Life is a collection of stories, and every piece we owned had one to narrate. Those storytellers were sent away and silenced. Of the tales they once told, only the echoes continue to reach us, but growing fainter, across ever-lengthening stretches of memory. We sold six nineteenth-century solid walnut dining chairs, the best things my father had ever owned, that had survived the dispersions and the pillaging of the war. There were some early-seventeenth-century chairs and a small table that Victor had astutely collected during his bachelor stay in Tuscany, the first important purchases of his life. There was a chest and a small armoire that we had bought for the apartment in Milan where we lived during Victor’s brief, brilliant, and improbable career in advertising. There was a majestic Renaissance credenza that we had bought in New York at Sotheby’s, in exultant anticipation of our move to Venice. There was a prie-dieu, a kneeling bench for prayer, which had been converted into a small bedroom chest with very convenient drawers for my small articles. We had bought it during one of Victor’s tours of the Chianti wine country, when we attended an auction of the contents of a house where it was claimed the model for the Mona Lisa once lived. She might even have said her devotions kneeling on that prie-dieu. I had written Marcella Cucina on the dented but handsome old walnut-and-wrought-iron desk that came out of my study. The most precious of the objects was a life-size seated Madonna in wood, carved more or less at the time that Columbus was landing on Hispaniola. Victor had bought her very soon after we had moved into our Venice apartment; we had set her on a pedestal by the large dining table where we ate with students and guests, and she presided benevolently over every meal we took there. She was precious not for her value, although it was not indifferent, but for her beauty. She had the fresh, pure, sweet expression and the lovely oval face of the young farm girls that one can see when traveling in the Veneto countryside. It was as though we had always known her. She transcended the material of which she was made to become a bearer of patience and love. I am unequal to the task of describing how it felt to abandon our home to others and leave Venice, but it may be inferred from reading these pages.
At home in Venice with our Madonna
The movers had come and gone; our apartment was empty except for our suitcases and a folding chair. We had booked seats on the afternoon express to Milan, we had reservations at a hotel, and an appointment the following morning for the closing at the office of the purchasers’ notaio. A notaio in Italy is a special kind of lawyer who examines, certifies, and personally guarantees the validity of legal documents, such as those for the purchase of real estate. It is an exceptionally lucrative profession, because the notaio receives a handsome percentage of the value of all transactions that he handles. In every Italian municipality, there are only a few openings for a notaio, which are filled through rigorous oral and written examinations, preferably reinforced by influential recommendations.
We had just finished packing our bags and were preparing to go to lunch when our telephone, which had not yet been disconnected, rang. It was the purchaser of our apartment.
“There is a discrepancy in the documents establishing your title to the property,” she said. “Your identity papers show that you were born on April fifteenth, 1924, but in the certificate of title, your date of birth is given as April twenty-fourth, 1924. Our notaio says this raises a doubt that you are the same person who purchased the apartment from Mrs. Kaley, and unless you can conclusively dissipate that doubt, he cannot execute the sale.”
“But there are so many proofs that I am that person, the books I have written, the people who know me!”
“According to our notaio, there is no absolute proof that there aren’t two persons, one born on the fifteenth, the other, the one to whom Mrs. Kaley sold her apartment, on the twenty-fourth.”
“So how can I prove I am the owner of the apartment that used to be Mrs. Kaley’s?”
“He would be satisfied if you can get a sworn statement from Mrs. Kaley that you are that person.”
“That is impossible. No one has had any contact with Flora Kaley in years. Very likely, she is not even alive, but if she is, she could be anywhere in the world.”
“Our notaio is an excellent man, but he can be impossibly legalistic. Let me work on it. Where can I find you?”
“I don’t know, because there is nothing left in this apartment. As soon as I know where we shall be staying I’ll call you.”
We went to the Fiaschetteria Toscana, where they were expecting us for lunch, but we were no longer hungry. Mariuccia, the restaurant’s owner, whom we brought abreast of developments, urgently called the legal people she knew, the most prominent in Venice, all of whom said the notaio in Milan was letting a technicality sway him, but that he was within his rights to do so. I couldn’t believe the situation we were in: We had an empty apartment that was no longer clearly ours yet was not anybody else’s, and no place to lie down. When all the customers had left, out of desperation, I stretched out on one of the Fiaschetteria’s banquettes, where I promptly fell asleep.
