Cooking - like painting or writing a song

La cucine di un popolo e las sola esatta testimonianza sua civilta (the cuisine of a country is the the only exact attestation of its civilization) - anonymous

From Pienza we returned to the villa for an afternoon cooking class. The kitchen for the villa is in a building outside of the actual villa – once an outbuilding when the villa raised its own livestock. It now served as the cooking centre, very small, the doors and windows flung open to the outside as it also gets very hot. There, with another couple from Montreal, we had our Italian cooking lessons with the chef of Villa Cicolina, Mimmo. We were each given an apron, a glass of cold water, and a wineglass that we could fill as much as needed from bottles on the side table. Mimmo said, “Anni e bicchieri di vino non si contano mai” (age and glasses of wine should never be counted).

The view of the kitchen building from our room in the villa

Mimmo spoke no English and so the hostess of the hotel, Adina, translated for us while also organizing us and keeping us hopping. Quite a feat, but she did so without so much as breaking a sweat, her German accented voice smoothly switching from English to Italian and back again as she acted as Mimmo’s liaison. What surprised us what that were not just going to learn to make a bit of pasta, but that we were going to be preparing the meal for all of the hotel’s guests that night, and the staff, a total of 17 people! We were to make the appetizer, the secondo dishes, and the dessert. Mimmo would prepare the primo course himself later (thinly sliced  beef fillets with pecorino cheese filling) because it needed to be freshly cooked as it was served. 

With the four of us underfoot, Mimmo still managed to have us all chopping and cooking with six burners on a cast iron oven, and all busily doing the right things. Well, mostly the right things. I have always, for example, just sliced zucchini up and thrown it in the pan. That is wrong, apparently. One is meant to slice out all of the seeds first, the same with cucumber (not nice part, according to Mimmo). Tomatoes must be cut up a particular way so as to sweat out the most juice when making it into sauce. Eggs must never be cracked into the flour, but into a separate dish, in case one is bad. Pasta dough must be kneaded fermamente (firmly) and crepes must be tossed dolcemente (softly). Stalks of celery should be crushed with the back of a heavy knife to release the flavor, but should then be removed from the dish it is flavouring. Garlic should be crushed, never minced.

And don’t even start cooking until the wine bottle is opened and a fulsome glass ready at your elbow.  Mimmo did manage to find enough English words to tell Barry – good chopper, no good crepe tosser. And Bar was scolded for too heavy a 'pinch' of salt, and myself for too light a pinch. 

The appetizer was a bread and tomato pudding. One of the secondis was crepes filled with ricotta cheese and spinach and drizzled with the tomato sauce made from scratch. Another was one with eggs but I can’t remember what it was.  And for dessert we made Panna Cotta.  We also made pasta from hand and shaped it into ravioli, tortellini (very difficult to get the knack of folding them), cavatappi, and made acini di pepe pasta out of the scraps. They were not for dinner that night but just so we could say that we had made pasta.

Later that night, dressed up and mellowed with even more wine we went to dine at the tables set under the olive trees. Italian opera music played, the cicadas buzzed, the swallows dipped and dived, and occasionally the raucous call of the nocturnal Black-Crowned Night Heron out by the pool as he hunted rent the air. The presentation of each course, with added edible flowers, a grating of carrot, a drizzle of olive oil, made it hard to believe that we - four Canadians much too generous with the cooking-accompanied wine – with the help of Mimmo, had made the meal that the we and the guests were all eating, enjoying, and complimenting. We were pretty chuffed with ourselves, indeed.   

                                                                            

The Poetry of Faces

“No heirloom of humankind captures the past as do art and language” – Theodore Bikel

At dinner last night, the guys had offered some alternatives for our trip. Barry had mentioned to Jesse that I am a photographer. They offered that if I really didn’t want to ride (not even the downhills? – no), that one would ride with Barry and I would stay with the other and explore photo ops and such until time to pick up the cyclists at the end of the route(s). They even offered to mix up some of the routes such that there were more straight and downhill options. While we had gone back to the villa and soundly to sleep, the guys had spent the rest of the late evening scoping out potential areas. What lovely men!

