Every Day in Tuscany (30 page)

Mangia, Willie, Mangia—Eat, Willie, Eat

LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, WILLIE GOES TO
the
orto
. Time to pick dinner. As he runs downhill with two baskets, we follow his red shorts and the sun bouncing off his blond-turning-brown hair. At the gate, three knives lodge in the fence wire. He starts cutting lettuce (thrilled to use the knife), scrambles along the fence picking raspberries, eating them, burrowing his hand among the leaves for tiny strawberries and in the adjacent patch for larger ones. Best always to him is digging potatoes. “There! There! Two, three.”

Our own garden-glow feels profound, but his shrieks, as the potatoes roll out from the shovel—strangely clean—or show their yellow skins through the dirt, return us to the louder delight of the discoverer. Earth candy! Pulling up a carrot also provides the eureka moment. Squatting among the frilly greens, he tugs and the carrot erupts from the dirt so suddenly that he almost falls backward. Stubby, gangly, smooth or with little chin hairs, maybe the size of a little finger, none is regular like the ones from the grocery store. Carrots can be taken to the two rabbits, Red Eye and Green Eye, who hover in the back of their cage in near terror when Mr. Blue Eye lifts the lid. Albano has taught Willie to lift the rabbits by their ears. He claims this does not hurt them and keeps them from scratching. Red Eye is white, more docile than black Green Eye, who has mighty claws. They don’t seem to appreciate their daily carrots, but Willie persists.

“They don’t know how lucky they are,” I tell him. “Domenica would have cooked them by now.” At the end of summer, she will offer them roasted with fennel, if we want. Which we don’t. Rabbit is one thing,
pet
rabbit another.

“Franny has said no,” Willie repeats as a little mantra.

We slice off a couple of cucumbers, six tomatoes, tender green beans, some mint, thyme, basil, and a few zucchini still small enough to have the just-opening flower attached. Heaven we have in our baskets, heaven to eat this way. Although Albano was in the military for only two years, he brings a snap-to precision to everything he does. When we started to plot a vegetable garden, he whipped up a porcupine/rabbit/hedgehog-proof wire fence (going almost a foot underground with it) and brought seeds from his own garden. We bought flats of vegetables at the market, tomatoes from a farmer, and scoured the nurseries for yellow raspberries. I wanted
ceci
, chickpeas; Ashley wanted various hot peppers; Ed wanted fennel and chard; we all wanted an endless supply of parsley, basil, celery, onion, and carrots. We’d not had much luck with
melanzane
—the word so much more apt for the plant than “eggplant”—at Bramasole. At Fonte they thrive. Their delicate lavender flower looks transported from a Persian miniature. We gather four for Imam Bayildi (The Priest Fainted). At a restaurant in Naflion, Greece, we loved this intensely flavored roasted mixture piled into its own shell. Why did he faint? Supposedly the dish used so much olive oil that his wife ran through her dowry of twelve huge
orci
, terra cotta vats, in as many days. But, more likely, the
melanzane
transcended its own possibilities and sent him into a swoon. We brought the recipe home.

The garden is edenic—neat rows, forked dry branches staked among the beans for them to climb, long bamboo trellises for the tomatoes, a line of robust artichokes and smart little mounded patches for the lettuces, which come and go quickly. We reseed each bed as one patch readies itself for the bowl, so that they’re always tender. You have to be a rabbit yourself to keep up with lettuces. If you skip a few days, a whole row turns to limp leather. Some that bolt we let go, just to see how outlandish a lettuce can become.

We were able to show Albano how to lay straw for the strawberries so they stay off the ground and are easier to spot. That red pops out—red as the taffeta dress I wore to the Dixie Ball, the count’s Ferrari parked in the piazza, a cardinal’s hat, a drop of blood.

Albano has taught us how to plant tomatoes up to their first set of leaves and later how to remove extra shooters. He refrains from watering them too much, which dilutes the flavor. He’s shown us how to braid garlic and onions and how to dry and store potatoes. The garden, once started, is not as much work as our prior plots at Bramasole. Because Albano and Ed removed all the weeds and let the soil rest empty for a few months, we weed lightly and have not been plagued with salads mixed with a dozen greeny volunteers.

We wash off the first layer of dirt at the outdoor sink, wash again in the kitchen. Willie, ah, another knife, slices the zucchini and flowers and we sauté them in olive oil, sprinkling torn mint leaves over them. He tails the beans; they steam and are given a douse of lemon juice and some thyme. The beauteous salad perks up with maybe half a cup of herbs, enough oil to make the leaves glisten lightly, and that’s it. The potatoes don’t need peeling; their skin is thin and taut. Willie precisely quarters them, then they get a brief steam bath, a few shakes of oil, and a lot of parsley. Ashley likes to make her childhood favorite from Julia Child, potatoes dauphinois. Ed prefers them cubed into a bowl, tossed with rosemary and olive oil, then roasted on parchment until they’re crisp and crusty.
Che patate!
Is there an ode to the potato? Their mute underground life, their little spotty eyes, their starchy juice, ichor of dark dirt—Keats, Pablo Neruda, how could you overlook them?

