Live Archives - Page 6 of 13 - Itch.world
A three-minute escape to Italy.
Tuscany, travel, medieval village, Italy, festivals, celebrations, customs, cooking, recipes, living in Italy, moving to Italy, visiting, visit, restaurants, language
39
archive,paged,category,category-live,category-39,paged-6,category-paged-6,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,select-theme-ver-4.4.1,paspartu_enabled,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-7.9,vc_responsive

Sunday wasn’t like Sunday

What’s it like in Italy as quarantine begins to lift?

Let me tell you what didn’t happen last Sunday. It was May 3rd and our village did not celebrate one of its most important festivals, Festa del Santissimo Crocifisso, which dates back for no one knows how many centuries. In the morning the wooden crucifix from the 1300s was left in place and not carried through the streets. The members of the Misericordia, the largely volunteer group that was founded in the 1200s to care for plague victims — still at the frontline of healthcare providing paramedics and ambulances — did not dress in their black hooded robes and slowly process through the village.

Grandmothers did not create intricate designs with flower petals on the cobblestones to celebrate the confirmation of this year’s crop of young Catholics who did not dress all in white and disperse the flowers with their feet as they walked down the steep street after their First Communion. There were no celebratory Sunday lunches with extended family.

The antique, hand painted tombola board was not wheeled into the square next to the temporary stage to get ready for the evening. Dusk fell as usual but hundreds of villagers did not crowd the square to await the tombola, a bingo-like game with a winning prize of 1,200€.

The numbers of 1-100 were not read aloud over the creaky loudspeaker, each number verified by a child who is deemed beyond corruption, before being carefully rolled up and placed in a glass container to be randomly drawn. No one had the winning card and no one won the backup prize, which is often a prosciutto. The Misericordia did not receive the proceeds from the annual fundraiser.

There were no fireworks afterwards. No young loves, eager for summer, sharing kisses. No grandparents watched the sky, wondering if this fireworks show might be their last.

It was not like May 3rd at all.

But things did happen. Families went outside to exercise for the first time in two months with masks and a hall-pass of a self-declared permission slip in hand. A little girl learned to ride her bicycle on a gravel road. Tractors worked the fields overtime plowing under young fava bean cover crops to get ready to plant the tobacco. People debated the word congiunto, which the government said is OK to visit, but only in one’s own region. It means co-joined, kin, but Italians don’t agree on what kind of relationship it actually covers. Does it extend new boyfriends or distant in laws? Memes were created and shared. The seriousness of relationships questioned.

Searching for a kin at the beach…

The first poppies appeared. Once again mushroom hunters went out to forage. Builders and factory workers rested after their first week back on the job. The cuckoos are having their brief stopover on their way to Africa. The two mockingbirds on either side of our house compete for girl birds from dark until well into daylight joined by the roosters a few hours before dawn. Que es mas macho, rooster o mockingbird? to pose Laurie Anderson’s question.

And my Sunday? Cooked, ate, walked, and tried to figure out why my mood is dropping as the quarantine is lifting. The lockdown was so binary. There was life before and now a completely altered state. The rules were clear. It was hard and sharp and clean, without ambiguity. I didn’t try to picture what comes after. Now I am realizing how difficult the “after” will be. So many shades of gray. The sense of fear and constant assessment of possible paths to exposure. The damage assessment of local businesses. The different tolerances for risk in every family and the frictions and discussions about everyone’s behaviors as individual actions so profoundly affect the group.

And the loss. Of innocence. Of freedom. Of spontaneity. Of gathering. We will adapt, because we do, and we will find joy and life in this interim period, because we must. This gives me hope and I am humbled to be here, in my village, among the Italians who are some of the most joyful and filled with life people in the world. Their example of nearly universal support for the quarantine has been humbling. That sometimes you pull together and do what is necessary to protect others an inspiration. I am a willing student to see how they create what comes next.

