Every Day in Tuscany (8 page)

O
LIVE ALL
’ A
SCOLANA
Olives from Ascoli Piceno

The fifty thousand
ascolani
, the people who live in the Marche town of Ascoli Piceno, dwell around one of the most beautiful piazzas in Italy, the Piazza del Popolo. At cafés, everyone is nibbling these stuffed, fried olives, a local treat that is famous all over Italy. The olive of choice is their local one, the
tenera ascolana
, quite large, green, with a small pit. The recipe is also called
Ascolane all’ascolana
, that is, the ascolana olive in the manner of the town of Ascoli Piceno.

If you can’t find the
ascolana
olive, and you probably can’t, use large olives with the pits removed.

Serves 6 to 8 on an antipasto platter

Peanut oil for frying

20 large olives, pits removed

½
pound Italian salami, finely chopped

Beaten flour, egg, and bread crumbs on three separate plates

Salt and pepper

Heat oil in a pan until it reaches 375 degrees F or so.

Stuff the olives with the salami. Roll in the flour, then the egg, and then the bread crumbs. Fry until golden, turning when needed. Drain on paper towels, and season with salt and pepper.

A
LTERNATIVE FILLING:
With a pastry tube, try piping in a mix of garlic, chopped anchovy, and lemon zest
.

B
RODETTO
Seafood Stew

If you look on a topographical map of central Italy, you’ll see the Apennines (Appennini), a string of mountains that forms the sturdy and well-articulated spine of Italy, splitting the country in two. On the eastern side, the Cortona side, the mountain range gives to wide fertile plains that end in the waters of the Tyrrhenian, the Tuscan part of the Mediterranean Sea. There’s no such landscape on the western side of the Apennines, where the mountains and the sea have a more intimate relationship. Part of the reason the Marche region hasn’t been as explored as much as Tuscany is because of mountains, everywhere, making it more difficult to get around. Naturally, the
marchigiani
turn toward the sea for their food. Up and down the Adriatic coast, you’ll find everyone who has a stockpot has a recipe for
brodetto
.

If Cole Porter had been Italian, he might have written, “You say
brodetto
, I say
buridda
, you say
cioppino
and I say
cacciucco
…” Fish stew by any other name definitely sounds better. Italian for seafood is
frutti di mare
, fruits of the sea or seafruits. Even the Italian word for fish,
pesce
, two syllables, makes the word palatable and musical.

Naturally, a number of regions have their own names for
brodetto
, all made differently. There’s
cioppino
, which is all over San Francisco, but I’ve never seen it in Italy, although it’s said to have originated in Liguria, where they eat
buridda;
on the Tuscan coast you’d eat
Cacciucco alla Livornese
.

What Ed suggests: Simply buy what’s fresh that day. If the recipe calls for hake and there’s no hake, and the flounder looks good, then buy flounder. Traditionally, cooks used thirteen different kinds of seafood.

Serves 6

2 shallots, minced

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

3 or 4 strands of saffron

Salt and pepper

2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

2 cups white wine

½
pound cod, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 pound shrimp, peeled

½
pound small scallops

½
pound flounder, cut into 1-inch pieces

½
cup parsley, chopped

Sauté the shallots in the oil for 2 or 3 minutes, then add the garlic. Continue sautéing, then add the saffron, salt, pepper, and tomatoes. After another 5 minutes, add the wine and bring to a boil. Lower heat to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes.

Raise heat to medium and add the cod, which takes a little longer than the other seafood, and cook for 3 minutes, then add the shrimp, scallops, and flounder. Cover and cook on low for 15 minutes. Add parsley just before serving.

Serve in a bowl on a piece of good toasted bread, or over spaghetti.

G
IUSI’S CRESPELLE AI PORCINI E RICOTTA
Giusi’s Porcini and Ricotta Crêpes

For this delicate recipe, try to find bags or jars of Italian dried porcini. Put them in a bowl, cover them with boiling water, and steep them for 15 to 20 minutes, until they’ve expanded. Drain and chop. You can reserve the liquid to use in other dishes, but be sure to strain it first.