I serve the sliced tomatoes and cucumbers separately. When vegetables are this fresh, best to let them sing solos about their own true virtues. Although we may grill sausages or roast a chicken, these summer dinners are all about the plates spread out on the table, full of what’s ready to rip right now.

W
ILLIE THOUGHT HE
didn’t like salad until his
orto
adventures began. The vegetables became personal. He’s always liked working in the kitchen right along with whoever’s cooking. At two, three, we gave him real jobs: measuring flour, cracking eggs, whisking—even though the cleanup factor multiplied. For Willie, the zucchini’s finest hour is the fried flower. Ed showed him how to pick the male blooms, those not attached to developing zucchini. These are suitable for frying. Simply dip them in a thin batter of beer and flour, and fry quickly in hot, hot peanut oil. We like, almost as much, fried sage leaves. Like American southerners, Tuscans will fry anything. We were all enchanted to sample crisp cascades of wisteria and fried fronds of
sambuca
, elderflower, at a friend’s house.

For Ed and me, an unexpected bonus of having a grandchild is that we get to cook for him. When he was an infant, Ed began passing coffee beans and strawberries and gorgonzola and fennel seeds under his nose. “Smell this. Doesn’t this smell good?” We thought we saw a glimmer of assent in his eyes. “Look,” Ed would say as Willie flung his pablum and carrots on the wall, “this is fried calamari and you can have some very soon.” We were rewarded with a milky smile. His favorite toy at age one was an old La Pavoni espresso maker that Ed had replaced. Willie loved the pump handle, seeing his face in the stainless steel, filling the tank with water, and toddling toward the electrical outlet with a purposeful look.

As a picky eater since just about that age, I didn’t want to see Willie follow my squeamish tastes. I didn’t mean to but I passed on my defective palate to my daughter. She will not eat anything that could have had a name, will not eat anything that quivers. I can’t face an oyster or the brains and renal organs of any animal. It’s a burden for us.

Ed will try anything. Usually he’s game when served pots of tripe, songbirds held by their beaks and crunched (bones and all), sea urchins, and internal organs that should never see daylight. I surreptitiously have slipped many morsels of lamb heart and rabbit kidney mousse onto his plate. He looks at me pityingly. “Won’t you just try?” The only meal I’ve seen him balk at was at the Cardinali table when they served veal knuckles. They love this country soul food. Ed struggled to eat the gelatinous, cartilage-riddled, bony hunks. I feigned a
Really not hungry after a huge lunch out
. At their dinner table a couple of weeks later, Fiorella brought out another steamy platter of these knuckles because “Ed had enjoyed them so much.”

E
ATING WITH OUR
neighbors, and at other friends’ houses, actually gave us the idea to offer Willie the chance to relish meals like Italians. How many times have I seen small children hold out their plate for another helping of calves’ liver, bitter greens, pork belly, or lamb kidney? At Antonello’s, our electrician who has big casual dinners, we saw five boys head back to the stove for second bowlfuls of snails. Then, in a fine restaurant in the Veneto, I overheard a boy, maybe five, choose the cheese course for his dessert. I’d ordered the chocolate extravaganza myself, even though my white pants were getting hard to zip. The waiter wheeled over the cart and the boy pointed to four cheeses.

We’d go back to the United States and see the dreary “Children’s Menu”: chicken tenders, hamburgers, pizza, grilled cheese, hot dogs, corn dogs, and, of course, fries. Fries, fries, fries—the horrifying predominance of the French fry in our diet explains a lot. In moderation, a crisp little pile, yes. But
everything
comes with fries. Insane!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a children’s menu in Tuscany. Isn’t that a profound cultural cue? Children eat like their families and their families are eating as well as anyone on earth.

I
TALY MAKES
W
ILLIE’S
initiation rites easy. Seated among adults and small children, he sees them lapping up whatever is served. The children drink water, never soda. Even in cafés the kids order pear or peach juice in those neat little bottles; colas are for when your tummy is roiling and needs to settle. A mixed carrot, lemon, and orange juice turned out to be a hit. At the table, there is no discussion among the children about what someone does or does not like, because they like everything Aurora, Fiorella, Lina, Ombretta, Giusi, Silvia, or Donatella serve. The language helps, too.
Coniglio
and
agnello
don’t convey the loaded sentiments of Peter Rabbit and Mary’s little lamb. While Ashley and I cringe when Domenica discusses her rabbits she will butcher and bone, for Willie—we are amazed—it sounds normal, or maybe abstract. He’s yet to witness the bloody transition. Her cages are full of bunnies. Soon, she’s pulling a savory pan redolent of thyme and rosemary out of the oven. He’s made many stops at Placido’s cages and chicken yard on the way to dinner. In the afternoon, a guinea hen is selected; that night the spit turns. When I was a child, I watched Drew, our yard man, wring chickens’ necks with a hard snap and the hapless creatures would circle the yard, wings flapping, until they collapsed. Somehow the distance from there to fried chicken and mashed potatoes remained vast.