Victor called Natale to inform him of our predicament and to ask if he could put us up. The Cipriani was closed for the winter, but one of the buildings in the complex was open. It was the Palazzo Vendramin, a fifteenth-century palazzo that had been transformed into luxury suites. One of them was available, and Natale sent the launch over to collect us and our luggage. We had dinner there, with enough wine for Victor and enough Jack Daniel’s for me to desensitize us. We went up to our room, hoping for at least one night’s oblivion. We were in bed, on the point of attaining that oblivion, when the telephone rang. It was our purchaser. She had found another notaio who assured her he could overlook the discrepancy in birth dates and would be available in the morning to execute the closing. To get to Milan in time, we would have to catch a very early train from Venice the following morning. Our papers had gone back into the apartment’s safe. Victor slid out of bed, got dressed, and went to retrieve them, returning to our apartment for his last time.
After the closing, we went to say good-bye to my hometown, to Cesenatico. My mother had died at 101 three years earlier, and I had sold our adjoining flats. Cesenatico no longer had anything of mine, except for my oldest and dearest memories. We boarded our plane in Milan, decanting our lives once more, pouring them one final time out of Italy and into America.
In Appreciation
TO PUT MY LIFE ON PAPER is the kind of exposure that I didn’t think I would ever agree to. Had anyone else asked me but Bill Shinker, Gotham’s publisher, I would not have accepted. I came to know Bill thirteen or fourteen years ago. He was then the publisher of HarperCollins and I had just ended my seventeen-year relationship with Knopf. The teaching and traveling that my husband and I were doing left us only a little bit of private time, and I was reluctant to use it for the writing of another cookbook. Then Bill wrote me a marvelous letter. He had been using my cookbooks with pleasure and profit, he said, and assured me that if I agreed to write a book for HarperCollins, I would have full control over it. It was the first time I’d received such a letter, or a letter of any kind, from a publisher, and it moved me. Although Bill left HarperCollins before Marcella Cucina was published, that book is witness to the birth of a friendship. Sometime later, he enrolled in one of my courses in Venice. When I taught at the French Culinary Institute in New York, he signed up for those classes as well. He was both the first and the last person from any of the book publishers and magazines I wrote for to have had sufficient interest in my work to take my courses.
It is said sometimes that it is difficult to form a genuine, tarnish-proof friendship late in life. My feelings, and those of my husband, for Bill contradict that. I regret that I had only one life to lay down on paper for him.
I didn’t know Erin Moore before I accepted Bill’s invitation to write my memoirs. That she became my editor has been one of the most fortunate events of my publishing career. Her editing arm is all muscle, but her touch is gossamer. She has nudged, squeezed, sliced, a
nd pressed, with firmness equal to her gentleness, and if the shape of this book is agreeable, considerable credit goes to her sculpting.
It’s not a saint, exactly. It’s Marcella Hazan.
Index
Note: Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations
A
abbacchio
Albina (aunt)
Alexandria, Egypt
Allen, Darina
Amarcord (film)
Arance Marinate
arm injury
artichokes
Asso, Margherita
Atlanta, Georgia
Australia
Avirom, Joel
B
Bajòn
baking
Bali, Indonesia
Ballymaloe Cookery School
balsamella
balsamic vinegar
Banti, Jenny
baseball
basil
BBD&O
bean-and-black-cabbage soup
Beard, James
and baking
and Burt Wolf
and Cipriani cooking vacations
in cooking course
and People magazine story
regard for
and Stanford Court hotel
Beck, Simone
“Behind the Scenes with Marcella Hazan,”
Behrendt, Olive
Belgian endive
bicycles and bicycling
Binkrant, Ruth
Bloomingdales
Bologna, Italy
and arm injury of Marcella
iconic dish of
personality of
search for residence in
Bologna cooking courses
development of
entertainment for
expeditions
and food markets
and food taboos
kitchen for
L’Accademia
and Maria
participants of
on regional cuisines
Bolognese pan-roast of pork and milk
Boni, Ada
Book-of-the-Month’s Homestyle Club
book publishing ventures
and agent
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
Marcella Cucina
Marcella’s Italian Kitchen
More Classic Italian Cooking
See also The Classic Italian Cook Book
Borgia, Lucrezia
Brothers, Joyce
Browne, Coral
Buford, Bill
business ventures
commercially-made sauces
Marcella Hazan’s Italian Kitchen in Bloomingdale’s
restaurant consulting
Veni Vici restaurant
butter
C
calamari
California
Campo dei Fiori market
Cape Town, South Africa
cappellacci
cappelletti
Capucci, Robert
carciofi alla giudia
carciofi alla romana
carosello advertising format
car wreck
Cesenatico, Italy
beach, time spent on
and cooking courses
final departure from
of Marcella’s youth
residence in
return to
Victor, in
Charlottesville, North Carolina
Chernobyl, Russia
chicken
chicory
Child, Julia
advice of
and Judith Jones
and People magazine story
in Venice
and Veni Vedi restaurant
Child, Paul
childhood and youth
arm injury
comitiva
with grandfather
chili pepper
Chinese cuisine.
