese. Silvana woos our taste buds with five different cheeses, and we choose thick slabs of pecorino toscano and mild parmeggiano. A lovely salami seasoned with fennel nestles in next to them in our basket, keeping company with the trionfetti for tonight. Tortellini will headline on another night.

As we’re wiping crumbs of cheese from our lips, Silvana excuses herself to ring up customers who have quick purchases. When she comes back, Trish asks about the little silhouetted sign we saw earlier, the one of the monk with a backpack. “Ah, quello. That sign marks part of the Via Cassia, an ancient high road dating to the Roman Empire. It connects Rome and what is now Florence. Christian pilgrims traveled it too, with Rome as their destination. Radicòfani is along the ancient route. Pilgrims still come and retrace the way.” In fact, while we’re there, a woman from Germany comes in to buy a couple of bottles of mineral water. Silvana nods toward her as she wraps up a container of sun-dried tomatoes for us, saying as she does, “She's part of a group doing that very thing.” The woman smiles in our direction and we smile back.

After our 90-minute tour of Radicòfani past and present, we’re saying goodbye on a first name basis, with warms hugs, double kisses, photos, and promises to be back for another day’s provisions. We step out into the little piazza, make our way past Fedora’s blooming doorway, under Gina’s window, through the covered alley and back to the main street.

Turning left, we head down the hill to Boutique di Frutta, the green grocer. As is the common practice in Italy, the fruttivendolo – what a great word for the fruits and veggie seller - selects the fruits and vegetables for us, after we tell him the size and number we’re interested in. Joyfully laden with our purchases, we trundle up the hill to the car, adding our own pilgrim footfalls to the Via Cassia.

Val d'Orcia Video Montage

Salve!

I've come across a lovely brief photo montage of the Val d'Orcia. You might enjoy it as well.

Here's the link to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4MnKL-tF04&feature=fvw

A Garden in Radicòfani

May 15, 2009

As we make our way into the maze of little streets we’re greeted by an elderly man with a kind face and a gap-toothed smile. He reassures us that the shops won’t close until 7 p.m., which gives us 2 ½ hours to explore and find what we need. He points us toward a small piazza at the end of the street, and wishes us well with a wave and a “buona serata, Signore.” We pop out by St. Peter’s church, the parish church whose stone entrance is topped with a lovely gilded mosaic “Principes apostolorum.” Opposite the church is a little corner bar pizzeria, and between the two, the little square is decorated with big gorgeous terra cotta pots shaped like bird baths, and spilling over with geraniums. I consult with the woman who runs the bar and she points us to the best places to get our meats, bread, and groceries.

Before we make our way to the shops, we can’t resist taking photographs of the square, the flowers, and surrounding streets. Although the town is quiet this time of day, it’s still so welcoming. The ancient architecture is neither cold nor distant; it’s inviting, warm and tactile. Stern-looking studded wooden doors are cheered by flowers mounted on either side here, a softly flourished house number there.

The streets are as immaculate as they are narrow. When a car does try to make its way by us on the way to the top of town, we have to flatten ourselves into doorways to let it past. That’s the way it’s done in the Tuscan hills. Stepping back into the street, Trish spots a small plaque on the wall opposite. It’s a silhouette of a monk with a walking stick, flanked by two arrows pointing in opposite directions. We wonder at it, but with no one around to ask, we continue meandering, past St. Agatha’s Church, in full restoration mode, with plenty of plaster dust to prove it.

We come to a sign for our destination, “Paneficio Alimentari”, nailed to the side of an arched alleyway. We turn left and follow it up and through to a small cobbled courtyard. Just inside, an elderly woman bustles around her doorway watering a profusion of potted flowers in bloom. Terra cotta of graduated heights and diameters spills over with foliage and blossoms in different colors and shades of green. What is it about terra cotta that makes me want to sink my hands into the earth and plant something? It’s terra cotta, baked earth, elemental and organic. The woman greets us silently with a nod. On behalf of the Ladies I introduce myself, and ask her name. Fedora. Would she mind if we took photos of her and her garden? Somewhat bashfully, she accepts. She’s proud of her container garden.

