Amore and Amaretti (24 page)

On the radio, Neneh Cherry sings ‘It's a Man's World' and in his little corner Vito thumps the hood of the dishwasher shut. Alvaro is mixing the batter for the popular deep-fried chicken and vegetables, which we serve tumbling out of stiff paper cones: he whisks together eggs and white wine, then one cup of flour and in its still lumpy stage folds through chopped chicken thighs.

Farro
, the ancient grain spelt, has become the fashionable item this season, and so we are turning it into soups and salads. There is a pot of steadily simmering, thickening soup of spelt and porcini mushrooms alongside an asparagus sauce to be served with tagliatelle.

Earlier I watched Gianfranco and Alvaro prepare fresh pigs' cheeks to make
guanciale
, the large cheeks placed into a container and covered completely with rock salt. In several days they will be ready for the addition of garlic, herbs and lots of pepper, before being hung for several weeks. Already hanging from the rafters in the rarely used upstairs television room are
prosciutti
of various sizes. They are treated the same way, though being so much larger they are left under salt for a month. They must hang for a year, the salt ‘cooking' them and providing flavour. Vito tells me that
prosciutti
used to be draped over fireplaces, but nowadays they are hung in rooms ventilated by enormous fans to dry them out; in the final phase they are left in damp cool cellars. The drying must happen quickly, or they will start to rot.

Gianfranco's moodiness and volatility keep us steady and alert. I begin to see in my endless meditations, letters home, or when I plunge off on my morning walks, how he is the essential centrifugal force holding the rest of our weaker souls together, and without him we would fall apart. No one else possesses his authority, although I observe how much in his shadow Ignazio has grown up and developed, how earnestly he seeks to imitate and emulate. Sweet little Ignazio, who drinks steadily throughout the day, must fill in the spaces of Gianfranco's gradually increasing absences, but ‘the essence' is always there to hold us together.

Although capable of admirable efficiency, Alvaro also drinks day and evening, and slides easily into sloppiness. I persist with my private stern lectures and diary entries, reminding myself this ‘season' is a mere matter of months after which I will return to my sane and comfortable Sydney life, my Paddington flat and my trivial, tedious routines. I am here to absorb, learn and be inspired rather than be sucked back into the wells of loneliness and self-contempt.

It is taking me all this time to understand that what I see as his failure to appreciate me and to constantly acknowledge my work is perhaps Gianfranco's professionalism, the detachment necessary to steer his team and ensure its flow; that in reality it may be a measure of my stubbornly low self-esteem – and that what the experience could be teaching me, among realms of other great lessons, is self-reliance; that the reason I should work hard, create magnificent food and always do my best is not a needy search for approval and praise, but because it is a worthy way to live.

Amor nuovo va e viene, amore vecchio si mantiene

New love comes and goes but old love remains

Unfailingly, I am moved by the rare displays of Gianfranco's solicitude. One evening we receive a visit from Emilio, our detergent sales representative, a gingery pink and fleshy man habitually dressed in khaki. He and a boisterous group of friends have been dining and Emilio, drunk, has run into the kitchen and scooped up the bread-and-butter pudding – which I had painstakingly been making as a gift for Ignazio's mother – and disappeared. The car tyres squeal away, laughter floating from the windows as Alvaro and I gape at each other. Gianfranco, of course, is informed immediately: his face whitens with fury and he swears he will have no more dealings with this man, should he dare show his face.

A month later he does. Again, he comes in with a group of friends, who all drink too much, and again he erupts into the kitchen to greet us all. Alvaro and Ignazio are sycophantic and respond to his jokes. I have turned my back in cold contempt, fascinated to see what, if anything, Gianfranco will do.

Gianfranco finishes his telephone conversation and turns to Emilio. He is icy. He says that he wants nothing more to do with him, and that he will be buying our cleaning agents elsewhere, and that, yet again, Emilio has that evening drunkenly created
‘un casino'
in the restaurant. But most significantly it was the crime of having taken off with the
dolce
, which la Veeky had spent an entire day slaving over (how I love this man), which means the relationship is over.
‘Finito
,
chiuso!'

There stands Emilio, smooth-talking and florid, reduced to a puffy ridiculous figure by Gianfranco's speech and quite shocked by it, and I am discreetly watching Gianfranco, who had clearly been upset by the whole incident too, but who possesses such integrity and loyalty that he is barely quivering. I have never seen him more magnificent; he takes my breath away. Emilio seems to melt, and then he is gone.

There are so many things about this restaurant that I love. It seems to be the perfect Chianti experience – its cosy interior with fresh flowers and beautiful glassware on each lunch-laid table; tiny candles in containers and pot plants and intimate corners; the dusty bottles of ancient Chiantis arranged around the walls.

I have fewer Australian visitors this year and remind myself not to do what I did last time; namely, pounce on them and demand to know if they think I look fat. Of course, I am fat again because the circumstances and issues are the same: the dire combination of low self-esteem and working, long gruelling hours, while having constant access to unlimited amounts of irresistibly lovely food and wine. I just have to open the fridge door: a haunch of Parmesan cheese reposes among black figs, huge glorious deep-green leaves of rocket, fat ridged zucchini, tiny golden
finferi
mushrooms, a plethora of such gorgeous food, food I will never find in Australia, food which is provocatively of the season and the place, so freshly of the moment.

I am regrettably more conscious of the times when I am barked at by Gianfranco as if I were some lowly hired help than of the other precious moments when I watch him create amazing dishes or merely singe the hair of a duck over the open flame before hacking it up into small segments. The grace and economy that emerge whenever he cooks I find almost arousing; it is one of the rare times I feel stirring in me something of the old passion he used to evoke.

I am watching as he mixes cheeses:
‘Uno sperimento'
– an experiment – he says grandly and mysteriously, as he grates expensive fontina with fresh pecorino and mashes it into Gorgonzola, adding a handful of grated Parmesan. I ask him when he invented this experiment and he explains how, delayed that morning in a queue of cars, he dreamed it up. Now he smears it over cooked polenta and slides it into the oven. When he extracts it, golden and bubbling, he serves it with grilled spicy sausage and pork belly. Of course, it is sensational. I keep flashing back to images of him sitting impatiently in his big four-wheel drive stuck somewhere between Florence and Spedaluzzo, his mind moving on to recipes, food combinations, menu ideas. How can I not love this man?

The figs have come and gone. The huge tree out the back in Gianfranco's garden has yielded such a feast of them, too many for us to gather and use. They are scattered everywhere, skins spilt to reveal their crimson hearts, bird-pecked, rotting. Their dark leaves we use to line the platters for antipasti or for special functions; I have made endless fig
crostate
. On my walks, the landscape is changing, the air crisper now, veils of mist hanging over vineyards and olives finally beginning to turn black. The fields are stripped of the grapes, hand-plucked by the groups of itinerant African pickers.

One morning I contemplate how the countryside consists of so many different perspectives; it is ever-changing, and every bend in the road throws up a whole new vision of gorgeousness, a little like those glass domes of snow you shake, and when the snow settles it is a rearranged beauty. On my walks I ponder what I will be cooking that day and the changes to the menu. I think about making potato gnocchi and the mutton sauce and a salad of spelt and porcini mushrooms with shavings of the black truffles Mario brings us. The porcini will be turned into a silky sauce for tagliatelle. There may be a need for more minestrone, perfumed by the wild thyme called
pepolino
. We are serving
fettunta
with a garlicky mix of chicory and
toscanelli
beans and a final slick of good oil;
ribollita
, minestrone thickened with stale bread, simmers to creamy thickness. The oxtail sauce I most enjoy making is on the list, as is the wild-boar sauce.