The world did not end but the rapture is in Tuscany!

I read on Facebook that the world was supposed to end yesterday but someone neglected to tell the Italians. However we did experience rapture when we found the most beautiful poppy field we have ever seen.

Poppyrama!

It seemed to go in forever as we stood in awe of what nature had done.

Poppies Everywhere!

Michael began to dance in ecstasy, the poppies had the exact opposite effect from those in the Wizard of Oz.

I thought we had died and gone to heaven...to each his own rapture...........

I'll take the Italian one any day!

Market Day

I was nervous about giving the cooking class this week because I was having a hard time deciding what to present to the class in just one morning. 

I love outdoor markets; they inspire me so that’s where we began. There are not as many in the Chianti area, as in the south, but the best one in this area is the one in Poggibonsi.

During the war, Poggibonsi housed many munitions factories so, the old part was destroyed and it was hastily rebuilt leaving its cityscape deprived of vivacity and charm, but on Tuesdays it comes to life.

Our intimate cooking class of 4 set out for the market at 9:30 from San Fedele and I immediately asked everyone to begin visualizing a parking spot.

As we entered the main drag of the market I could feel my excite- ment as I hoped to find the seasonal delicacies might inspire my focus for the class.

As we made our way through the clothing and house wares sections I was anxious to see if my Neapolitan guys had made it this week with plenty of juicy, spongy, decadently delicious Mozzarella from Naples. A little known fact here in Italy the name Mozzarella inplies that it is made with buffalo milk anything else is called Fior di Latte.  My Mozzarella guys travel for 6 hours late Monday night to be in Tuscany by 6 am.  I am relieved when I see them both waving and calling my name as they begin to sing me a Neapolitan song. They we sample all of their Neapolitan specialties: 3 different kinds of olives, various salami and sausages and of course the MOZZ. When my cookers tasted that their heads fell back in ecstasy as they let out an “Oh My God” fit for a wedding night.  I preach to everyone in the class to always go with local ingredients but once you have eaten REAL mozzarella, you will never be satisfied with any imitation.

Pomodori Fiorentini

Once we had the Mozzes in hand I was ready to begin the search for that special something that would complete the menu for the class.

We all knew instantly and in unison when we saw it: Pomodori Fiorentini.

Pappa Al Pomodoro, I thought as we were filling our shopping bag with these ruby red curvaceous tomatoes. These  Fiorentini are meaty with very few seeds so they are perfect for this traditional Tuscan dish made. It is made of 2 ingredients: tomatoes and bread…. ok we used a little onion, garlic and basil too.

We picked out a few more ingredients, grabbed some Olive Ascolane (stuffed fried olives) to give us strength for our journey and headed back to The TRC to get into our aprons and on with feast.

Happy Cookers

Michelino, our invited guest, was thoughtful and set a gorgeous table for us outside on the grand terrace. Here is the menu:

Pappa Al Pomodoro, Malfatti pasta with sweet Sicilian eggplant, pancetta, Tropea onion and frizzled capers

Anatra Al Arancia, duck breast with orange and star anise and to finish Fennel and orange salad.

Pappa Al Pomodoro

As we finished our lunch and I saw the happy faces of our little cooking class I realized I should never be worried about finding inspiration in Italy.

Poppies

     Those delicate red flowers are a passion for painters.  They love to stand outside in a sea of red capturing the vibrancy, the shimmer of the petals, their movement in the breeze.  In America we rarely find the blood red fields that are common in Italy and other parts of Europe.  They are an intoxicating visual assault.

Painting IN the Poppies!

Every year when we arrive in Tuscany it is part of our job descrip- tion to find the most spectac- ular field of poppies around.  That is not as easy as it sounds because first, they grow wild and second they only pop for about 10 days in early spring.  Poppies appear in the fields that are left fallow when the farmers rotate their crops which change every year.  You can never be sure where the latest poppy fields will be until one day you round a corner to find a red carpet of flowers that have all burst open at the same moment.  So this week our responsibility is to drive the winding roads of Tuscany in search of that streak of red staining the bright green fields of spring.

Papaveri  is the mellifluous, happy Italian word for them.  It’s pure ecstasy when you discover an explosion of papaveri along a dirt road.  You can’t help giggling at the sheer number of these flowers crammed into the same square footage.  You just want to plunge in and roll around in them.

Poppies Everywhere!

One of the best poppy exper- iences we ever furnished for our painters was two years ago when we brought the group to a remote field down a thin dirt tractor path.  They set up stools and easels in the scrub, donned their straw hats and set about mixing their brightest reds.  Suddenly, from out of nowhere, three hunky guys rode up on horseback, trotting through the poppies as the painters gasped in delight.  The jockeys were not unaware of their admirers so the leader signaled for the trio to strut back and forth before the ladies.  When they had had enough, the leader whipped off his T-shirt, swung it around his head like a lasso and in formation they all dashed away at full speed over the hillside.  The normally sedate painters squealed like schoolgirls at a Justin Bieber concert.

Even horses love Poppies

We haven’t found the perfect field for this year yet, so tomorrow our work continues…

Joye Moon in the spot light of sun during final critique

Our first workshop of the season wound to a close on Friday night.  The watercolor instructor, Joye Moon, held a constructive critique of the week’s work and then we all headed into the dining room for our “Last Supper”.  Andrea made a Tuscan ragu served over fresh gnocchi from his sister-in-law’s pasta shop near Siena.

