FIVE STARS FOR A SHEAF OF WHEAT - 15 July 2011

15th July, 2011 

Well, where have we been?

We've been, and will be for another 6 weeks, on a Tuscan farm, way out in the country. I mean, out there. We arrived Sunday 10th, after an easy 3 hour drive down from Liguria and as we neared Siena, began to feel our hearts beat faster, as hearts do when about to be reunited with an old lover. We know these hills and valleys well, having been coming here for 16 years during which time we've taught our own workshop here, married on the estate where we taught, made a book together on Tuscany, nearly bought an apartment in the old wall of Buonconvento until we found out that the owner was at the same time selling it to good friends of ours, and spent nearly 3 months, some 7 or 8 years ago, designing and renovating an old grain barn on the estate in a deal with the owner which eventually fell through.

But we're still here. This valley, the Val D'Arbia, is deep in us and we in it. Since the barn deal fell through we have stayed with friends outside Siena, returned to the estate a couple more times until it became just too sad to be there, and then last year, stayed in Pompana with our good friends Gianni and Luana. It is just down the hill from them where we are now, in a new Agriturismo, which, as it is so close to our friends, we decided to take sight unseen.

Hey, life is an adventure and when you fly the coop you have to be prepared to give up the comforts of home. The agriturismo business in Italy is controlled and rated as is the hotel industry, the difference being that instead of the stars used for rating hotels, for agriturismo the symbol is sheaves of wheat. Our agriturismo has one sheaf of wheat. To say it is lacking in charm maybe an overstatement. To say it is rich in honesty is to state the truth.

Charm, honesty. Which would you rather have? When I think of charm I am reminded of the seduction of it to which I succumbed so many times when embarking on relationships - indeed, marriages. Charm, having a surface moisture, rusts quickly. Honesty, bare to the bones, deepens its rewards with time.

So, we're on a farm. And we love it. Did we love it at first? No. The building itself, interestingly, was also once a grain barn and has been spaciously and sturdily renovated, but lacks a particular Tuscan aesthetic we covet. Ah, covetousness: I'll have more on that later. So, the plastic beaded fly curtain immediately disappointed. As did the plastic outdoor table and chairs. The plastic umbrella positioned to give one some relief from the blazing sun while sitting at said plastic table, broke with the first gust of wind, and my snobbery as a decorator led me to be appalled by the blue plastic waste bin in the pink bathroom. Yet the kitchen spoke to us, as did our bedroom, and in fact, I could see with the sweep of a practiced eye, that some white fabric, candles, a bowl of fruit, some flowers and we'd start to be in business.

The immediate surroundings of the house are somewhat barren with it's newly planted pots of flowers. A less than generous apron of ceramic tiles on all four sides of the building does little to distract from the bare rocky earth beyond, where not a blade of grass is to be found. Forget a swimming pool. But then, think of the near perfect house and garden we made on Cape Cod. Now think of the constant trickle of irritation, disturbance and hostility we lived with there. Now bring yourself back here and look beyond the dirt to the glowing hills. Look at the cows, the vegetable garden, the clothes on the line. Look at the tractor one field over, making hay while the Tuscan sun shines. Now listen to the peace and tranquility. Where would you rather be?

We sleep like babies here, looking out the window last night to the almost full moon, listening to a night owl accompanied by the tinkle of cow bells. And the couple who own this farm, Silvia and Vincenzo, this hardworking couple, always with a smile on their faces, they move us so. Innocente, Gianni calls them and true Tuscan. Yesterday, late afternoon Silvia came over with a huge bag of string beans from her garden. The day before it was cucumbers.

Yesterday, while Joel finished up his work for the day on the retrospective, I prepared the beans:

Giuncheto Beans

Steam for 3 or 4 minutes until barely al dente

meanwhile chop almonds, garlic, golden raisins

saute in olive oil 3 minutes

add the beans

turn up the flame and stir for 2 minutes

sprinkle with lemon juice

Eccola!

Then, if possible, taken them 300 yards up the white road to Pompana. To Gianni and Luana's house. Stop halfway up the hill to watch a flock of sheep aglow on the golden hillside. 

Then continue on to your friends' casa. Put the beans on the old wooden table under the grape arbor, next to Luana's dishes of raw zucchini with cheese, oil and balsamic; eggplant with a different cheese topped with tomato; steak tartare with raw onion, bread, water, wine, the music of the frogs and cicadas, the mourning doves. Look at the light, glowing deeper even as it falls, and the moon rising full.

This is why we're here. To feel this whole. To communicate only in Italian, often badly but always with good energy and much laughter. We are family. It's that simple. We found each other all those years ago and became family instantly. Their son, Giovanni, who was then 5, we've watched grow up into a sensitive 21 year old man. Last year he spent time with us in New York and Cape Cod. Family.

Luana brings out a fresh local cheese, some grapes, watermelon and we sit in silence, looking at this:

At the end of the evening Gianni loads up is truck with old tables and chairs, cutting boards, dishes, antique fabric, baskets and roses and we all drive down the hill to make our casa Tuscan. The old fabric goes on the table along with a vase of wildflowers. Plums, picked fresh from the tree, find a home in a bowl carved out of cork from a tree down in the valley. One of the tables goes outside the kitchen: our breakfast table, while another goes around the side of the house to become our dinner table.

We've stayed in our share of 4 and 5 star hotels but honestly, none of them compare to our 1 sheaf of wheat casa.