Under the Tuscan Sun (28 page)

Faraone (Guinea Hens) with Fennel

Delicate and flavorful, guinea hens are always available at the
butcher. For Christmas, we roasted two and presented them on a
large platter, surrounded by grilled local sausages and a wreath
of herbs. The bones made a rich stock for soup the next day.
Oven-roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic are a natural
companion.

~I'm afraid the
faraone
must first be approached
with tweezers to remove remaining pin feathers. Wash and dry 2 birds
well. Simplest preparation is best—the flavor of the bird is
emphasized. Lay rosemary branches on an oiled roasting pan and place
the birds on top. Rub with a mixture of chopped rosemary, basil,
and thyme, then lard with strips of
pancetta.
Remove the
tough outer portions of 2 fennel bulbs. Cut in half-inch crescents,
drizzle with olive oil, and scatter them around the birds, along
with a couple of quartered onions. Roast at 350° at 20 minutes
per pound. These birds are leaner than chickens; be careful not
to overcook. For a rich sauce, add béchamel sauce (
see recipe
)
roasted chestnuts to the pan juices. Serves 4.

Rabbit with Tomatoes and Balsamic Vinegar

Coniglio,
rabbit, is a staple of the Tuscan diet. At the
Saturday market, a farm woman usually has three or four fluffy
bunnies looking up at you from an old Alitalia flight bag. In the
butcher's case, they're more remote, clean and lean, ruddy pink,
sometimes with a bit of fur left on the tail to prove it's not
cat. Unappetizing as this note is, the rabbit, simmered in thick
tomato sauce with herbs, is delightful. Just call it
coniglio
for the children's sake.

~Have the rabbit cut into pieces. Flour them and quickly
brown in olive oil. Arrange in a baking dish and cover with the
following tomato-balsamic sauce. Sauté 1 large chopped
onion and 3 or 4 cloves of minced garlic until translucent. Chop
4 or 5 tomatoes and add them to the pan. Season with ½ teaspoon of turmeric, rosemary, salt, pepper, and toasted fennel
seeds. Stir in 4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and simmer until
sauce is thick and reduced. Roast the rabbit, uncovered, for about
40 minutes in a 350° oven. Midway, baste with 2 to 3 tablespoons of additional balsamic vinegar. Serves 4.

Polenta with Sausage and Fontina

In winter, the local fresh pasta shop sells polenta with chopped
walnuts, a simple but interesting accompaniment to roasts or
chicken. The polenta and sausages, with a grand salad, is a robust
meal in itself.

~Prepare classic polenta (
see recipe
). Pour half of the
polenta into an oiled baking dish. Thinly slice or grate
1-½ cups of Fontina and spread over the layer of
polenta. Season with salt and pepper. Pour on the rest of the
polenta. Slice 6 sautéed Italian sausages over the top
and pour on the pan juices. Bake for 15 minutes at 300°.
Serves 6.

Honey-Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Fennel

The tenderest, leanest pork is the tenderloin. One tenderloin serves
two hungry people and the fennel pairs well with the pork. Wild
fennel grows all over our land. Whether its local popularity first
came from its aphrodisiacal powers or its curative uses for eye
problems, I don't know. I like its feathery foliage and its mythic
connections. Prometheus is said to have brought the first fire to
humans inside the thick, hollow stalk.

~Brush 2 tenderloins lightly with honey. In a mortar or food processor, crush 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds. Add them to
1 tablespoon of finely chopped rosemary, salt, pepper, and 2 cloves of minced garlic. Spread this mixture on the pork. Place in a
shallow, oiled pan. Roast in the oven at 400° until the pork
is faintly pink in the middle, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, cut 2 fennel bulbs in ½-inch slices. Toss out the tough root end.
Steam for about 10minutes, until cooked but not soft. Purée
until smooth, then add ¼ cup of white wine, ½ cup of
grated
parmigiano,
and ½ cup of
mascarpone
(or sour cream). Place tenderloins into a buttered dish and
pour sauce over; top with buttered bread crumbs. Cook at 350°for about 10minutes. Garnish tenderloins with fennel leaves, if
available, or with wands of fresh rosemary. Serves 4.

~CONTORNI~

Chestnuts in Red Wine

Even though I'm living near a chestnut forest, chestnuts still seem
luxurious. We roast a few every night to enjoy with a glass of
amaro, grappa,
or a last coffee. Just a short gash or x
in the shell before they're put in the pan and they open easily
while still hot. Many cookbooks advise roasting chestnuts for up
to an hour! In the fireplace, they're ready quickly—15 minutes
at the most, depending on how hot the coals are. Jiggle the pan
often and remove them at the first sign of charring. Chestnuts taste
good with all the flavorful winter meats, especially with guinea
hens.