Que es mas macho? Virus o una nonna?

2
0
picture of boy holding an umbrella watching the Scampanata in Anghiari Italy

Intrigue, humiliation, and cake batter

I am feeling wistful that today would have started the month of the Scampanata, which happens every five years, and only in Anghiari. It is one of my favorite things about our village. In 1621 it was described as an ancient village tradition and was only postponed during two World Wars. And now.

Please do me the honor of reading the description below and watching the video and let us all pause for a moment and appreciate the things that make us human and connect us and that we do for the sheer joy of it. The things that we will need to rebuild and reinvent. The things I miss the most. (Article below originally posted in 2019).

*************

I want to jump through the screen, grab you, and say “You will watch this. Now.” Then direct you by holding your shoulder, with no refusals allowed, to the best screen in your environment, and I’d click here. Cause this story and video are my favorites yet.

But I am sitting on a Tuscan terrace overlooking a valley filled with rolled hay and sunflowers eating cacio and pepe made by actual Romans so I can’t. Instead I will use my words, as I always used to tell the kids.

I am going to tell you about this event that embodies what I love about Italy—it’s highly-local, quirky, and resonate with deep human fears and joys. Every five years, in the village of Anghiari, an ancient rite unfolds, but with up-to-the-minute alliances, tricks, and grudges. It’s the Scampanta. The centuries-old society that ensures that the Anghiarese do not oversleep. (The verb scampare means to be a near thing, a close call.)

The rules are simple. You volunteer to join the Society of the Scampanata and show up in the piazza three times a week, in the month of May, by the time the bells strike 6 in the morning. And you sign in. That’s it. Sounds so simple. And harmless. The complication is that if you oversleep a fate worse than what you can imagine awaits—and we’ve all had pretty horrible dreams about the repercussions of sleeping through the alarm.

Trouble is, it may not just be up to you and your alarm. In a small community tiny slights can build momentum and every five years is about the right pressure-release timer to get back at that person who always parks in your spot, or hasn’t mowed the meadow as promised. And as you need to be born in Anghiari, or a resident for at least ten years, to participate the social connections are deep and complex.

If you are late to check in you turn yourself over to the Society for your fate. If you live out of town there are people who will drive to your house to fetch you—sometimes with a police escort. Some days during the month everybody is there on time and you can feel the sense of disappointment in the assembled crowd.

You really need to see the video to see what fate awaits those who oversleep or are somehow prevented from arriving in time. Some unfortunates have woken up to find their front door bricked shut during the night. Others have had their cars lifted onto blocks in the wee hours and all four tires removed. Still others have been convinced by friends to go with them to play a trick on someone far from town and had the tables turned—finding themselves fooled into getting out of the car and then stranded in the woods.

It must have been really hard to make sure you woke up on time in the days before alarm clocks. There’s a history of Anghiari that was written in 1621 that refers to the Scampanata as an ancient event at the time. Not hard to imagine that its roots run deep into Spring rituals around the need to plant and till the land.

And it is unique. No other place on Earth has the Scampanata.

Next time you want to hit the snooze button just remember the lyrics of the Scampanata song:

“Scampanata, scampanata
in Spring you return to our halls
to visit the lazy who stay in bed
to break their sleep and their balls”

 

 

0
0

Three weeks into Italian lockdown and what helps

It’s hard to imagine life was once any other way. Going out for lunch, seeing friends, or even stopping for a coffee belong to another existence that’s so foreign that I hardly even miss these things. And it is almost impossible to imagine a future that is different than this limbo. Finding a balance as the world rocks is a fresh challenge every day.

Here’s some context of what Italian lockdown means.  If we leave the property (even on foot) we need to have a form filled out declaring why we are out (emergency, doctor’s appointment, to buy food) and if we don’t have the declaration, or it’s not deemed appropriate, the fine can be up to €3000. A dog walk needs to be within 200 meters of the house. We can’t leave our village to go to the next one. The mandate to wear face masks outside the property will likely be imposed tomorrow, joining the nearby village decrees. Every restaurant has been closed for the duration so breaking the cooking routine with take-out is impossible.