As we chat and snap away, our conversation attracts attention, and the second story window across from Fedora’s sways open. Her neighbor peeks out, so we invite her to join our photo opp. Gina, a crinkly, twinkly-eyed soul, giggles as we call up to her and click our cameras in her direction. We chat with them both a few minutes more; I translate for Americans and Italians, happy to enter the lives of two people who have lived and breathed Radicòfani the length of their lives. They wave us to the grocery across the courtyard and tell us we’ll find everything we need there.

We’re about to experience Silvana, Ground Zero and HQ for all the news in Radicòfani, current and historic. We are in for a treat!

Driver’s Ed

May 15 ... I slip behind the wheel for our trip to Radicòfani for food and supplies. The fifteen-minute trip is a mini-adventure for me, by virtue of the fact that hill stops, or rather hill starts, present a real challenge to a rookie stick shift driver. In fact, I want to avoid them as much as possible, but we’re in Tuscany, La Toscana, which effectively translates from the Italian to mean beautiful, but oh so very hilly. But I want to help share the driving load. So off, and up, we go. Well almost. I stall three times at the lip where the dirt road from the farmhouse meets the paved road. Each time, the lip and Radicofani recede from view by a few feet. I’m touring Italy in retrograde. The fourth time isn’t exactly a charm, but it gets the job done. I’m Frankenstein behind the wheel. I rev the gas before taking my foot off the clutch, so at least this sounds like progress, and as I ease my foot off the clutch, the wheels spin, gravel flies, the car shoots forward like a dart, and suddenly, somehow, I’m over the lip and on the main road heading toward Radicòfani.

I celebrate while the ladies open their eyes and release their grips on the seat cushions. They must feel like all Tuscan mothers who drive with their children for the first time. There’s very little traffic, so my hope for perpetual motion is essentially granted. There are two stop signs along the way, one on an incline, but I take it as a suggestion on a roll.

There’s something to be said for springtime driving in the Val d’Orcia - words like enchanted, breathtaking, picturesque. Navigating the switchbacks as we climb, I glimpse the valley to my right, and it’s a sight to behold. A stunning green expanse of pastures and farmland rises and tumbles like the playful flocks of sheep that dot them.

Radicòfani is a small medieval hill town that sits atop a mount on the western side of the valley, crowned with the ruins of a fort so strategically placed, it must have shaken the resolve of any invader contemplating a siege. Thankfully, our demands are of a humbler sort. All we want of it is bread, cheese, fruit and dish soap. And we’re willing to pay for it.

Eliana has told us that there’s an alimentari grocer on the main road just outside the town walls. I see it as we approach, and am delighted that it’s on the flat. My glee fades. There’s nowhere to park. Eliana has also told us that there’s another alimentari within the walls, further up. Ah yes. 'within the walls' means very narrow cobblestoned streets, and up means, well, up, on those very narrow cobblestoned streets.

“Well Ladies, looks like we have to go in.”

"Are you sure we can drive through that tight squeeze of a gate, or is it for pedestrians?”

“Can the car even fit?”

“I hope there aren’t any pedestrians.”

"I hope there aren't any other cars."

“We need food. The food’s in and up there, so here we go!”

I guide the car through the opening in the great stone walls, feeling like a magician who’s just stuffed a blue whale into a top hat. We begin the ascent, with no intent of stopping, buzzing past “Boutique della Frutta” on the right, past “Fiori e Piante” on the left, a paneficio on the right, a macelleria on the left, making mental notes as they flash by that yes, what we need can indeed be found here. Up, ever up, the cobbles thrum beneath our wheels, past the curious residents who wouldn’t dare cross in front me, and then, the blessed summit appears in a blaze of sunlight.

I want to get out and plant a flag. I can’t, because immediately the street curves down the other side. The ladies, a bit wide-eyed, just want to get out.