~Roast and peel 30 or 40 chestnuts. Simmer the chesnuts
in just enough red wine to cover for half an hour, long enough for
the two flavors to intertwine. Pour off most of the wine. Serves 6.

Garlic Flan

Excellent with any roast.

~Separate the cloves from a large head of garlic. Without
peeling, place the cloves in boiling water for 5 minutes. Cool,
and squeeze out the garlic. Mince and crush the cloves with a fork,
then stir into 2 cups of cream. Bring cream and garlic just to a
simmer in a saucepan. Add a little ground nutmeg, salt, and pepper.
Remove from the flame and beat in 4 egg yolks. Pour into 6 individual
molds, well-oiled, or into a shallow baking pan. Bake in a
bains-marie
at 350° for 20 minutes or until set. Cool
for 10 minutes before unmolding.

Cardoons

As long as your arm, prickly, and pale green, cardoons are trouble
but worth it. This vegetable was new to me. I learned to strip the
tough, stringy exterior from the stalks—the stalks are
somewhat like celery—and quickly place the cardoon pieces
in water and lemon juice because they otherwise turn dark in a
hurry. At first I steamed them but they never seemed to get done.
I found that boiling them is best, just to the point of fork
tenderness. They have a taste and texture similar to heart of
artichoke—not surprising since they come from the same
family.

~After stripping a large bunch of cardoons and bathing
them in acidulated water, cut in two-inch pieces and boil until
just done. Drain and arrange in a well-buttered baking dish. Season
with salt and pepper and lightly cover with a béchamel
sauce (
see recipe
), dots of butter, and a sprinkling of
parmigiano.
Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.

Warm Porcini (or Portobello) Salad with Roasted Red and Yellow Peppers

Serve this colorful composed salad as a first or main course.

~Grill 2 large mushrooms or sauté them topside
down in olive oil (this prevents them from losing their juices).
Slice and drizzle lightly with vinaigrette. Grill 2 peppers, one
red and one green, and let them cool in a bag, then slide off the
charred skin. Slice and drizzle with the vinaigrette. Separate a
Bermuda (red) onion into rings. Toast ¼ cup of pine nuts.
Toss greens—radicchio, arugula, and other lettuces of varying
textures and colors—with vinaigrette and arrange on each
plate. Arrange the warm peppers, rings of onion, and mushroom slices
over the greens and top with pine nuts. Serves 6.

~DOLCI~

Winter Pears in Vino Nobile

Steeped pears are pretty to serve. Their taste seems heightened when
served along with some Gorgonzola, toasted bread, and walnuts roasted
with butter and salt.

~Peel 6 firm pears and stand them upright in a saucepan.
Leave stems on, if they still have them. Squeeze lemon juice over
each. Pour 1 cup of red wine over them and sprinkle ¼ cup of
sugar over the tops. Add ¼ cup of currants, a vanilla bean,
and a few cloves to the wine. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes (or
longer, depending on the size and ripeness of the pears); don't
allow them to become soft. Midway, turn pears on their sides and
baste several times with the wine sauce. Transfer to serving dishes,
pour the currants and some of the wine over each, and garnish with
thin strips of lemon peel. Serves 6.

Rustic Apple Bread Pudding

I'm surprised that the gnarly apples I find at the Saturday market
have intense flavor. Even our long-neglected apple trees bravely
put forth their scrawny crop. Too tiny to slice, they at least make
a respectable apple butter. For this husky dessert, cut the apples
in chunky slices.

~Peel, core, and cut 4 or 5 crisp baking apples in large
slices. Squeeze lemon juice over them, then dust with nutmeg. Toast
1 cup of sliced almonds. Remove any hard crust from a loaf of
leftover bread (fresh bread would be too soft for this recipe).
Cut the bread into slices and lay some of them on the bottom of
a buttered rectangular pan, 9 by 12 inches or so. In a sauté
pan, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and 6 tablespoons of sugar. Add
¾ cup of the toasted almonds, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
and ¼ cup of cider or water. Toss the apple chunks in this. Layer the apple mixture and bread in the pan, ending with a layer
of bread. Beat together 6 tablespoons of softened butter and 4 tablespoons of sugar. Beat in 4 eggs, then 1-¼ cups of milk and ¾ cup of light cream. Pour evenly over
the bread. Sprinkle the top with a little sugar, nutmeg, and the
remaining toasted almonds. Bake at 350° for an hour. Allow
to rest for 15 or 20 minutes. Serve with sweetened mascarpone or
whipped cream. Serves 8.