But even with these extreme measures the virus marches on. Yesterday our village of 5,000 announced the first two positive cases.

Three weeks into lockdown here are a few things that I’m trying hard to do:

Grab every good moment and hold tight. I look hard for lovely moments and when I find them I hold them close to my heart for a few extra seconds. For me it’s when the light hits the valley in a certain way. The unexpected snow we had (photo above). When the whole family was in the garden planting a hedge. A line from a song. Evening fires. The dog and the cats, almost always, especially when Lola flies through the snow.

Be kind. The few times I go out I thank the people who are doing the essentials to keep the world moving. When I thanked the masked checkout clerk at the grocery store for being there for us and she got tears in her eyes. I thanked the postal woman for working as she slipped a package through our gate with gloved hands. And inside the house we are all cooped up together and it helps to step back and cut everyone some slack. I am finding that every act of kindness takes away a bit of the black knot of fear. I’d love to go further and shop for elderly people, or prepare meals for them, but it is too risky that we might spread the virus to them.

On a Facebook group for the village a woman posted that if anyone was having a hard time affording food for themselves or their families to turn to her and she would do what she can, with no judgement. Immediately others started chiming in, some in very tough financial situations, offering things that they could donate.

We lost one Olympics but gained a more meaningful one. It makes me happy that the scientific community is racing to understand and mitigate the virus and create a vaccine. John has likened it to a kind of Olympics of humanity with many people from all over the planet working around the clock to solve this thing, and to help others. More medals will be earned than we could ever give out.

We are all just people. So many friends are mentioning that video conferencing is breaking down the carefully constructed barriers between our professional and private selves. I vowed a few years ago not to work with anyone who I couldn’t really be myself with and it has changed everything. I think this is especially true for women who often need to be perfect professionals and sweep all evidence of a family and conflicting needs under the rug when they go to work. l hope this portal into people’s real lives changes the way we relate when things get back to a new normal.

Turn off the screens. I am working hard so hard at this one and failing most days. I have realized that I don’t need to know all the latest all the time. It provides a false sense of control but it actually just keeps me spinning. I am trying to check the news less — a bit in the morning and in the evening when the Italian infection and death rates are announced.

Cook. This is the centerpiece of what is keeping me sane. Creating something delicious and nurturing fills my soul with what I need. Tomorrow I want to start a WhatsApp group of inspired cooks I know to share what they are making. It would be fun to get inspiration from friends.

Ride the rollercoaster. Some days are much, much better than others. And some moments are awful. Like yesterday when I could barely get out of bed. The kindness clause above probably also applies to me. Meditation and walks help even things out.

And I saw fresh wolf tracks near the house. With the absence of humans wildlife is expanding their range.

2
0

How Italians are handling the lockdown with grace and style

Italians have never really had much of a national identity, with the exception of during the World Cup. Instead one’s allegiance is with the village, and maybe with the nearby villages or towns when a question of regional pride comes up. But this lockdown is different. There’s pride in the air about doing this extraordinary thing for the common good. Marry that to an insatiable need to connect, share, and be social and some creative and touching things happen. I feel an overwhelming sense that we are alone in our homes but all in this together. Right there now there is 70% approval rating in what the Italian government is doing and 70% of Italians agreeing on anything is a miracle.

All countries will handle lockdowns in their own way, with some novel ideas to burn off stress and connect, but I wanted to share a few things that have happened this week in Italy.

