Under the Tuscan Sun

by Frances Mayes

  The rhythm of Tuscan dining may throw us off but after a long lunch outside, one concept is clear—siesta. The logic of a three-hour fall through the crack of the day makes perfect sense. Best to pick up that Piero della Francesca book, wander upstairs and give in to it.

  I know I want a wooden table. When I was growing up, my father had dinners for his men friends and a few employees on Fridays. Our cook, Willie Bell, and my mother spread a long white table under a pecan tree in our yard with fried chicken cooked right there on our brick barbecue, potato salad, biscuits, iced tea, pound cake, and bottles of gin and Southern Comfort. The noon meal often lasted most of the day, sometimes ending with the swaying men, arm in arm singing “Darktown Strutter's Ball” and “I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech” slowly as if on a tape that warped in the sun.

  From the very first weeks we lived in the house, we used the abandoned worktable, a crude prototype of the table I imagined us eventually setting under the line of five tigli trees. At a market stall, I bought tablecloths, long to keep splinters from digging into our knees. With napkins to match, a jar of poppies, Queen Anne's lace, and blue bachelor's buttons on the table, our yellow plates from the COOP, we served forth, mainly to each other.

  My idea of heaven is a two-hour lunch with Ed. I believe he must have been Italian in another life. He has begun to gesture and wave his hands, which I've never seen him do. He likes to cook at home but simply throws himself into it here. For a lunch he prepares, he gathers parmigiano, fresh mozzarella, some pecorino from the mountains, red peppers, just-picked lettuces, the local salami with fennel, loaves of pane con sale (the bread that isn't strictly traditional here since it has salt), prosciutto, a glorious bag of tomatoes. For dessert, peaches, plums, and, my favorite, a local watermelon called minne di monaca, nun's tits. He piles the bread board with our cheeses, salami, peppers, and on our plates arranges our first course, the classic caprese: sliced tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, and a drizzle of oil.

  In the tigli shade, we're protected from the midday heat. The cicadas yammer in the trees, that deeply heart-of-summer sound. The tomatoes are so intense we go silent as we taste them. Ed opens a celebratory bottle of prosecco and we settle down to recap the saga of buying and restoring the house. Oddly, we now omit the complications and panic; we've begun the selection process, the same one that insures the continuance of the human race: forgetting the labor. Ed starts drawing up plans for a bread oven. We dream on about other projects. The sun through the flowering trees bathes us in gold sifted light. “This isn't real; we've wandered into a Fellini film,” I say.

  Ed shakes his head. “Fellini is a documentary filmmaker—I've lost my belief in his genius. There are Fellini scenes everywhere. Remember the brilliant motorcycle that comes around and around in Amarcord? It happens all the time. You're nowhere in a remote village, no one in sight, and suddenly a huge Moto Guzzi streaks by.” He peels a peach in one long spiral and just because this was all too pleasant we open a second bottle of prosecco and wile away another hour before we drift in to rest and revive our energy for a walk into town to case out the restaurants, stroll along the parterre overlooking the valley, and, hard to contemplate, begin the next meal.

  WE HAVE CALLED THE SHY AND SILENT CARPENTERS, MARCO and Rudolfo. They seem amused no matter what work they do here. The idea of a painted table seating ten seems to stun them. They're used to chestnut stain. Are we certain? I see them swap a glance with each other. But it will have to be repainted in two years. Too impractical. We've sketched what we want and have the paint sample, too—primary yellow.

  They return four days later with the table, sealed and painted—a miracle turnaround time anywhere but especially for two as busy as they are. They laugh and say the table will glow in the dark. It does pulsate with color. They haul it to the spot with the broadest view into the valley. In the deep shade, the yellow shines, luring us to come forth from the house with jugs and steaming bowls, baskets of fruit and fresh cheeses wrapped in grape leaves.

  DINNER TONIGHT IS FOR AN ITALIAN COUPLE, THEIR BABY, AND our compatriot writers. This Italian baby girl, at seven months, chews on piquant olives and looks longingly at the food. Our friends have been amused by our adventures in restoration, safely amused since their houses were restored before workmen disappeared and before the dollar dove. Each knows an astonishing amount about wells, septic systems, gutters, pruning—minute technical knowledge acquired by years under the roofs of quirky old farmhouses. We're awed by their fluency with Italian, their endless knowledge of the intricacies of telephone bills. Though I imagine conversations about the currents in Italian literature, opera, and controversial restorations, we seem to discuss most passionately olive pruning, grease traps, well testing, and shutter repair.