For variety in the
pommarola
, and for a pasta sauce in itself, try using
odori
(minced onion, carrot, celery, parsley) instead of the onion. Also, you can add ½ cup of cream to the sauce.
Pommarola
can be fresh and quick like this, or long simmered for an intense concentrated sauce.

Serves 4 (8 crespelle)

1/3 cup flour

1 cup milk

3 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces

1 cup ricotta

1 egg yolk

½
cup
parmigiano,
grated

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

Tomato sauce (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Put the flour in a medium bowl and slowly stir in the milk, forming a paste. Beat eggs separately and add to the mixture, along with half of the salt.

Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a 9-inch nonstick skillet to coat it. Ladle ¼ cup of batter into the skillet and cook over medium-high heat. As it’s cooking, loosen the edges of the
crespella
with a knife or spatula, and after 1 or 2 minutes, turn to cook on the other side another 1 or 2 minutes. Remove to a plate. Add a little more butter to the pan, and repeat the above process.

In a medium bowl, mash the ricotta with a fork, add the egg yolk, the remaining salt, the
parmigiano
, and porcini and continue to mix. Add 3 tablespoons of tomato sauce and mix.

Drop 2 tablespoons of the filling in the middle of a
crespella
and spread it all over. Roll the
crespella
like a cigar. Repeat with the others. Put them in an ovenproof baking dish and top with ½ cup of the tomato sauce, a few more small pieces of butter, and a sprinkling of
parmigiano
. Bake for 25 minutes. Serve immediately.

P
OMMAROLA
Tomato Sauce

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 small onion, minced

1 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes, or 6–8 firm fresh tomatoes, peeled

½
cup basil leaves, chopped

Salt and pepper

Heat oil and add onion. After 5 minutes over medium heat, add tomatoes and break them up with a spoon. Add basil and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 10 minutes on high heat, uncovered, to reduce it. Makes 3 cups.

Bramasole

AT BRAMASOLE, I LEARNED TO IRON WITH MY
hands. Fold and smooth, fold, then smooth, fold, smooth; the blue top sheet, lifted from the rack, smells of warm light. Flounces on the pillowcases yield to my flat hand; my yellow nightgown softens. The bottom sheet draped over two chairs tries to sail and would blow over the valley if I had not nipped the corners with clothespins. Ah, as my hand glides, I see that an iron has the shape of a hand. Red T-shirt, black pants, the waffle-weave hand towels—my hand slides over, just as the fish-shaped boat moves through water, the bird body of the plane parts the air, and a car mimics a horse’s body with four feet—scratches off, the driver holding the steering wheel like reins. I like my dishcloths ironed and so I press hard; I stack them, red-checked, blue striped, sunflower print, toile of spring green, and the utilitarian white, worn to gauze, for drying glasses. Three silk shirts—fuchsia, white, a lavender print like Victorian wallpaper—twirl on hangers in the breeze, the wind urging them to give up their wrinkles. Folding laundry, sun in my hair, the basket stacked—the ritual of preparing the clothes seems like an offering to the household gods. Warm laundry, carried aloft, distributed among the rooms, brings a particular solace. All’s right with fresh towels, snowy underwear, and a bed that welcomes the body.

At Bramasole, I learned to forage—pull on rubber boots, grab the clippers, and go. Even this cultivated landscape offers abundant
insalata di campo
, wild field greens; yellow plums like those I used to find along the honeysuckle-lined roads in Georgia—suck the juice and spit out pit and skin; the prized
amarini
, cherries the size of five-caret rubies, which are bottled with alcohol and brought out in winter to spoon over polenta cake. Volunteer pears, purslane, the low-growing wild mint called
mentuccia
, pine nuts, blackberries, wiry, bitter asparagus, fennel flowers, figs. My neighbor Placido would add
lumache
, snails, to my foraging list. He’s first in line at the annual Sagra della Lumaca, where in a copper pot the size of a truck tire, a mountain of snails simmers in rich tomato and pancetta sauce. As the cook ladles, shells clatter into the bowl. I fail as a true gourmet; I pass up these creatures who make slime, though Ed relishes this dish once every year and insists that I don’t know what I’m missing. If our huge vegetable garden had the boost of a cow and a henhouse, we could be almost complete locavores. (Attractive concept. Unattractive word.)

