Just another Sunday

The most important part of the Italian Sunday is lunch. Just like lunch is the most important thing Monday through Saturday, but more so. More food. More courses. More participants. More leisurely. John and I have started frequenting a new restaurant in town for Sunday lunch, only open on the weekend, and run by some local butchers who spend the rest of their week in their butcher shop down the street. Butchers around here are proud of their bistecca, probably the largest and most wonderful steak you will ever have in life. It is a Tuscan tradition and often the crown of the Sunday lunch and it’s cool to see some butchers taking the initiative to take it all the way to the table to ensure it’s done perfectly.

But first a little background about how it shakes out with food loyalties between two, it might be said, competitive people, and how all that led to our allegiance to this restaurant. John and I each have different favorite places to get food and we often have loaded conversations defending our choices. “These tomatoes are not very flavorful. Did you happen to get them at your produce place?” (This kind of snarky comment could be made by either of us.) For fruit and vegetables, my favorite is always the farm stand. John is sceptical of the claim that they are actually organic so he will go all the way to the suburbs of our village three kilometers away (a cluster of about 10 buildings) to hit the biodynamic farm and store where they follow the mysterious theories of Rudolf Steiner, which include all the organic basics but add some strictly scientific twists such as burying ground quartz stuffed into the horn of a cow in the fields, which is said to harvest “cosmic forces in the soil” and planting by moonlight.

The bio store is run by one of the sweetest families on earth, all are wonderful except for the tiny grandmother in her eighties who stands beaming and helpful behind the register with her sweet husband. I adored her until she once tried to get me to buy expensive silicon supplements with the claim that they would make me look younger and have more energy. I don’t know whether it was the implication that I am not looking in fact, young or energetic, or some buggy tomatoes I’ve purchased, but I’m no longer a fan of the bio store. Which leaves John to shop there. She apparently thinks he already looks adequately young and has never tried to sell him silicon. This adds to to slow burn. The farm store owner, by contrast, told me that last time I was in that I was getting more beautiful all the time as I am becoming maturata. Like a fine cheese, I guess. John suspects that this outburst might have something to do with the fact that he is newly single, but I am quite sure he was overwhelmed by my slightly sweaty, no makeup, didn’t shower that day glory.

Right by the bio store is located one of the three local butcher stores. The two guys in this store know John much better than me as it is in his shopping territory. And they love him in a way that I am adored by two different butchers, who are located in the square. I have worked hard to earn this affection by giving them special assignments, like sourcing a huge, whole turkey every year and once having them amass two kilograms of duck fat (which took over two months) so we could make cassoulet. One time our guests enthusiastically got a hunk of beef from them that was so large that John and one of the handier guests had to cut it apart with a Sawzall on the kitchen counter so that we could cook it, a story that the butchers loved. This is why I get the hearty buongiorno upon entering, and occasionally a free coffee when the butchers and I happen to be at the bar at the same time. John doesn’t give his butchers fun challenges like this, just gets normal things like a chicken breast, so I have no explanation for the suburban butchers’ love for John.

We discovered that John’s butchers had opened a restaurant just down the hill from our house and we tried it and I was quickly convinced to expand my allegiances as it was wonderful. We started going for Sunday lunch on most weekends. We are still not eating indoors so they haul a table out in front for us every week and set it up with a tablecloth. A gorgeous 20-something friend of our kids waits on our table and remembers the details of what we prefer week to week—we can never remember the name of the wine we like—but she knows.

We are the only patrons who eat outside and we’ve begun to recognize the other regulars as they file inside, all commenting on the weather and wishing us a good meal. The only suspicion we’ve had was a seven-year old girl, who moved to the far side of her mother as they walked by and she saw us seated on the sidewalk. Clearly there was something off, and possibly dangerous, about people who prefer to eat by themselves outside to being social with the crowd inside like normal people, pandemic or not.

One Sunday there was a crowd of about thirty people waiting on the sidewalk, all talking and some holding flowers. We hadn’t reserved and were a little concerned about getting a table with such a large group to accommodate but the butchers moved a couple of the groups aside so that they could bring out our little table. Finally the subjects of the celebration arrived—a couple celebrating their 40th anniversary—and were greeted with cheers and flowers. They all finally filed inside.

The week after that the restaurant was the scene of the cheese rolling competition lunch break. We had watched the competition a bit that morning so it felt thrilling to see the athletes close up as they filed by, some so old and stiff that they could barely walk, a behemoth on each team who clearly rolled in the parmigiano weight class, and a few buff beauties in their physical prime. Watching that morning it was clear that for cheese rolling being in one’s physical prime might not be all it’s hyped up to be as the old guys often ruled the day. Decades of hurling cheeses down roads lets one perfect spin, release, and force. If they were carrying a small, well-worn, leather cheese satchel over their shoulder you knew the competition felt fear. At lunch there were about a hundred of them in the party room and the noise was deafening, even from our perch outside.

Sebastian recently had an 18-year old school friend visiting and we took him to the restaurant. They had been out until 3am the night before for the passeggiata in the next town and Sebastian’s friend was receiving some subtly flirtatious texts from an Italian girl he’d met. We quickly called over our waitress, who is a couple years older than our kids and is smart, fierce, and charming. She read all the texts and gave advice. The texts were indeed flirtatious but the task was to keep the conversation going in a witty way—don’t rush forward too fast—as everyone knows she has a boyfriend.

The butchers raise all of their own animals very nearby—one of the partners had to leave yesterday mid-lunch to go feed them—so they know a disconcerting amount about each cut. When you order a steak, which we do very rarely these days, you have to go inside to pick the exact piece you want. You hear a bit more than perhaps you’d like. “Ah, yes, a young female.” The butchers watch over the shoulder of the chef who cuts the steak and sometimes grabs the knife himself to finish the cut, making sure it’s perfect.

Our outside table has a view up to our house. One time I pointed towards the house and told one of the butchers that is was ours. “Of course I knew that,” he replied. We are all Kilometer Zero around here, from the produce, to the meat, to the flirtations, to the gatherings, to us. I’ve never felt this held.