The stay-at-home flash mob idea is big. You’ve probably seen an article about it but my Italian friends are sharing videos from all over the country — the streets are truly filled with music. There’s some coordination through social media instructing people to open windows at a certain time and sing the national anthem, or a pop song popular in the 1970s, or a locally popular ballad. Six in the evening is a popular time for this and our village bells rang and rang in solidarity with the people singing yesterday, according to a friend of mine who is sequestered at the top of the hill in the old section and nearer the action.  I dare you to watch this short video and not cry. (It was shot by Jacopo Losco, a first year university student in Milan, from his house and sent by a friend.)

Tonight we turned on flashlights from our windows at 9pm. People where waving the lights back and forth and calling out “Ciao!” across the small valley.

A Milanese friend says that everyone goes to their windows and applauds at noon in honor of the medical community and support staff who haven’t left hospitals in weeks. People are also lighting candles and putting them in windows in appreciation.

“It will be fine.” Kids all over the country are creating drawings of rainbows with the phrase “Andrà tutto bene” and placing them in windows. I went to the grocery store today and passed several. It warms the heart.

Life at the grocery store. John went yesterday, I went today, and we both had similar experiences. He got there at a bit before opening and there were about eight people in line ahead, everyone waiting very patiently. They let one person in at a time, with time for them put on the plastic gloves by the door and go into the store, and then they let in the next person. When I went today is was during the sacred Sunday Lunch so the store was empty. Both times everything was fully stocked, EVEN TOILET PAPER. Staff masked and friendly. All but a very few customers in masks. Clear demarcation on the floor for the “distance of respect” between people waiting in line. Both experiences were so calm and orderly. It seems to be that people feel like the government has the fundamentals — food, fuel, trash pickup — under control and they don’t need to hoard.

Online school is going well, so far. My friends’ kids who are continuing school virtually seem to be enjoying it. My friend in Milan said her daughter in middle school gets up every morning and gets dressed for online school. Her athletics teacher is even holding remote yoga classes, requesting that students get on their mats on video camera.

Pornhub is waiving their subscription fee for Italy. At least from what I’ve heard.

Signs of Italian pride are growing. People are starting to hang Italian flags from balconies. And this display from the air force with a sound track of Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma, “let no one sleep”, is moving. And not in a chest-bounding, nationalistic way.

Italians are keeping a sense of humor. Here are two different memes that I particularly love playing on Italian women’s devotion to salons, and hair removal. The salons are, of course, all closed. Both memes show what Italian women will look like when the lockdown lifts (which was originally said to be April 3, but clearly no one knows. Which means it could be worse than this.)

Meanwhile I just got an alert that the death toll in the last 24 hours was a staggering 368. 

I wanted to close with something circulating on Italian social media:

“This is an opportunity to turn an emergency into an opportunity of solidarity and unity. Let’s change the way we see and think. I will no longer say “I’m afraid of this contagion” or “I don’t care about this contagion”, but it is I who will sacrifice for you.

I worry about you.
I keep a distance for you.
I wash my hands for you.
I give up that trip for you.
I’m not going to the concert for you.
I’m not going to the mall for you.

For you!

For you who are inside an ICU room.
For you who are old and frail, but whose life has value as much as mine.
For you who are struggling with cancer and can’t fight this too.

Please, let’s rise to this challenge!

Come together…nothing else matters.”

I think Italy has come together like never before and I’m proud to be a part of it.

4
0

The village vs. coronavirus

What is life like under the shadow of the coronavirus in my small village in Tuscany? Much feels different since the weekend decree holding 14 million Italians in quarantine in the North, and just finding out we are included in the lockdown. Some things remain the same, like my daily walk where I often see locals out for trail rides.

The villages of our valley issued a statement that in addition to all schools being suspended (preschool to universities), so are sporting events, public and private events, including theaters and cinemas, all civil and religious ceremonies, including funerals (?!), discos and clubs. Visitors to hospitals and nursing homes are strictly limited. Businesses, cafes, and restaurants remain open but must guarantee that any patrons are at least one meter apart. If the measures are disregarded the punishment is three months in jail. Everyone who just fled Milan is supposed to self-quarantine for 14 days.