The land gives wildflowers eight months a year. Because on the first day I ever spent in rural Tuscany a neighbor came over with a sack of eggs and an armful of broom, vetch, poppies, lilies, and nameless yellow and purple wildflowers, that has been my best-loved bouquet. (Lilies—both orange and white—grow wild.) A foray through the fields, the bounty plopped into a pitcher, and
voilà
.

I love the setting forth, swinging my basket, roaming the olive grove and the terraces beyond. I know what I’m looking for (green almonds or tiny crab apples) but really I’m looking for surprise—coming upon a clutch of chanterelles or wild strawberries or blue-blossomed thyme or dark purple irises with intense grapy scent. If I return with only a dozen strawberries, they put a little magic in our habitual summer cocktail. A few figs, split, add an earthy touch to a platter of
salumi
. A handful of purple allium balls looks unexpected when poked into a bowl of roses. A branch of lemon balm I drop into my hot bath. Simplicity, an elusive goal, feels within reach as I arrange three pecorino cheeses on grape leaves I’ve cut from abandoned vines, as I roast a pan of knotty pears, or lay my three porcini on the hearth for grilling.

So many pleasures have come to me at Bramasole. Here, I learned to take cuttings of old roses and make healthy new plants. I learned to plant rosemary, santolina, and lavender in long curving waves, interrupted now and then by lion’s tail. I learned to keep my knives sharp—a dull blade is more dangerous than a razor edge, and there’s much to slice and chop. I learned to consider the scorpion, and the snake that lives in the dahlias. The scorpions love the shower and, I suppose, have their rights. Their beauty is particular, as is that of the amazing brown spider that looks like a bronze and topaz brooch. I’ve learned to care for my lemons just as they did in the Renaissance, bringing them out of their glass-fronted room, the
limonaia
, in late April, and lining the grand pots along the front of the house. For six months, they yield not only their fruit but also their narcotizing scent, which drifts into the downstairs rooms and sometimes even up to the third-floor window. In late October, as though they know this is a last chance, they give forth their most abundant bounty. This is the season to brew
limoncello
and to serve forth my grandmother Big Mama’s tart, sweet lemon pie. I can see her white, white face, lips pursed and lacteal blind eyes staring just over my head as she rolled out the crust and whipped the whites.

The brilliant yellow lemons rival the beauty of the dangling orange persimmons,
kaki
, in many gardens. Before the first hard freeze of November, back the pots go into the
limonaia
. Each pot has been marked on one side and they’re placed on risers so that the mark faces winter sun. Side windows open automatically if heat rises. They’re watered only occasionally. Even in February, I can squeeze among them and find an emergency lemon.

I learned to mend my
vase
. People value their
fatta a mano
, handmade old terracotta pots. I thought it was the ultimate in thrift when I saw huge lemon trees in pots held together by wire. Even small geraniums on a step or wall often would be wired. This local habit developed long before superglue. Once when I returned, a
vaso
decorated with swags of fruit had completely split. I am fond of it because it holds a yellow tree rose in my herb garden. I got out the wire and the superglue. Now, several years later my pot endures. I’ve repaired several others, even cheap pots, and have come to like the look as well as the philosophy.

From Albano, who works up at Fonte, our farm in the mountains, we know that the
orto
fence must go underground about eight inches, otherwise little snuffling diggers root under. Albano takes no guff from night visitors. We learned that October strawberries are sweetest, juiciest, that chard reboots forever, asparagus plants last twenty years, raspberry canes must be pruned hard after the fruit is finished for the season. We learned to make tall bamboo teepees for beans and short ones for peppers. We shade the lettuce with a ring of sunflowers. And we never knew before to pick only the males (no zucchini developing at the end) for fried zucchini flowers. We learned to love the winter garden—black cabbage, cardoon, kale, rape, and the early spring fava. I save seeds from the best tomatoes. We have not discovered how to protect our small cherry orchard from the greedy birds, who leave us only half-pecked fruit. The trees are already too tall to drape, and tying old CDs to the branches seems only to attract more blackbirds to the silvery sparkles.