This morning was a ride to nearby Pienza – home of the Pecorino cheese (a sheep cheese that has now become one of our favourites) and said to be the most beautiful village of Rennaisance design in Tuscany. It is the birthplace of Pope Pius II. Barry and Jesse rode and Martin and I drove to several vantage point around the area. We ventured through Castelmuzio and Petroio and stopped to see Sant Anna in Camprena, where scenes from the movie The English Patient were filmed. What was most wonderful about the alternative is that I got to know fascinating things about each of our hosts. One is from Australia and climbs upside down on jutting rock faces. He surfs in Australian waters though he knows of Great White Sharks in the area (it is all a numbers game, he says). He snowboards in the winter and is, himself, quite an accomplished photographer. The other is French, a cyclist and soccer player. He dreams of one day travelling throughout the world with just a soccer ball, a guitar, and a chess board. He feels that each of these items offers great potential for conversation and interaction with all sorts of different people. A philosopher at heart, I think. My conversations with these lovely young men as we meandered throughout the Tuscany countryside ranged from education to communism, from family values to the number of creatures that can kill you in Australia, from patriotism to the ugly tourist, from religion to politics, from what loss is to what tugs at the heart. From the yearning to see a hummingbird hawkmoth to how exciting it is to see a solitary deer.

We stopped for lunch in Pienza at another family-run trattoria before another ride in the afternoon. The food was excellent. We sat on the outside patio and watched people in the surrounding area. The trattoria was on the edge of a lovely square that had stunning statues of heads, of great exquisiteness and that I found very moving. What I truly love about Europe is how the art is treated. Art is not confined to art gallery walls or museums. Instead, you wander the streets and back lanes of cities and villages and just stumble upon beautiful art. These statues were out on the piazza. Children were climbing on them, people ate their picnic lunches at their base, and one pair of little girls danced round the statues to the sound of a violinist and guitarist playing around the corner.

Down an unassuming lane, we found a poster about the exhibit and later I did a bit of research. The work is called “The Gift of Harmony”, by Austrian Helga Vockenhuber. Pienza was chosen as a site because of the principles at the base of its architectural design (Renaissance) by architect Bernardo Rossellino . . . .  . .

an emblem of the "ideal city", to pursue a scan of spaces and volumes in perfect balance, in search of harmony that allows man, center of the universe, to regain possession of their social spaces physical and inner. And it refers to the concept of harmony, and not only in the title, this also shows the Vockenhuber, harmony evoked that leads human person, through the perception of the beauty of the places that receive it, and the severe grandeur of his works, a touch with his inner and the intense spirituality that the artist manifests to live and pursue. The works on display are busts monumental whose intense expression bursts paradoxically immobility face, with his eyes closed and lips meekly in a state of inactivity that calls us to the interiority of each, place of spirit and single shore of peace , which it seems to warn the culture of our time tending to only materialistic hedonism, supported by the media technology that flattens everything and empty of true humanity.

The exhibition project The Gift of Harmony, edited by Joseph Cords and with the overall coordination of Patrizia Cerri, is in fact based on the idea of a dialogue between sculpture and architecture that surrounds it and is designed as traveling, just to say, at a time of deep urban aesthetic degradation, which has been and which might again become the union once pursued between architecture and sculpture, and what the potential of poetry that it may radiate.

 - from the notes on the installation by the Civita Arte.

On to another ride and our Italian cooking class.

Fights with Bikes and the best Pasta ever

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill

The next morning it was a cab (with a different, sober, rather cranky driver) back to the Chiusi train station. We were a bit early and as we sat and waited, I made note of other people coming in and out and wondered which of them looked to be the sort that would make up the rest of our cycling group. It grew closer and closer to the time our guides were to arrive and the station had emptied of all possible companions. Our guides, Jesse and Martin, arrived. It was at this point I realized that Barry and I were ‘it’. There were no others in our group. Barry had been warned that this may happen but hadn’t said anything to me, not sure of my response. My response was that I wasn’t really sure if I liked this situation or not. Later it would come to be the best situation  ever. 

The young men were friendly and personable, though, and eager to show us to where we would start our cycling adventure. They helped to pile ourselves and our luggage into a small car that had three bikes on a rack at the back. As they chatted about the beautiful scenery around Tuscany and how marvelous the cycling would be, they drove us to where we would be staying the next couple of days. This was the Hotel Villa Cicoline. The Villa consisted of just 11 rooms and was once the summer home of a noble family. It stood in the midst of olive groves on a hill (of course, a hill), with vineyards at its feet. When we arrived a table had already been set out under the shade of the olive trees with a light lunch of bruschetta and cheeses and a launching, refreshing glass of Prosecco, the sparking bubbles in the glass reflecting the glints of sunlight off of the olive leaves.