A friend in Milan was sharing her large consulting firm’s response to the virus (this was from last week, not sure how it has changed as of today). All entrances were closed except for one. Everyone entering and exiting had their temperatures taken. No more than two people in an elevator.

Our local grocery stores are still well stocked, including toilet paper (still don’t quite understand the run on that in the States) and we are working on our hand sanitization routines. Ok, load bags in car, return cart, sanitize hands and bottle before unlocking car. Drive home. Unload bags. Shit! Now the contaminated bags are in the kitchen!!

I saw an elderly man at the shared sink outside the bathroom at a tiny local restaurant counting while thoroughly washing his hands. Another man was doing our disinfection dance outside his car after exiting the pharmacy.

The pharmacy is one of the great things about Italian life. It’s the first line of defense for all matters of health with smart, trained pharmacist/doctors who consult with you about minor health issues, do small procedures, and give prescription medicine if they deem appropriate.  Now only one person in at a time can enter and  the counter cordoned off so all customers stand over a meter away from the pharmacist and register. The best thing is that they have contracted with a local lab to make hand sanitizer. Pretty impressive with only two stores.

There is suddenly a big push on social media to not go out in public, complete with its own hashtag #iorestoacasa “I stay at home”.

Where am I in all of this? Trying to adhere to #iorestoacasa despite my hatred of being cooped up. We live in such a small town that work, travel, hanging in cafes, and having lunch out every day are my escape valves, and now I don’t have them. I had to do an errand this morning and passed a cafe with tables in the sun where I badly wanted to stop and have a coffee but decided not to. I feel so cognisant of how many elderly people there are in our village and I want to protect them as much as possible. Unfortunately Donella and Sebastian cannot return from London for Easter. It’s fascinating to me that London and Donella’s university, UCL, one of the most international universities in the world, are taking so few precautions. According to Donella, London is 100% normal with the exception of a shortage of hand sanitizer. She is required to attend 200 person lectures and they have given no guidance to avoid the London Underground, nightclubs, or pubs which are in full swing. Quite the contrast.

I am tremendously proud of my adopted nation for how transparent and economically selfless the government has been so far — particularly in comparison to my birth nation and the UK which seem to be driven by politics rather than public safety. Testing is abundant, health care free, and people, at least here, seem to be aware that this is important and want to cooperate.

And there’s comfort in the age of this place. That the core of my house used to be a defensive tower in the middle ages, which I am sure has seen its share of people sheltering inside with the huge wooden doors closed. Embracing waiting and uncertainty is hard for us, and I am sure it always has been, and it feels like something I need to look in the face right now.

Meanwhile I am loving the Italian sense of humor which is coming out in full force on social media. A 30-something relative of John’s who grew up the same tiny village in Calabria where John’s grandparents lived (but now lives in the north) posted this:

It means “Nothing works, factories closed, nobody at school, cash is hoarded, refrigerators are full. All of Italy seems to be Calabria.”

Apparently the North/South divide of, well, everything even extends to pasta. Quartz had an article that in Milan the pasta aisle is often bare with the exception of the fully untouched penne lisce boxes. Penne comes in two varieties, striped or ridged, rigate, and smooth, liscio. The Northern Italians scorn the smooth type, apparently not even deeming it adequate to eat during a quarantine, while Southerners, particularly around Naples, prefer it. (That preference transferred to American Italians with the emigration from the South.) Northerners claim that the ridges hold the sauce better. Southerners believe that the ridges cook before the inner part of the pasta resulting in the outer layer becoming overcooked. And that the ridges were a by-product of the industrialization of pasta and the shortcuts that lowered the quality. A Michelin-starred chef from Naples, Gennaro Esposito, was quoted in the delightful Quartz article as saying that penne rigate was “the apex of weak thought.”

