Cooking Class

It was an overcast day at the villa, perfect for staying inside and learning how to make homemade ravioli and pappardelle noodle, ragu alla bolognese, and a peach tart for dessert.

Anna, vivacious and energetic led the class alongside the chef, translating his instructions from Italian into English. Making pasta starts out quite simple and easy enough...flour, egg, well, mix with hands. But it is the kneading that was the more laborious part of the process and takes the most time. The sauce was a Bolognese with a mix of veal and beef sauteed with carrots and tomatoes and surprisingly no garlic which is always the first step in making my pasta sauce.

The sauce bubbled in low rich sounds as Anna showed us how to knead the pasta dough. Then we kneaded, fashioning a sort of pasta dough kneading relay race with team Pomaio Podere of the Arezzo Clan. We kneaded and folded until our forearm muscles grew parched and then nod it off to the next person.

The dough for the tart was made ahead of time and pressed into the tart pan all that was needed was homemade peach and apricot preserves made with the fruit from the fruit trees outside. Anna weaved the strips of dough in a rustic lattice top and then into the oven she went, the pie and not the vivacious, spunky girl friday.

Northern regional cuisine is so different than the Southern. Veal, pine nuts, white beans, olive oil and chopped tomatoes sauces and fresh fruit and chocolate desserts as opposed to the slow roasted pork in spicy tomato sauce, eggplant and almonds with mascapone or ricotta dreamy, creamy desserts of the South. I allowed myself this one time of not asking what part of the animal I was eating until I took at least one bite; and if you're wondering if veal cheek is tender like soft butter melting in your mouth, it is.

At the end of the lesson, we sat down at the family table to:

Team Pomaio Podere homemade ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta cheese, pappardelle con bolognese and torte della pesche all brought together with a pretty, little Chianti from the vineyard.

Crafting a meal such as this is, with time honored technique was not only satisfying but brought a new kind of respect for the food. The history of a regional cuisine so simple, the past revisted with every bite.

The last supper

Outside was calm with a hint of rain in the air, the table was set with tapered candles and flowers from the garden for our last supper, the final night at the family table. Earlier in the night we tried to capture the sunset on our various technological devices, a sickly facsimile of the real thing was all we could achieve. How could we capture the moon rising slowly through the blood orange sky speckled with grayish clouds?
We had some wonderful meals in this dining room consisting of food taken right from the farm. Wine made from the grapes from the vineyard, olives from the trees, herbs from the garden. There were entertaining conversations, a birthday dinner wine tasting, the birthing then nursing of our hangovers and not much more can be said.

Old Arezzo

This one I'll let the photos do most of the work. After awhile it's hard to articulate how amazing a thing is. If there ever was a place I traveled to that has touched me it would be Old Arrezzo. It's a walled, Medievel city up the road from, you guessed it, New Arrezzo.

The first thing I was struck by was the simplicity, all reds and browns against the grayish blue sky that we had that day. I could imagine, walking down those streets, how it may have felt to be alive then.
The first stop I made was San Lorenzo which is the oldest of the churches, built before the year 1000. Then Santa Maria in Gradi where I lit another candle for Kathleen.
I then wondered into the sculpture garden of, what appeared to be a community arts center. It was explained to me by my brother and sister-in-law an exhibit of metal sculptures that included a lifesize woman in a burkah whose eyes peered into your soul that brought shivers...count me in. The metal sculptures did not disappoint and my brother did not lie, even though I was prepared for her I shuddered slightly and studied her gaze into me. I sat with the figures and took my notes and moved on, her gaze staying with me. Better than any Japanese horror movie if you ask me.

I stopped in for lunch:

Caprese salad
Antipasti
Chianti
Torta di meringa di limon (not lemon meringue pie as listed on the menu, more of a lemon tart with pine nuts...Italy needs pie)

I walked along the narrow, cobblestone streets imagining what it would be like at that time and what character I would be in that movie. A tough nut of a bar wench with, yea you guessed, a heart of gold. Perhaps falling in love with young knight well beyond my station.

Then, walked along the "Life Is Beautiful" tour, a series of posters in front of various locations of the movie filmed in Arrezzo. Dialogue from the film ran alongside screen shots of Roberto Benigni and Nicoletti Braschi falling in love in that old Italian way, this was turning into a very cinematic trip, just then it began to rain and I ducked into the church where the happy couple had their wedding, years before the tragedies occurred with the Nazis and the camp and such.
The romantic end to that my cinematic movie, however, is that I duck in from out of the rain into the church and I run into a tall but not too tall, dark but too dark and handsome but not too handsome Italian man with a sweet smile. In actuality I walked around, remembered I had an umbrella, left the church then got lost around the narrow, cobblestone streets of Old Arrezzo.

The train! The train!