Our first ride (a short one) of 19 miles (30 kilometers) was to begin right after lunch, and the guys brought the bikes round to the gravel apron in front of the villa. All through lunch I had had a niggling concern in the back of my mind that the surgery I had had and the resulting weeks of non-activity were going to impact negatively on my abilities. The niggle was starting to grow into a worrisome gnawing. The bikes were very nice – very expensive, very high-end, and totally unlike my beloved Flavia. My own bike, Flavia, is a townie bike, a good sturdy friendly bike on which I can balance confidently, has no bar but a lovely step-through (I can even wear dresses and skirts on Flavia no problem), a limited number of gears, and when I stop I can stand perfectly well and flat on my feet. This Tuscany bike, however, growled at me from the very beginning. As they were fitting the bike to me I hung suspended on the seat, which was, Jesse explained, indeed at the right height though my feet hung several inches above the ground. Flavia would certainly never countenance such a position! There was a high bar which meant I had to swing my leg high and up to get over it and onto the seat. I have mounted horses easier than I did that bike! The brakes were hydraulic and I was warned not to just use the front one or I would end up butt over head in whatever ditch was nearby.

“I hate you already”, I silently cursed the bike (which I had named Stan after an extremely difficult boyfriend I had had in high school). When I finally got going and pedaled a little way I felt like a lima bean on a guitar string. “You’ll get used to it”, I was assured by someone. Barry seemed to be having an easier time of it  as he had ridden similar bikes before. I have only fallen off of similar bikes before.

The first ride started from the hotel door up a winding gravel road (note ‘up’ from the very beginning) with a drop on the right hand side to either a steep switchback below or a large shambly pen of large, shambly chickens gloriously rolling in the hot dust. Barry and Jesse rode a bit ahead of me (Martin already having left in the car to meet us at the other end of the 30 kilometers). I started  off, the gravel making me weave from side to side and I very nearly joined the chickens over the edge.  Stan and I were definitely fighting and the stress and heat were making me rapidly lose my breath. Halfway up the hill – and I couldn’t go any further. Halfway up the hill and Stan had already given me a vivid bruise on my calf. I was gasping and the world was whirling about my head.

Jesse came back to check on me. He immediately sensed my panic. He gave me a gentle lecture about this being my vacation, my time, and that killing myself on the first day was not the idea at all. He said further that because it was just Barry and me on this tour, we could customize the trip any way we wanted. I didn’t have to ride at all if I didn’t want to, he said. I felt such an enormous rush of gratitude that it almost did me in.

“I’ll take your bike back to the villa, can you walk there by yourself”, Jesse asked.

“Throw Stan over the cliff down to where the chickens are”, is what I thought, but I just said “yes”.

“I’ll tell them to show you to your room and to let you alone. You can gather your strength, maybe lay by the infinity pool with that incredible view of the valley. Spoil yourself. Do not feel bad. He told me that a previous client just had the guys drive her in to major centres to shop (he didn’t know me but for less than a day or he would have realized that shopping is not me). Nonetheless, I was so very, very grateful.

Barry returned later, very hot and wet, admitting that he hadn’t done the complete 30 kilometers either – he had succumbed to the heat about halfway up a very challenging hill. The heat, he said, and he didn’t need to explain further.

Later that afternoon, Jesse and Martin returned to take us to a wine-tasting at one of the local vineyards. It was a domaine that has been owned by the same family for over 200 years. We had to drive down narrow roads which became little more than narrow foot trails until we finally turned into the farmgate. The place smelled of grapes and olives. A litter of kittens played in the yard of the house as we traipsed down to the tasting room. We sampled their signature Vino Nobile, as well as their Vin Santo, an Italian dessert wine. We bought a few bottles to bring home with us (though I think we drank the majority of it in Norway, come to think of it, Norway not being known for its wines after all).  The woman was very knowledgeable but what was most impressive about the winery is all the ecological measures they are taking. There was a garden of glass domes in the yard. We found later that they were actually a way of bringing natural light down deep to where the casks were fermenting. They had a wall garden that served instead of air conditioning, and many other such measures.

  From there we went for dinner at an authentic trattoria in one of the villages nearby, Montefollonico – a little family-run place called Ristorante 13 Gobbi. We asked the guys to join us for dinner, and over wine and hand-made pasta tossed with pecorino cheese and olive oil – the very best pasta meal I have ever had, we all got to know each other better. Martin interpreted and translated for us the Italian that we couldn’t pick up on and fairly soon the warm, affable owner was treating us like family. A good first day after all. We may not have got a lot of miles in, but we were quickly making good friends of our guides, and the people they exposed us to.