Tangerine Sorbet

If I'd grown up here, I'm sure the fragrance of citrus would be
indelibly associated with Christmas. The holiday decorations in
Assisi are big lemon boughs on all the stores. Against the pale
stones, the fruit glows like lighted ornaments and the scent of
lemons infuses the cold air. Outside the groceries all over Cortona,
baskets of clementines brighten the streets. Bars are squeezing
that most opulent of juices, the dark blood orange. The first
taste, tart as grapefruit, quickly turns to a deep aftertaste of
sweetness. This sorbet, which works wonders as a pause in a winter
dinner, can be made with other juices. Equally good as a light
dessert, the sorbet is delectable served with thin chocolate butter
cookies.

~Make a sugar syrup from 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar
by bringing them to a boil, then simmering for about 5 minutes. Stir
in 1-¼ cups of fresh tangerine juice, 1 cup of
water, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, plus the zest of the tangerines
you've used. Chill thoroughly in the fridge—until cold to the
touch. Process in an ice cream machine, according to manufacturer's
instructions. Serves 6.

Lemon Cake

A family import, this Southern cake is one I've made a hundred times.
Thin slices seem at home here with summer
strawberries and cherries
or winter pears—or simply with a small glass
of one of the
many fantastic Italian dessert wines, such as Banfi's B.

~Cream together 1 cup of sweet butter and 2 cups of sugar. Beat in 3 eggs, one at a time. The mixture should be light. Mix
together 3 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and incorporate this with the butter mixture
alternately with 1 cup buttermilk. (In Italy, I use one cup of
cream since buttermilk is not available.) Begin and end with the
flour mixture. Add 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and the grated zest
of the lemon. Bake in a nonstick tube pan at 300° for 50minutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick. The cake can be glazed
with ¼ cup of soft butter into which 1-½cups of powdered sugar and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice have been
beaten. Decorate with tiny curls of lemon rind.

R
ose
W
alk

IN THE TEN HOURS UPRIGHT IN MY AISLE
seat, headed toward
Paris, I read with intense concentration a history of
experimental French poetry, the flight magazine, even the emergency
instruction card. So many crises happened at work before I left
San Francisco at the end of May that I wanted to be loaded onto
the plane on a stretcher, wrapped in white, put in the front aisle
of the plane with curtains around me, the flight attendant looking
in now and then with a cup of warm milk—or a sapphire gin
martini. I left a week before Ed finished his classes, fled, really,
on the first plane smoking on the runway the day after
graduation.

After a short wait at Charles de Gaulle, I caught an Alitalia
flight. The pilot wasted no time in heading straight up. An Italian
driver, I guess, is an Italian driver; suddenly I felt a surge of
energy. I wondered if he was trying to pass someone. Soon he aimed
down, almost straight down, toward the Pisa airport. No one seemed
alarmed, so I practiced breathing evenly and holding up the plane
by the armrests.

I'm staying overnight. If we had been late, the prospect of
changing trains in Florence at night sounded exhausting. I check into
a hotel and find I'm ready to walk. It's
passeggiata
hour.
Hoards of people mingling, visiting, strolling, running errands. The
tower still leans, tourists still take photos of themselves leaning
to one side or the other in front of it. The pastel and ocher houses
still curve along the river like an aquarelle of themselves. Women
with shopping bags crowd into the fragrant bread store. Splendid to
arrive alone in a foreign country and feel the assault of
difference. Here they are all along, busy with living; they don't
talk or look like me. The rhythm of their day is entirely different;
I am thoroughly foreign. I have dinner at an outdoor restaurant
on a piazza. Ravioli, roast chicken, green beans, salad, a half
carafe of local red. Then my elation ebbs and a total, delicious
tiredness rushes over me. After a soaking bath with all the hotel's
bubble bath, I sleep for ten hours.

The first morning train takes me through fields of red
poppies in bloom, olive groves, and by now familiar stony villages.
Haystacks, nuns in white four abreast, bed linens flung out the
window, sheepfold, oleander, Italy! I stare out the window the
whole way. As we approach Florence, I worry about banging my new
small computer against something while juggling my bag. Most of my
summer clothes are at the house so I can travel lightly. Even so,
I feel like a pack animal with my handbag, computer, and carry-on
bag hanging on me. But it's fun to get off at the Florence station,
which always brings me the fresh memory of my first trip to Italy
almost twenty-five years ago, the exotic, smoky sound of the
loudspeaker announcing the arrival from Rome on
binario
undici
and the departure for Milano on
binario uno,
the oily train smells and everyone going somewhere.