Christmas
in Cesenatico
in Manhattan
with Victor
Chu, Grace
ciambella
cicheti
Cipriani, Giuseppe
Cipriani cooking courses
atmosphere of
and “Behind the Scenes with Marcella Hazan,”
development of
expeditions
kitchen at
and Nobu Matsuhisa
participants of
and Rialto market
Claiborne, Craig
and balsamic vinegar
cookbook model of
interview with
lunch with
Clarke, Sir Ashley
The Classic Italian Cook Book
British rights to
and Harper’s Magazine Press
and Judith Jones
and Knopf
marketing of
production of
proposed revision of
publication of
writing of
coffee
Colgin, Janet
comitiva of author
commercially-made sauces
The Complete Kitchen
cooking and cooking skills
development of
enthusiasm for
first efforts
il pranzo (noontime meal)
and parents
cooking courses
and assistants
“Behind the Scenes with Marcella Hazan,”
in Bologna
in California
and Claiborne’s Times story
diplomas and graduation ceremonies
and health of Marcella
in-house courses-
Master Classes
participants of (see also specific individuals)
for professionals
in Venice
The Cooks’ Catalogue
cotechino
crab
Cross, Billy
Cunningham, Marion
Curtis, Daniel
Curtis, Patricia
D
Da Fiore restaurant
dairy
Davidson, Alan
Dean & DeLuca
De Groot, Roy Andries
Del Conte, Anna
DeLuca, Giorgio
denture incident
Desenzano, Italy
diving platform
domestic help
Lucia
Maria
Nadia
tradition of
Dove, John Arthur
Durban, South Africa
durian
E
eating club
education
Egypt
Ekus, Lisa
Elena
Emilia-Romagna, Italy
employment
at Guggenheim Institute for Dental Research
search for
as teacher
endive
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Hazan)
F
“Fagotto” (uncle)
Fellini, Federico
Ferrara, Italy
Fiaschetteria Toscana restaurant
Fiera
financial aspects of business
Fine, Sylvia
Fini, Giorgio
Fini food company
Fiori, Pamela
fish and seafood
in Australia
in Cesenatico
reactions of students to
in South Africa
in Venice
Florence, Italy
flower arrangement, art of (ikebana)
food
in Cesenatico
in Emilia-Romagna
and Giuliano
il pranzo (noontime meal)
in Ireland
and Italian customs
in Kyoto
in Milan
in New York
origins of
in Rome
in Singapore
in South Africa
taboos in
at Thanksgiving
in Venice
Victor’s enthusiasm for
during wartime
See also cooking and cooking skills; food markets; specific foods
Food & Wine magazine
food markets
in Bologna
in Milan
in New York
in Rome
in Venice
Forum of the Twelve Caesars restaurant
Foster, Lord Norman
France and French quality
Freundlich, Larry
Friedland, Susan
Friedman, Jane
frying and fried foods
G
Gallieri (Signor)
Gassman, Vittorio
Gibson, Charlie
Ginori, Richard
gnocchetti alle alghe
gobbi (cardoons)
gramigna con la salsiccia
grandmothers
Grand Union supermarket
Grassi, Primo
Greene, Gael
Grey, Joe
Gribetz, Lester
Guarnaschelli, Maria
Guazzaloca, Giorgio
Guérard, Michel
Guggenheim Institute for Dental research
H
ham
Hare Island, Ireland
Harlem
Harper & Row
Harper Collins
Harper’s Magazine Press
Harris, Alison
Harzan, Giuliano
in Atlantic Beach
birth of
and Bologna cooking school
in Cesenatico
and cooking courses
education of
and food
with grandparents
infancy
and language skills
and Lucia
marriage of
in Milan
and olive oil incident
and Veni Vici restaurant
and wedding ceremony of parents
Hazan, Victor
in advertising business
and book on Italian wines
and business ventures
car wreck
in Cesenatico
and cookbook publishing
and cooking courses
driving style
and durian
early relationship
Hazan, Victor (cont.)
in Florence
and food
in fur business
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