  The menu: with drinks, bruschette with chopped tomatoes and basil, crostini with a red pepper confit. The first course, gnocchi, not the usual potato but light semolina gnocchi (small servings—it's rich), followed by veal roasted with garlic and potatoes, then garnished with fried sage. The little green beans, still crisp, warm, with fennel and olives. Just before they arrive, I pick a huge basket of lettuces. At the start of summer, I scattered two envelopes of mixed lettuces as an edging along a flower bed. They were up in a week and in three, bolted the border. Now they're everywhere; it feels odd to be weeding the flower bed and accumulating dinner at the same time. Some look unfamiliar; I hope we're not eating just-sprouting calendula or hollyhocks. The cherries, simmered and cooled, have attracted bees to them all afternoon. One of the tiny hummingbirds made a quick foray into the kitchen, drawn possibly by the scent of the deep red wine syrup.

  When they arrive it will be the soft, slow Tuscan twilight, fading after drinks from transparent to golden to evening blue, then, by the end of the first course, into night. Night happens quickly, as though the sun were pulled in one motion under the hill. We light candles in hurricane shades all along the stone wall and on the table. For background music, a hilarious chorus of frogs tunes up. Molti anni fa, many years ago, our friends begin. Their stories weave an Italy around us that we know only through books and films. In the sixties . . . In the seventies . . . A true paradise. That's why they came—and stayed. They love it but it's downhill now in comparison to the four armoires from that nutty contessa. How alive the streets of Rome were with people, and remember the theater with the roof that rolled back, how sometimes it would rain? Then the talk shifts to politics. They know everyone. We're all horrified at the car bombing in Sicily. Is there a Mafia here? Our questions are naive. The fascist leaning in recent elections disturbs everyone. Could Italy go back? I tell them about the antique dealer in Monte San Savino. I saw a photo of Mussolini over his shop door and he saw me looking at it. With a big smile he asks if I know who that is. Not knowing if the photo is a campy object or one of veneration, I give him the fascist salute. He goes crazy, thinking I approve. He's all over me, talking about what a bold and bravo man Il Duce was. I want to get out with my strange purchases—a big gilt cross and the door to a reliquary—but now the prices come down. He invites me back, wants me to meet his family. Everyone advises me to take full advantage.

  I feel immersed here; my “real life” seems remote. Odd that we're all here. We were given one country and we've set ourselves up in another—they much more radically than we; they defined their lives and work by this place, not that. We feel so much at home, pale and American as we are. We could just stay here, go native. Let my hair grow long, tutor local kids in English, ride a Vespa into town for bread. I imagine Ed on one of those tiny tractors made for terraced land. Imagine him starting a little vineyard. Or we could make tisanes of lemon balm. I look at him but he is pouring wine. I almost feel our strange voices—English, French, Italian—spreading out around the house, over the valley. Sound carries on the hills. (Stranieri, foreigners, we're called, but it sounds more dire, more like strangers, an oddly chilling word.) Often we hear parties of invisible neighbors above us. We've shifted an ancient order of
things on this hillside, where the tax collector, the police captain, and the newsstand owner (our nearest neighbors although we can't see any of them) heard only Italian until we encamped here.

  The Big Dipper, clear as a dot-to-dot drawing, seems about to pour something right on top of the house, and the Milky Way, so pretty in Latin as the via lactia, sweeps its bridal train of scattered stars over our heads. The frogs go silent all at once, as if someone shushed them. Ed brings out the vin santo and a plate of biscotti he made this morning. Now the night is big and quiet. No moon. We talk, talk, talk. Nothing to interrupt us except the shooting stars.

  Summer Kitchen

  Notes

  ONE SPRING WHEN I STUDIED COOKING with Simone Beck at her house in Provence, she said some things I never forgot. Another student, a caterer and cooking teacher, kept asking Simca for the technique for everything. She had a notebook and furiously wrote down every word Simca said. The other four of us were mainly interested in eating what we'd prepared. When she asked one time too many, Simca said crisply, “There is no technique, there is just the way to do it. Now, are we going to measure or are we going to cook?”