If I were a medieval woman weaving a family tapestry, the knowledge gleaned from living here would form my borders and backgrounds. Instead of a procession of men with falcons on decorated horses, or a lady mincing along on a unicorn, there would be the iconic long table, the gathered friends, the servers and diners, all loved faces, and richly colored threads for the rose, the lemon, the twining bean, sunflower, moon-flower vine, and all the creatures who also are as at home as we are where we live. Above the scene, I’d stitch the golden disk of the sun and jagged rays. Bramasole, from
bramare
, to yearn for, and
sole
, sun, means something that
yearns for the sun
.

The Romans respected their
lares
and
penantes
, household gods of the hearth, pantry, and food. The presence of ancient spirits appeals to one who chooses a house as a spiritual haven. Bramasole always has seemed to me, even when empty, more than a house. This is spooky; a house has an
anima
, a soul? When I am away, I miss it as I miss a person I love. I miss the house’s colors, what the old painting manuals call
polvere di mattone
, brick dust,
rosso arancio
, blood orange,
terre bruciate
, burned dirt,
giallo caldo
, hot yellow. I miss the platters on my kitchen walls and the pear and almond tart cooling on the counter. I miss the fireflies, who make the best dinner guests. I miss the
girasole
terrace when the giant sunflowers face the audience, the whole dance corps gazing fondly down at our admiration. I miss the balcony when the jasmine, lemon, and
tigli
, linden, scents collide and seem to emanate from the moon. I miss the valley below, that pays homage to all greens, and the dark-hearted cypresses along the road, and my earnest coral geraniums escaping from their pots, joining with clematis and trailing down to meet the old roses below. I miss, in winter, the early dark, which comes suddenly, like a stage curtain let down with a velvet thump.

I don’t need a celestial paradise; I’ll take my immortality here.

T
ODAY IS
W
EDNESDAY
. Twelve-fifteen by my watch, whose face is obscured by moving stars and a crescent moon. I must shake my wrist to see the minute and hour hands. The pretty watch Ed gave me always reminds me of two kinds of time—this minute and the overriding mega-time of past and future. Maybe the designer intended such a connection. Time, the big breadbasket we fill, raid, fill, and empty.

In Tuscany, I learned to
take time
. Take time to have coffee with the one-armed man in my neighborhood, who tells me how he drives his stick-shift Panda with his dog in his lap, and how as a child he ate bread dipped in red wine for breakfast. Dividing the snarl of iris bulbs and replanting them around an olive tree takes time. I find that I have it. Time: reading until three, then sleeping until ten, if I choose; sharing a glass of sour wine with a farmer who walked back from Genoa after the Italian surrender in World War II; cooking with Gilda, who’s incredibly efficient without ever using a processor or microwave. She came to work for us when her sister-in-law, Giusi, left to open her
agriturismo
. We learned from Giusi, a close friend, and we will be learning a long time from Gilda. We learn from Placido, who came over three afternoons straight to help us lay a stone path, who walks the horse so that my grandson can ride, who searches the woods all day for a basket of porcini mushrooms.

Time—that’s what it takes for the slow tomato sauce, stirred until reduced to an essential taste of summer sun, for tying lavender in bunches and hanging them from beams to dry, for learning the imperfect tense, for checking the reddening pomegranates every day as they ripen, ripping open the leathery skin to reveal the juicy red hive within, sprinkling the fruit over a salad of field greens and toasted walnuts. Living well in time means
taking back
time from the slave-masters—obligations, appointments, the dreary round of details that attach like leeches in a stagnant pond. During intense periods of work, restoration projects, family crises, health scares, I want to wake up at first light, pull on hiking boots, and set off for an hour while the birds are still practicing their doxologies.

Wasted hours—they were mine; I meant to use them before they slipped through the hourglass.