So here's what happened, I'll make it short and to the point. I missed my flight from Milan to Rome. I had a choice in front of me, red pill, blue pill...fly to Rome on a later flight and miss the last train to Florence and find a place to stay overnight until the train starts running again or take a train to Rome and transfer to Florence then to Arezzo. The first way I would have my suitcase with me but I'd have to find somewhere to stay in Rome at 10PM, the second puts me on a series of trains that would eventually lead to sleeping in a proper bed. At this point I hadn't slept yet so I decided that maybe I should work on that and caught a train to Milan to Florence S.M.N. to Arezzo. The thing about taking regional travel in another country is that the first time you do it you feel totally helpless. I maneuvered my way around the train system. I got a ticket from an agent in Milan, then from a fast ticket machine, with a little help from my fellow travelers I rode this train to the end of the line.
After a long travel day, I settled into my seat on this abandoned train, my mind settled, my heart settled. The train that took me to Arezzo was a regional train, the train was empty, I mean the whole train was empty. I mean the whole train! Although it was creepy I felt like I was the only one left it a town ravaged by a mysterious disease or zombies. Rolling past darkened train platforms and and villages, it was like I was the last person on earth. A lone survivor of a zombie holocaust, the last scenes of The Warriors on the way back to Coney Island after a long night of running. It was a strange mix of peace and paranoia as I recalled the travel tips for women traveling alone, you know the part where it says "if you find yourself alone in a train car, move to a car with more people". Good advice for a train with other people on it, this warning coupled with a day of no sleep, brought about the creative scenarios of how I would defend myself, what tools could be used as weapons against the kind of gypsy my sister warned me about or a big sloppy Dario Argento type zombie. I could dress them in casual, somewhat fashionable clothing or offer helpful brochures to tour Tuscany's wine regions but that would be all really. That wouldn't stop the zombies from eating my brains but...

Travel Tip: Sleep on the plane.

We pulled into our last stop, Arezzo, around 11PM. I emerged untouched by gypsy or zombie was elated that I was, finally, where I needed to be. I got out at Arezzo, sweet, sweet Arezzo. There were no taxis outside of the train station so I walked to where the people were. I crossed the tracks to the way out, walked to the taxi-less taxi stand, walked to the people in the square where there were plenty of taxis...but no drivers. Some sort of taxi manager approached me, he made a call, no answer. He led me into what appeared to be the town youth community center. Taxi manager introduces my problem to the Youth Organizer who speaks a minimal amount of English. From what I can make out, Youth Organizer will continue to call my driver and also get me a drink. Youth organizer set out a bottle of warm Coke, Orange Fanta and plastic cups. This could've been a tall, sweaty bottle of Budweiser as far as I was concerned at this point in the adventure. I drank my Fanta, the driver was matched with his taxi and off we went. Soon, I will be in the comfort of the villa, I will be in the comfort of family. I hoped there was wine. After climbing the narrow roads and hair pin turns we drive through an 7 ft. tall iron gate toward the Holiday House. Finally, after a near miss B&E and walking around in circles I found the restaurant and met the dreamy owner Iacopa. We followed the hushed voices up the stone stairs and yes there was wine and lasagna and the comfort of family.

Florence

Florence, ah Florence.
I woke up today in the grips of the most beautiful sun seeping in from the door left ajar during the night, in the otherwise cave-like room. I got into the habit of jumping out of bed and swinging the door open so as not to risk missing any part of the day, but today I had that ray of sun coming through the door. I languished, I don't know when the last time I languished; I implore you to languish whenever you get the chance.

I had, up until this point in the journey spent a large amount of time by myself, ya know chasing after luggage and rectifying impetuous travel decisions. This was a day that I would have travel companions and, my own toothbrush and a choice of sweet summery dresses from my luggage retrieved.

Taking the Trentalia regional train into Florence was the most convenient means, so my travel companions, Nat 'n' Nancy, and I drove down the hill from the villa to the station. Now, if I had learned anything from the past arduous journeys it was how to expertly buy passage on a train using the most convenient ticket machines. I wowed my companions with my adeptness at the touch screen, in five moves I bought my ticket and walked them through the wonderful world of the modern touch screen ticketing apparatus, avoiding the old fashioned queue of suckers leading up to the human ticket seller...ahh technology.

Upon our arrival in Florence, we found a cafe where a right Italian breakfast of espresso and sweet pastries awaited us. After a selection of cornetti; we had a chocolate raspberry pastry and an almond croissant, with the most satisfying espresso. Now that we were filled with sugar and caffeine headed down the streets with a plan and a map, I felt it was best that they be the masters of the map...getting lost in a city by yourself is an adventure but with others it is mind numbingly frustrating.

Our eventual destination was Galleria dell'Accademia and the Galleria degli Uffizi, where we would meet up with brotha and sistah-in-law. So before that, we walked through the open air markets shaking our heads at the aggressive merchants and nodding at the friendly ones who just wanted to say "hi". We wandered to the Duomo and Baptistry. It was awe inspiring to enter the cathedral, I didn't expect it to be, but I held my breath walking into the building. It immediately brought to mind the memory of my mother as these religious experiences often do. Today, however, she was most on my mind as it was her birthday which she shares with brother Michael. On the train I had sent him a birthday greeting and a part of me almost did the same for her.
As Duomos go this one was rather plain compared to most according to the fun fact I overheard from the tour guide leading the line of  American tourists behind me. I circled around, eyes scaling the stained glass windows to the candles and lit a candle for Kathleen. I prayed a Happy Birthday Hail Mary, a fact that she would've pointed out with her sweet sarcasm how she was impressed that I entered a church and it had not collapsed behind me.

It was off to see the art and the naked boy David at L'Accademia. I had much the same feeling seeing David that I did seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time. A photo cannot capture the immensity of the statue. It was really amazing to see such detail at such a large scale. After that we got a lunch in a trattoria close to the gallery then said goodbye to Michael and Amy until later.