  I've learned here that simplicity is liberating. Simca's philosophy applies totally to this kitchen, where we no longer measure, but just cook. As all cooks know, ingredients of the moment are the best guides. Much of what we do is too simple to be called a recipe—it's just the way to do it. I vary the ubiquitous prosciutto e melone with halved figs. The cold tomato soup I make is simply chopped herbs—mainly basil—and ripe tomatoes stirred into clear chicken stock and popped in the freezer until chilled. I roast whole heads of garlic in a terra-cotta dish with a little olive oil—great to squeeze the cloves onto bread. One of the best pastas is spaghetti tossed with chopped arugula, cream, and minced pancetta, then sprinkled with parmigiano. Green beans served with black olives, sliced raw fennel, spring onions, and a light vinaigrette or lemon juice must be one of the nicest things ever to happen to a bean. Ed's invention couldn't be easier: He splits figs, pours on a little honey, runs them under the broiler, then drizzles them with cream. Sliced peaches with sweetened mascarpone and a crumbling of amaretti cookies have become a standby. Some favorites are a bit more involved, though nothing to make me wonder what madness led me to get involved.

  Growing such a plethora of herbs induces me to squander them. All platters are garnished with what's left in the basket: a bunch of flowering thyme scattered over vegetables, the roast presented on a bed of sage, sprigs of oregano around the pasta. Lavender, grape and fig leaves, and airy fennel greens are fun to use as garnishes, too. With a few wildflowers, cut herbs in a terra-cotta pot look right at home on the table.

  Here are a few quick, personal recipes that guests have raved over or that have sent us secretly to the fridge the next morning to taste the leftovers. Italians wouldn't consider risotto or pasta a main course, but for us, often it is. The oil of choice is, of course, olive oil, unless otherwise specified. All herbs in these recipes are fresh.

  ~ANTIPASTI~

  Red Peppers (or Onions) Melted with Balsamic Vinegar

  The immense, convoluted, lustrous peppers in primary red, green, and yellow are my favorite vegetable of summer because they wake up so many dishes. A quick sauté of a mixture of the three adds zip to any plate. And there's red pepper soup, mousse of yellow peppers, old-fashioned stuffed green ones . . .

  ~Seed and slice 4 peppers thinly and cook slowly in a little olive oil and ¼ cup of balsamic vinegar until very soft, about an hour. Stir occasionally; peppers should almost “melt.” Season with salt and pepper. Add oil and balsamic vinegar once or twice if they look dry. Run under the broiler (or grill) about 25 rounds of bread sprinkled with olive oil. Rub a cut clove of garlic over each piece. Spoon peppers onto bread and serve warm. Try the same method with thinly sliced onions, adding a teaspoon of brown sugar to the balsamic and letting the onions slowly carmelize. Both versions of this are rich accompaniments for roast chicken. Leftovers are good on pasta or polenta. With cheese and/or grilled eggplant, very savory sandwiches can be made quickly.

  Pea and Shallot Bruschetta

  New peas pop right out of the crisp pods. I thought shelling them was a meditative act until I saw a woman in town sitting outside her doorway with her cat sleeping at her ankles. She was shelling an immense pile of peas and already had filled a large dishpan. She looked up and said something rapidly in Italian and I smiled, only to realize as I walked on that she'd said, “It shouldn't happen to a dog.”

  ~Mince 4 shallots. Shell enough peas to fill 1 cup. Mix and sauté in butter until the peas are done and the shallots are wilted. Add a little chopped mint, salt, and pepper. Chop coarsely in a food processor or by hand and spoon onto 25 rounds of bread as prepared in the recipe above.

  Basil and Mint Sorbet

  I tasted this unlikely but tantalizing sorbet at the ancient fattoria-turned-restaurant Locanda dell'Amorosa in nearby Sinalunga. The next day I tried to duplicate it at home. At the restaurant, it was served after the pasta and fish courses and before the main course. More informally, it starts out a dinner on a warm summer night.