A couple of baristas from a local cafe who are as close to Brooklyn hipsters as we get put a series of memes about the village on Instagram. I loved one of their latest. It’s a comparison of the village with, and without, the virus. We are so remote it’s like we are quarantined most of the time.

 

Today I decided to get cozy and make comfort food for lunch as we decided not to go out. Here’s what we made:

Pasta alla siege

Free form recipe but amazing. We sauteed three yellow onions and then added pork sausage to brown well. I had made some of Skye Gyngell’s Slow Roasted Tomatoes that we added (about a cup of them), a two of jars of chopped tomatoes, bay leaves, loads of black pepper and dried red spicy pepper, red wine,  a few dried porcini, and a pinch of organo. It was hot, a little sweet from the roasted tomatoes that added a nice complexity, the porcini gave it a rich undertone. Pretty darn good for a siege.

0
0

The plague in Italy … and coronavirus

Italy knows a lot about plagues which has taught them to be tough when handling something like the coronavirus. Medieval hill towns were built to keep out soldiers and marauders but the walls also kept sick people inside, or protected healthy people from sick strangers who were barred at the gate. The word quarantine comes from the Italian for forty days, or quaranta giorni, the amount of time that ships were required to be isolated prior to docking in Italian ports from the middle ages on during bouts of the plague. Venice even set aside an island in 1370 and built a hospital/quarantine center for sailors from infected ships to either get better or, uh, not.

A friend of mine from Milan who has decamped to the countryside to escape the current threat in Northern Italy is fittingly rereading Boccaccio’s The Decameron, in which ten people escape Florence during the Black Death to go to the country. During their exile they decide to tell a tale each for ten days to help pass the time. (Boccaccio started The Decameron in 1349 right after the Black Death raged in Florence, killing three-quarters of the city’s population including his father and step-mother.)

Our house, which dates back to medieval times, I’m sure has seen its share of disease, and was used as a hospital for patients during the Spanish Flu of 1918-19.

I think this long history has given the Italians a certain pragmatism about epidemics. We are not anywhere near the “red zone” in the north but the risk is on everyone’s minds. I’ve been fascinated to see how it plays out in day to day life.

The first thing I’ve noticed is a lot less cheek kissing when people greet each other, something impossible to imagine a few weeks ago as it is such a universal and ingrained behavior. Bars and restaurants are as packed as ever, but there’s a slight hush and subtle movement away if anyone coughs or sneezes and people are looking at one another to judge the appropriate response. The grocery stores seem back to normal but a week ago we went to stock up a bit more than usual and the atmosphere was thick with furtive glances into other people’s shopping carts (and we were doing the same). There seemed to be a careful watch for what was excessive purchasing. Many spots in the pasta and flour sections were empty, as well as hand sanitizer.

This pragmatism is also apparent in the mass testing by the Italian health authorities, over 11,000 people so far, which has caught positive cases that have not resulted in an illness but made the overall numbers look far worse than other countries that are not being as proactive. The speed with which lockdowns have been imposed on towns at the center of the outbreak was impressive, with people still unable to leave their community, although movement within the towns has freed up in recent days.

This is taking a significant toll on the economy with 200 million of euros of travel bookings cancelled — and tourism is 13% of Italy’s GDP.

Am I scared? Yes and no. Like people everywhere we’ve been increasing our handwashing, bacterial wipes, practice of not touching faces, etc. but I’m not too stressed about it, taking my cues from the people around me. I think we all realize it is highly likely to spread further in Italy, but that we will get through this together. Italy has seen worse.

0
0

Meanwhile at lunch…

I’ve just returned from a week in Paris followed by two in California and while my mind has been occupied by strikes and sales in Paris and traffic and tension in the Bay Area I kept remembering a few tidbits of news I wanted to share with you from the homefront.