Fortunately, the train is almost empty and I easily stow my
bags. Midway home (
home,
I've said to myself), a cart
comes through with sandwiches and drinks. The train doesn't stop at
Camucia so I get off at Terontola, about ten miles away, and call
a taxi.

Fifteen minutes later a taxi pulls up. As soon as I get in, a
second taxi pulls alongside us and the driver starts to shout and
gesture. I assumed the taxi I got in was the one I called but no,
he just happened along. He does not want to give up the fare. I tell
him I called a taxi but he starts to take off. The other driver
bangs on the door shouting louder, he was having lunch, he drove here
especially for the
Americana,
he has to earn his bread,
too. Spit gathers in the corners of his lips and I'm afraid he's
about to foam at the mouth. “Stop, please, I should go with him.
I'm very sorry!” He growls, slams on brakes, jerks my bag out.
I get in the other taxi. They face off to each other, both talking
at once, jowls and fists shaking, then abruptly come to terms and
start shaking hands, smiling. The deserted driver comes around
to me, smiles, and wishes me a good trip.

When I arrive, my sister, nephew, and friends of theirs have
been at the house for a couple of weeks. My sister has had all
the pots planted with white and coral geraniums. The green smell of
freshly cut grass tells me Beppe must have mown the lawn this
morning. Despite my severe pruning in December, the roses we planted
last summer are as tall as I am. They're profuse with
bloom—apricot, white, pink, yellow. Hundreds of butterflies
flitter among the lavender. The house has vases of gold lilies
and daisies and wildflowers. It's clean and full of life. My sister
even has a pot of basil going outside the kitchen door.

They are on a day trip to Florence when I arrive so I have the
afternoon to pull the duffel out from under the bed and air out my
summer clothes. Since five others are here and settled, I will be
sleeping in my study for a few days. I make up the narrow bed with
yellow sheets, set up the computer on my travertine desk, open the
windows, and I'm here.

Late, I find my boots and walk the terraces. Beppe and
Francesco have cut the weeds. Again, I've lost the battle of the
wildflowers. In their zeal to clear, they have stopped for nothing,
not even the wild (what I know as Cherokee) roses. Poppies, wild
carnations, some fluffy white flower, and the host of yellow
blooming weeds survive only along the terrace edges. The big news
is the olives. In March, they planted thirty in the gaps on the
terraces, bringing us up to a hundred and fifty trees. Already
they're flowering. We ordered larger trees this year than the ten
Ed planted last year; at the rate olives grow, we want to be around
to collect a little oil. Beppe and Francesco staked each new tree
and stuffed a nest of weeds between the stake and the trunk to
prevent chaffing. Ed knew to dig a big hole for each tree but
he didn't know to dig an enormous, deep one; Beppe explained that
the new trees need a big
polmone,
a lung. Around each,
they've dug to a circumference of about four feet. They also planted
two more cherries, to go with the ones Ed planted last spring.

For a week, we cook, run around to Arezzo and Perugia, walk,
buy scarves and sheets at the Camucia market, and catch up on
family news. Ed arrives in time for a farewell dinner with liberal
pourings of several Brunellos my nephew bought in Montalcino, then
they pack, pack, pack (so much to buy here) and are gone.

They've had a warm May; now it begins to rain. The run-rampant
roses bend and sway in the wind. We run out with
shovels and stake them, getting soaked. Ed digs while I clip off the
dead blooms, cut back some of the stalky branches, and give them
fertilizer, though I'm afraid it will promote even more of the Jack
and the Beanstalk mode. I cut an armful of white ones that bloom in
ready-made bouquets. Inside, we iron our clothes, rearrange what
has been shifted as many people made themselves comfortable to
their own tastes. Everything quickly falls into place. Eons ago,
it seems, I arrived in June to find ladders, workmen, pipes, wires,
rubble, and dust everywhere. Now we just begin living.

A pot of minestrone for the rainy nights. A walk over the
Roman road into town for cheese, arugula, coffee. Maria Rita's
cherries are the best ever; we eat a kilo every twenty-four hours.
All the stump and stone removal and clearing has paid off. Cleaning
up the land is easier now. Not as many rocks fly up when the weed
machine splits through the weeds. How many stones have we picked
up? Enough to build a house? Fireflies flickering on the terraces
at night, cuckoos (don't they say
whoocoo
instead?) in
the soft blue dawns. A timid bird that sings “Sweet, sweet.”
Hoopoes all dressed up in their exotic plumage with nothing more
to do than peck in the dirt. Long days with birdsongs instead of
the sound of the telephone.