  ~Make a sugar syrup by boiling together 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar, then simmering it for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Cool in the fridge. Purée ½ cup of mint leaves and ½ cup of basil leaves in 1 cup of water. Add another cup of water, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and chill. Mix the sugar syrup and the herbal water well and process in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Scoop into martini glasses or any clear glass dishes and garnish with mint leaves. Serves 8.

  ~PRIMI PIATTI~

  Cold Garlic Soup

  As in chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, the amount of garlic in this recipe is no cause for alarm. The cooking process attenuates the strength but leaves the flavor.

  ~Peel 2 whole heads of garlic. Chop 1 small onion and peel and dice 2 medium potatoes. Sauté the onion in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and, when it begins to turn translucent, add the garlic. The garlic should soften but not brown; cook gently. Steam the diced potatoes and add to the onion and garlic, along with 1 cup of chicken stock. Bring just to a boil, then quickly lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Purée in a food processor, then pour back into the pot and add 4 more cups of stock and 1 tablespoon of chopped thyme. (If you don't have a food processor, mince the garlic and onion before you cook them; after steaming, put the potatoes through a ricer.) Whisk in ½ cup of heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper, then chill. Stir before serving with chopped thyme or chives on top. Serves 6.

  Fennel Soup

  ~Thinly slice 2 fennel bulbs and 2 bunches of spring onions. Sauté briefly in a little olive oil. Add 2 cups of chicken stock to the pan and simmer until the fennel is cooked. Stir frequently. Purée until smooth. Whisk in 2-½ more cups of stock. Season with salt and pepper and cover. Bring to a boiling point, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Whisk in ½ cup of mascarpone or heavy cream. Remove from heat immediately. Serve cold or warm, garnished with toasted fennel seeds. Serves 6.

  Pizza with Onion Confit and Sausage

  Pizza is endless in variety. Ed's favorite is Napoli: capers, anchovies, mozzarella. I like fontina, olives, and prosciutto. Another favorite is arugula and curls of parmigiano. We're also enamored of potato pizza, as well as all the standard ones. When we cook outside, we always grill lots of extra vegetables and sausages for salads and pizza the next day. A great vegetarian combination is grilled eggplant with sundried tomatoes, olives, oregano, basil, and mozzarella.

  ~Thinly slice 3 onions and “melt” in a frying pan on low heat, using a small amount of olive oil and 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Onions should be caramel colored and limp. Season with marjoram, salt and pepper. Grill or sauté 2 large sausages. Here we use the local pork sausage seasoned with fennel seeds. Slice. Grate 1 cup of mozzarella or parmigiano.

  Dough: Dissolve 1 package of yeast in ¼ cup of warm water for 10minutes. Mix the following: ½ teasp
oon of salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 cup of cool water, and pour into a mound of 3-¼ cups of flour. Knead on a flat surface until elastic and smooth. If you're using a food processor, pulse until the dough forms a ball, then remove and knead by hand. Place dough in a buttered and floured bowl and let rest for 30 minutes. Roll into 1 large or 2 smaller circles and brush with oil. Scatter cheese, onions, and sausage over the surface and bake at 400° for 15 minutes. Cut into 8 pieces.

  Semolina Gnocchi

  Gnocchi's usual knuckle shape changes in this grand and rich dish. Unlike the potato gnocchi or the light spinach and ricotta gnocchi, the gnocchi made with semolina are biscuit-sized. I used to buy these from a woman down in the valley until I found out how easy they are to make.

  ~Bring 6 cups of milk almost to a boil in a large saucepan. Pour in 3 cups of semolina in a steady stream, stirring constantly. Cook on low, as you would cook polenta, continuing to stir for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, beat in 3 egg yolks, 3 tablespoons of butter and ½ cup of grated parmigiano. Season with salt, pepper, and a little nutmeg. Beat briefly, lifting the mixture to incorporate air. Spread mixture in a circle 1 inch thick on the lightly floured counter or cutting board and let it cool. Cut into biscuit-sized circles with the rim of a glass or a cookie cutter. Place in a well-buttered baking dish. Pour 3 tablespoons of melted butter over the top, then sprinkle with ¼ cup of parmigiano. Bake, uncovered, at 400° for 15 minutes. Serves 6.