Expansion at the farm stand

The farm stand, which serves a 10€ mostly vegetarian worker’s lunch made from their produce, always faces a significant issue when colder weather comes. Their unenclosed front porch, which holds four tables in addition to the two that fit inside, becomes much too cold to use and significantly decreases the number of lunches they can serve. But this year Michele solved it. I arrived one day to find him beaming with a decided spark in his eye putting the finishing touches on the porch enclosure, thanks to wood provided by produce crates, a few sheets of plastic, and a nail gun. This infrastructure, boosted by two pellet heaters, has done the trick and now they can operate at the full number of “tops” year round. I assume that the removal process to return it to an open porch come summer will not be too difficult as the installation took an afternoon.

The pig is no longer with us

Colder weather brings the spezzatura or dismantling of the pig. We were lucky enough to be invited to join a family for their annual event last year which was one of the most fascinating and completely Italian things I’ve done since moving here. The respect, care, and attention given to preparing a year’s worth of meat from an animal everyone knew moved me. A couple of days before I left the farm stand had killed their pig and completed the spezzatura. To celebrate Michele said they were preparing a very special lunch later in the week — freshly-made sausages and chestnut polenta — and asked if we wanted to come. I love the local fresh chestnuts (yes frequently roasted over open fires) but have a hearty suspicion of other chestnut-based delights. For many Tuscans if you combine chestnut flour with water, olive oil, rosemary, and pine nuts and bake the whole mess it is suddenly a revered dessert, castagnaccio. Unfortunately it looks just like a brownie. Do not make this mistake as I have.

Anyway, Michele was especially excited about the chestnut polenta. Silvia, standing behind him, mouthed that she was also going to make “something good”. With great reluctance John and I showed up the day of the feast and bravely opted for one order of the sausage and chestnut polenta. (We also got one order of the “something good” to cover our bases.)

The sausage and pancetta from the pig were delicious, as were the onions. The chestnut polenta was not as bad as expected, much better than the castagnaccio dessert, even though it had a strong resemblance to Play Dough gone wrong. But I did not opt for the sweet version of the chestnut polenta, served with ricotta, for dessert. Instead I ordered the classic ramp up to carnevale and Lent Tuscan dessert, castagnole, which are bits of dough that are fried and around here often stained with runny dark red sugar (Christ’s blood?).

Royal Fascination

John and I happened to be having lunch at another local favorite while the emergency meeting was going on between the Queen, Prince Charles, and Prince William about how they were going to handle Megxit. I didn’t know this because I was following with rapt attention but because the large man with work overalls at the next table was. Propped up amidst his quarter litre of wine and pasta was his phone, loudly streaming the live coverage from the U.K. as the swarm of reporters waited on any news of the outcome of the meeting.

God save the Queen. And lunch.

0
0

Postcard from a lunch in the woods

I’m at the Antica Farmacia dei Monaci Camaldolesi and it is lunchtime and I am hungry. I have just driven through miles of lonely, misty forest to get to the monastery and I’m surprised to see a restaurant opposite that’s open. I cross a little bridge over a rushing stream in a gorge in the forest and go in. I am the only person there and am shown to a table near a small wood burning stove.

The menu features lots of wild boar, freshly made focaccia, and sausages cooked over a fire. I order and another woman comes in wearing a forestry uniform and packing a gun. The owner follows her to the table carrying a large, freshly peeled carrot on a plate and puts in in front of her as soon as she sits. She quickly eats the carrot. The owner than asks her how the health routine is going and if she’d like her usual salad for lunch. With cheese. And her usual quarter litre of white wine. She agrees.

Two men enter, both dressed in a similar uniform, and also carrying guns. They look over at the woman, and she looks back at them, and the most restrained greeting I’ve ever seen in Italy is exchanged. They are then seated at the other side of the otherwise empty restaurant.

She leaves soon after. I wonder what the real story is. I think of how lonely it would be to work with people in the middle of nowhere that you wouldn’t want to have lunch with.