The surprise of the evening was when Bob, a graduate of the US Navy Officers’ Training program of 1943, got up to serenade us with a Mozart round.  Linda and Michelino partnered him as you can hear in this video. By the way, Bob is a newlywed and was on his honeymoon with his college sweetheart. When they parted after college they each married and had children. They kept in contact via yearly Christmas cards and 3 years ago, after both of their spouses had passed away, they met again. They saw they had so much in common and the attraction that had once sparked their initial meeting was still there. They were married 3 weeks ago and were with us to celebrate their new life together. They became an inspiration to us all this week.
As for the painting, it was a prolific week. 

Arrivederci!

The group was off at 6am on Saturday morning for a few days in Rome before heading home.  We spent the day preparing for the next group of painters that arrived at 5 o’clock today.  The season is in full swing!

A Peaceful Morning in Tuscany!

     This morning we had a little break so were finally able to settle into our quarters in Tuscany.  Our windows overlook the fabled Chianti hills and we have a little terrace to sit outside.  So we thought we’d have breakfast on the terrace, relax for a minute and enjoy the view.  We hard boiled some brown eggs, then I toasted a piece of ciambellone that Josephine made back in Morolo to go with her homemade cherry jam from their own trees.

View outside our house

We took our plates out onto the terrace, the May sun warming the terracotta tiles.  The vista is panoramic.  If I were a painter like the group that is here this week,  I’d count 3 layers of hills shifting progressively from green to blue.  I often think, “Thank God for the glaciers,” because this landscape owes all of its soft, sensual curves to the Ice Age.  80% of what I’m seeing is forested.  And the strict Tuscan zoning laws will insure it stays that way.  There are diamond shaped patches of vineyards incised into the hillsides, dirt roads – or “white roads”, as they call them – cutting through the greenery and stone farmhouses with red tiled roofs scattered across the landscape.  Linda pointed out that the dark green cypress trees seem to be placed exactly where your eye needs a vertical line after too many horizontal curves.  (The rest of Italy jokes that Tuscans situate their cypress trees like furniture.)  I’m sure this is the same background I’ve seen in countless Renaissance paintings, like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Eggs!

I cracked an egg – the yolks are yellow as saffron – while I heard the chickens cackling somewhere below us.  I could also discern the tinkle of some sheep bells down in the valley, a donkey or two braying and hundreds of birds – including a cuckoo – singing through their work.  Bees zipped by my head, not at all interested in what we were doing there.  With this sublime setting we started planning the day: taking the group into Siena, introducing them to our favorite gelateria on the Campo, showing them where Saint Catherine’s head is on display (yes, her real head!) discussing the menu for dinner.

I could smell the acacia flowers, signature of this season, and the aroma mixed with every bite of my ciambellone.  Ah, Tuscany!  The peace, the tranquility.  No wonder it is on every traveler’s list of places to visit.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a rumble turned into a roar turned into a glass shattering screech.  A pack of 5 fighter jets screamed across the sky over the wide open valley.  Then they banked sharply and blazed back through the air leaving my teeth clenched.  Practice sorties for rookie pilots from the nearby Asciano air force base.  Linda and I sat frozen.  All other sounds stopped in their wake until the echo of the jets faded away.  Then cautiously the sheep and the birds started in again as our hearts started beating again.

I cleared my breakfast dishes and headed to the bedroom where I heard the soft thrum of an engine.  When I opened the door I found the room filled with a squad of bees all smashing into the window panes and madly crisscrossing the ceiling beams.  It was bedlam!  I tried to shoo them out until they darted for my head, but I couldn’t open another window because out on my little balcony there was a cloud of about 400 more bees laying siege, battering the door trying to break in.  So I ran out of the room, slammed the door and yelled for Linda to run for her life.

Ah, the peace and tranquility of spring in Tuscany!

Blogissimo!: Early Figs

Blogissimo!: Early Figs

Early Figs

     Yesterday morning we went on an herb walk with some of our painters interested in the "wild" side of Chianti. We started our exploration at 8 am as the sun was just beginning to gently wipe the dew from the landscape. We hiked from San Fedele up and around an ancient Celtic Circle through vineyards, eyes wide searching for nature's hidden treasures. Along the way we discovered a variety of different mint, wild fennel, wild thyme and spittlebugs.

Wild Thyme

As we came upon a fig tree I remem- bered one day a few years ago in Morolo, just outside of my parents house, my father went up to the fig tree and snapped a green, less than half ripe, fig from the tree. I was shocked as he took a bite from it, as if it were an apple. My lips puckered as he finished it off and I asked him how he could eat a crunchy fig that must have made his teeth feel fuzzy.  He said "when you're hungry it's amazing what you will eat".  He went on to reminisce about growing up during the war and the things they would forage for to keep their, ever present, hunger pangs at bay. He said his mother would cook young green figs with a little olive oil and garlic. He would be so hungry he couldn’t wait until they were ready so he would snatch one from the tree and eat it in anticipation. 

Green Young Figs

I was very curious about what fried green figs would taste like so I asked my mother to cook a few that evening. I was so surprised at how savory they were, more like a vegetable than a fruit. I would never have guessed these were the same figs that in a few weeks would be plump, sweet, juicy and luscious bundles, weighing heavy on the tree.

Ripe Figs

So,  I asked our herb walkers to help me pick the young green figs and promised to serve them a special, old family recipe at dinner.

This evening, alongside the vegetable frittata, I gave everyone a taste of my fathers favorite childhood delicacy, sautéed figs…..I think my grandmother would be very proud.

Vegetable Frittata with a side of Fried Green Figs