Every Day in Tuscany (7 page)

Signorelli often placed a commanding focal point in front of his main subject. In this painting, a cardinal’s red hat lies on the floor in the center of the foreground. Maybe Signorelli intended a subliminal association with the future crucifixion of the adorable baby held so gently by his heavenly teen mama. Or maybe he just loved the shape and color and wanted to paint
red hat
along with his umpteenth Madonna.

Opposite a della Robbia confection in a side chapel, we find Signorelli’s
Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist
. This painting compels attention. Not entirely by the master’s brush, the painting showcases one of Signorelli’s preoccupations: the male body shown in prime form—and never more so than here, where Jesus stands to midcalf in the river, his legs visible through clear water. Two other splendid male specimens are on view in the background. Signorelli’s Christs and saints are physical, manly, and never sentimentalized. God, in a burst of glory, looks down from above as John in his signature animal skins performs the baptism. “The babies of this town get baptized with this to fix their eyes on,” Ed says.

Over the altar the church’s own Madonna and Bambino preside in the original splendid frame, with all the panels of saints and scenes intact. There’s the mysterious Medardo, given top billing along with Saints Sebastian (human dart-board), John, Paul, and several others. One is Roch, and what is he doing down there on the lower right? Spinning? Cutting open his leg? In the pilasters, fourteen smaller portraits frame the magnificent whole. On the steps of the Madonna’s throne, the polyptych is signed
Lucas Signorellus Pingebat
. I suppose
Pingebat
must be Latin for “painter,” but somehow the word strikes me as funny and, as I try not to laugh, my concentration on the episodes painted on the predellas stops. The faithful of Arcevia have gazed at this polyptych as they made their way to the altar for communion for five hundred years. This thought stops me as I realize I’m one of millions on a long timeline to gaze up at the stories portrayed, to turn and walk back up the aisle and out into the blue day.

Maybe at that moment I was subliminally connected with Medardo. Back at Bramasole, I look him up in a guide to saints and find that he is often portrayed “laughing insanely,” or being sheltered from rain by the outspread wings of an eagle. This childhood event gives him the patronage over bad weather. I’ll have to remember to watch his feast day, June 8. If it rains, there will be forty wet days to follow. He’s a French saint—Medard, who somehow came to be venerated in remote Arcevia. I like his mythic attributes: His horse could leave footprints in stone. The other mysterious saint, Roch (in Italian, Rocco), turns out to be French also. He traveled to Italy, miraculously curing plague victims everywhere he went, including Rimini on the Adriatic. The disease claimed him eventually and he went into the woods to die. He survived because a dog began to bring him bread. I’ll guess that the image in Arcevia shows him displaying a plague sore on his thigh, though what the little spindle-looking thing he holds might be, I still don’t know. When I read that he’s the patron saint of dogs, I’m purely amazed. When my grandson Willie received a dog for Christmas, out of nowhere he named him Rocco. Ed thinks “roch” is onomatopoeic barking—
roch, roch
.

W
E’RE HAVING OUR
forty wet days right now. Ed makes his warm-the-cockles winter soup of kale, white beans, and sausage. I float
bruschette
, toasted with October’s oil, on top—and that’s dinner.

When I am a hundred, propped in the piazza with a bracing glass of grappa, and think back on the happiest times of my life, these evenings in front of the fire, with our tin trays balanced on our knees, the winter soup’s aroma mixing with the fragrant olive wood, the candles lighted, the decanter half full of black wine, with another day to talk about, wind leaking under the door, and the roasted chestnuts after, Ed shaking them over the embers, peeling fast, and handing me one—these nights to recall are paradigms. I eventually pick up a book and go up to bed, leaving Ed by the fire to stare and think what he thinks, take notes on the back of the electric bill, perhaps to doze long enough that eventually I call down the stairs, “It’s late. Wake up. Come to bed …”

T
HE GOOD FRIDAY
procession has to be canceled because of the rain. The participants carry a heavy cross and a statue of Mary to many churches, stopping at each for a blessing. In good weather, the journey is
duro
, hard enough, but on slippery stones with an icy wind—best repair to Paolo’s trattoria for a plate of pasta with boar sauce. This weather stays beastly. Should we begin to nail together an ark?

This year my birthday falls on Easter and we are invited to the Cardinali family
pranzo
. I can’t think of a place I’d rather be. Placido grills a whole lamb in the fireplace. We are twenty at table. Some of the family is missing the feast. In the fall, Umberto, a nephew, crashed his small plane. His parents and sisters and brothers are still too devastated to appear. My grandson and daughter call during the antipasti and sing “Happy Birthday.” Not one to cry, I find this makes two teary bouts for me today. Missing them, and then during the prayer, when everyone stands together and the nephew Umberto is dead and everyone feels his impossible absence … and Plari, with his awful accident, now smiling, having roasted meat for all as usual. And another year gathered for me.