0
0

Holiday gift inspirations from Italy: Busatti

The love affair started started when Sebastian, then age eight, shot his Nerf gun through a window at a bride-to-be preparing for her wedding day. He managed to hit Anna-Sophie in the head with a foam bullet while she was doing her hair and got one of the best dirty looks in history. The first meeting was not promising.

We had moved to Tuscany that day and into a house in the countryside for a few weeks, so that the kids could start school, until our ten-month rental in town became available.

It was the same day that the son of the family who rented us the house, Livio, was marrying a lovely woman from Germany, Anna-Sophie, who was staying with her family in the house next door. The groom’s father explained away the Nerf incident by attributing it to the DNA of my husband, John, who he believed to be a part of the US Special Forces (for those who know John this is laughable) rather than the barbaric nature of eight-year old boys. How this very funny case of mistaken identity occurred we are still not sure even seven years later.

Despite the first encounter we all became fast friends and Anna-Sophie agreed to show Sebastian the Italian ropes for the first year or so, a curriculum much helped by liberal applications of Coca Cola, almost daily lunches with the extended family, and Angry Birds games every day after school at the local cafe during “study” sessions.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that Livio is the sixth generation of a family who makes some of the highest quality, and best designed textiles in the world, called Busatti. They have stores worldwide, and are represented in high-end stores (dog whistle here) like ABC, Aero Studios, and John Derian in New York, Diptyque in Paris, Sue Fisher King in San Francisco, and Neiman Marcus.

Busatti started (in the same building as the current headquarters) in 1755 as a bit of a catch-all mercantile that shifted to cloth production in 1797 when soldiers from Napoleon’s army moved into the top floors of the store and brought an enormous, steam-driven loom to make wool into uniforms and blankets which was installed in the basement. By 1799 the Busatti family had taken back control of their store and the weaving equipment which the army left behind—it’s massive. The machines still crank away in the basement, although now driven by electricity rather than steam.

After the equipment sat dormant for several decades Mario Busatti added eight wooden looms, a warping machine, and a staff of ten in 1842 . They’ve been at it ever since.

I love that Busatti products are a perfect mix of tradition, still largely produced on punch card driven looms, and innovative designs under the capable leadership of Livio and his brother Stefano. I go in frequently to get seasonal inspiration because there is always something new to see. Plus they will special order anything you can imagine—bedding and table linens to any dimension, color, etc.

But let me cut to the chase. I can recommend some things that would make great gifts and they ship worldwide. Best of all, Anna-Sophie and Livio are giving a special discount of 20% to Itch readers through the holiday season.  Make sure to click on this link to get the discount.

Here are my three favorite things from Busatti for gifts—although your discount covers anything on the site.

I have many of these wonderful stripey dish/tea towels and they give me pleasure every time I use them.

They are 60% linen and 40% cotton, come in a wide range of colors, you can get them plain or with embroidery, and they wash beautifully because they are thread-dyed so they don’t fade. (They call this weave Melograno.) I also love the weave called Due Fragole which also comes in a wide range of beautiful colors.

About a year ago I splurged and bought a linen robe which makes me happy every morning. Mine is in this beautiful not-too-light blue and washes well—I line dry and don’t iron and it’s soft and for me, nicely wrinkled.

But the slate gray robe is also jaw-dropping to me (and several friends who have succumbed.)

Busatti has just launched Mario the Blanket in honor of Mario Busatti. I haven’t purchased it yet, but really want one. It’s not quite large enough for a bed, but would be fantastic to cuddle up with on a sofa. It’s made of an interesting mix of cotton, wool, and seaweed fibers, which are supposed to have potent antioxidant properties and looks and feels lovely.

To shop, make sure you enter through shop.busatti.com/discount/ITCH20 to get the 20% discount. They ship to the outside Italy using UPS at reasonable rates and you will be supporting a fantastic family business as well as giving a lovely gift.

(Thanks to Busatti for the wonderful photos, which are all their copyright with the exception of the video and wrinkly robe photo, which are mine.)

0
0