We plant more roses. In this area of Tuscany, they bloom
spectacularly. Almost every garden spills and flourishes with them.
We select a Paul Neyron, with ruffled hot-pink petals like a tutu
and an astonishing lemony-rose scent. I must have two of the soft
pink ones the size of tennis balls called Donna Marella Agnelli.
Their perfume carries me back to the memory of being hugged to the
bosom of Delia, one of my grandmother's friends, who wore immense
hats and was a kleptomaniac no one ever accused because it would
embarrass her husband to death. When he noticed a new object
around the house, he would stop into the store he figured it came
from and say, “My wife completely forgot to pay for this—just
walked right out with it in her hand and remembered last night. How
much do I owe you?” Perhaps her powdery rose perfume was stolen.

“Don't plant any Peace roses,” a friend and connoisseur of
roses advised. “They're such a cliché.” But not only are
they dazzling, the vanilla cream, peach, and rosy blush colors
repeat the colors of the house. They belong in this garden. I plant
several. Last year's gold-orange roses open to flagrant size, the
rash colors contributing to their beautiful vulgarity. Now we
have a line of roses all along the walk up to the house, with
lavender planted between each one. I'm coming to believe in
aromatherapy. As I walk to the house through waves of scent,
it's impossible not to inhale deeply and feel an infusion of
happiness.

At the steps up to the front terrace, the old iron pergola
remains at the top and bottom, with jasmine we planted two years
ago twining around them and down the iron railings of the steps. Now
we decide on another long row of roses on the other side of the walk
and a pergola at the opposite end of that walk. This restores the
impression of the original rose pergola that existed when we first
saw the house, but now we want the open feeling to the wide walk
instead of reconstructing the continuous pergola. Two roses we
choose—one milky pink, one a velvet red—are Queen
Elizabeth and Abe Lincoln (pronounced Eh-bay Lin-cÓnay
at the nursery). Nice to think of those two forces side by side. My
favorites start as one color and open to another.
Gioia,
Joy, is pearly as a bud and full blown turns straw yellow, with
some petals still veined and edged with pink. We plant more of the
apricot-dawn roses, one that's traffic-light yellow, a Pompidou,
and one named for Pope John XXIII. So many important people just
blooming in our garden. I don't resist a decadent, smoked lilac
one that looks as if it belongs in the hand of someone in a
coffin.

We visit a
fabbro,
blacksmith, just over the river
in Camucia. His two boys gather near as we talk to their father,
their chance to see weird foreigners up close. One boy, about
twelve, has icy, eerie green eyes. He's lithe and tan. I can't
help but stare back at him. All he needs is a goatskin and a crude
flute. The
fabbro
also has green eyes but of a more direct
color. By now, I've visited the workshops of five or six
fabbri.
The craft must attract particularly intense men.
This shop is open on one side so it doesn't have the sooty air of
most. He shows us his well covers and manhole grids, practical items.
I think of the brooding
fabbro
we first met, now dead
from stomach cancer, him wandering in his own world in his
blackened shop, fingering the serpentine torch holder and the
archaic animal-headed staffs. Our gate still leans open; he died
before he repaired it and we've grown used to its rust and bends.
The green-eyed
fabbro
shows us his garden and nice house.
Perhaps his faun son will follow him in the craft.

Some things are so easy. We'll simply dig holes, fix the iron
poles, then fill the holes with cement. We choose a pink climbing
rose (“What's its name?” “No name, signora, it's just a rose.
Bella, no
?”) for either side.

I've had several gardens but never have planted roses. When I
was a child, my father landscaped around the cotton mill he managed
for my grandfather. With a single-mindedness I can only wonder at, he
planted a thousand roses, all the same kind.
L'étoile de
Holland,
a vital heart's blood red rose, is the flower of my
father. To put it mildly, he was a difficult man and to complicate
that, he died at forty-seven. Until he died, our house always was
filled with his roses, large vases, crystal bowls, single silver bud
vases on every available surface. They never wilted because he had
someone cut a fresh armful every day during seasons of bloom. I
can see him at noon coming in the back door in his beige linen suit,
somehow not rumpled from the heat. He carries, like a baby in his
arms, a cone of newspaper around a mass of red, red buds. “Would
you look at these?” He hands them to Willie Bell, who already is
waiting with scissors and vases. He twirls his Panama hat on
the tip of his finger. “Just tell me, who needs to go to
heaven?”

In my gardens I have planted herbs, Iceland poppies,
fushsias, pansies, sweet William. Now I am in love with roses. We
have enough grass now that I can walk out in the dew barefooted
every morning and cut a rose and a bunch of lavender for my desk.
Memory cuts and comes again: At the mill, my father kept a single
rose on his desk. I realize I have planted only one red one. As the
morning sun hits, the double fragrance
intensifies.