Outside, the valley is obscured by rain and
nebbia
, so much more expressive than “fog.” Inside we are cozy and familial. Simone’s father, who lost his wife last winter, sitting without a word but eating everything in sight. Anna’s daughters all smoking at the end of the table. Little Claudia, growing into a beauty, her laugh like a bicycle bell. Fiorella bringing out the ravioli, the mushroom crêpes, everything delicious. Claudio, our head of the
carabinieri
, handsome as a Byzantine icon, telling us that today someone turned over flowerpots in Camucia. Big crime scene! Placido carving. All the women getting up from time to time to clear, reappearing with bowls of
clementini
, the small Sicilian tangerines, and Aurora’s chocolate tart. Tuscan cigars lighted, cards snapped on the table. The grappa poured. At the end, other neighbors, friends, cousins begin to drop in, each bringing a huge chocolate egg with a prize inside. The warmth circulating around the table feels like that leap that lets you grow wings.

Those long tables … those endless meals. The spit turning in the fireplace and the hens or birds or roasting meats filling the room with savory old-world aromas. I have sat with my back to the hearth a hundred, two hundred times. And the room, as known as my childhood home. Photographs propped all around, an upright piano. At the end, a bookcase, with white sofa and chairs and a round table in the middle stacked with books. But it is the dining table—a long table for twenty, or twenty-five squeezed—that dominates. This, it states, is what’s important, a copious arrangement for family and friends, with the fire blazing. The sofa becomes merely a place where coats are piled, sometimes with tired children sprawled on top, dreaming, no doubt, until they are awakened by their parents and stagger out into crisp nights with skies encrusted with stars.

Easter. Is he risen? Has a house flown? Spring is coming. We walk back to Bramasole arm in arm with another fine memory for the future. Our house looms above the road, casting light in golden panels onto the bare garden. How mysterious, a house on its own. We will enter and the rooms will become ours. Right now, Bramasole belongs to itself. I start to sing.
You are lost and gone forever, oh my darlin’ Clementine
… The rain falls lightly, as though a hand held a gigantic watering can above us, gently dousing us for growth in the coming sunny days.

Z
UPPA DI
C
AVOLO
N
ERO
, C
ANNELLINI, E
S
ALSICCE
Kale, White Bean, and Sausage Soup

Kale goes by another name, one much more dashing, especially in Italian.
Cavolo Nero
, black cabbage, may not evoke superhero status, but it’s close. Kale does seem invincible and it’s known to make the eater more so, too. It’s also called dinosaur kale (also called
lacinato
), maybe because its leaves look like the back of a lizard. Those thin knobby leaves squeak. Do not confuse
cavolo
, accent on the first syllable, with
cavallo
, accent on the second, or you’ll be ordering black horse, and in certain parts of the world will find it. Hearty and good for the spirit. I like soaked and cooked cannellini better than canned ones.

Serves 12 to 14

2 Italian sausages, skins removed and meat crumbled

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 quarts chicken stock

1 cup white wine

6 thyme sprigs

1 bunch of kale, washed and chopped

4 cups cooked cannellini beans

Sauté the crumbled sausage in the oil until browned, and reserve. Sauté the onions and garlic until translucent. Add to the chicken stock in a big pot. Add the wine and cook until the alcohol has evaporated, then add the thyme and kale. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the cooked sausage and the beans and simmer another 15 minutes.

C
ALDARROSTE
Roasted Chestnuts

We gather baskets of chestnuts in the fall and we have to hurry—we’ve got competition from every wild boar in the area.

Do we search for the chestnuts or the Chestnuts. The latter are
marrone
, the kind made into
marrons glacés
, that syrupy sweet coated Chestnut. I could eat an entire box, if permitted.

We like to roast either type in the fireplace, as much for the smell as for the taste. Chestnuts must have their skin sliced; otherwise they’ll explode. With a short-bladed knife, carefully cut a slit in the flat side. Pile in the chestnut roaster and set it over hot coals (not an open flame) for about 5 minutes and then turn over or shake well to redistribute the chestnuts. After another 5 minutes, pierce one with a knife. It should go in quite easily. Pour them into a bowl, let them cool only long enough to handle, then peel.

In an oven: Preheat to 450 degrees F, and spread prepared chestnuts on a sheet pan. Bake for 20 minutes and then start checking every 5 minutes.