A GENEROUS LIFE - 31 JULY 2011

31st July 2011   

It will be my birthday a week from tomorrow and I am, as always, childishly excited about it which, at the soon-to-be age of 65 might strike some as, well, childish, but I don't give a fig.

I think back now to the string of August 8th's as if to a necklace to which each year a bead is added. The beads themselves made of memories: little parties with games of pass-the-parcel and pin-the tail-on-the-donkey. Until I reached 10 the parties took place in the afternoon, tea parties with half a dozen school friends, cucumber sandwiches, iced cookies like little jewels upon the doily-ed plate, bowls of wobbly jello topped with ice-cream from a block that mother would have kept cool by wrapping it in newspaper and immersing in a bowl of cold water. The parties stopped at the age of ten as did a lot of things in my family. Yet my dear brother still came to the rescue, gifting me through my early teens with a manicure set, a puppy, a bicycle and a much-cherished zippered writing case which held paper, envelopes and a pen.

But I like to think that those birthday were about more than the imminent gifts and parties that grew the days of anticipation leading up to "the" day, for when I was old enough to understand that before that day I had not existed it seemed to me that the greatest gift of all - to trot out another cliche - was the gift of life.

Being here in Tuscany is one long gift: from the joy of experiencing such tranquility, to the luscious food, to the great gift-giver himself, Gianni Mariotti. Everyday he arrives with, or leaves outside our door, flowers, furniture, vegetables, candle-holders, deck chairs, linen, cutting boards and on and on. He is the ultimate hunter who loves to share his trove.

For instance, the other day he paid a short visit. Joel and I were sitting in the deck chairs and Gianni sat at one of the 5 tables he's provided on one the 5 chairs he's brought. Suddenly in the middle of conversation he frowned in consternation and said "This Table is too, high!" Jokingly I replied, "Yes, and we could use a really low table here," pointing to the space between our chairs. The next morning, when we took our breakfast outside, there was the perfect little rustic table, complete with handmade cloth.

This generosity is deeply Tuscan.  Not that it doesn't exist elsewhere, of course it does.  But here it is at the core of existence and is especially to be found in the sharing of the bounty of the table.  The last two nights we have eaten dinner "Tuscan" style, with two very different groups of people. The first night at Vincenzo and Silvia's house next door. It was a thank you dinner for us - as the first people to stay here - and to Gianni and Luana whose donation of items have made the place more comfortable and characteristic.

The food was one long drool. Everything, and I mean everything, was from their land:

Bruscheta with chick pea paste

Bruscheta with boar's liver pate

One plate of cured meats: prosciutto, pancetta,

and something from the neck cured with fennel

(my favorite)

Tomato salad with basil, oil and salt

Roasted peppers

Mandolined raw zucchini in a marinata of

oil, salt, lemon juice and pepper

Roast Beef

crab apple cake

vanilla cake filled with vanilla custard,

called Salami dolce

Everything was light, fresh, sweet, simple and organic.  Although I am no longer an imbiber, I will take Joel and Giannis word that Vincenzo's wine beat the hell out of any vintage Brunello.

In case you all think that our lives are filled with daily perfection, let me disabuse you. If the meal was beyond perfection the conversation was beyond comprehension. It was one of these evenings when pride takes a severe blow. We'd been feeling pretty cocky the last couple of days, chatting with any and all Italians who came within hearing, even throwing in a few avevo's and other verbs from the long-avoided engagement with the Imperfect Tense - aptly named in our case. On this evening we sat with 7 locals who had much to say to each other about everything, none of which we had a clue about. Not only was the conversation rapid-fire and in local dialect but it was conducted in true Italian style: that is to say, with much shouting and interruption. When Italians talk, no-one listens. And yet the harder we listened the less we heard. By the time we tackled dessert our heads were pounding.

The following night, last night, dinner was orchestrated by our dear friends Daniela and John along with their nine year old daughter, Gemmarosa. Daniela is from Tuscany - and as Gianni says, she is the real thing. Married now to John, who hails originally from Philadelphia, the two of them along with their 9 year-old daughter live in NY but spend all the school holidays in their splendid villa 20 minutes outside of Siena.

We'd made plans to spend the day together lunching a la Daniela, then figuring out dinner at some point along the way.  When it comes to la cucina nothing is too much for Daniela. We've been to their dinner parties in NY where entire feasts for 50 are cooked by her alone with seemingly no effort and it is hard to imagine that this elegant Tuscan beauty in her sexy clothes and easy manner could be the same person who just catered for the multitudes.

So it was that after far too big a lunch - it's not called a groaning board for nothing - that we all decided to take a nap before dinner.

All, except for Daniela who, having consulted with us, decided to invite a few friends for dinner al fresco.  These friends, men and women alike, were comprised of biologists, doctors and lawyers. We were 12 in all: 8 Italians, 3 Americans and me, who although a Naturalized American Citizen still think of myself as English.  Only 2 of the Italians spoke a little English so it was time to switch brain channels and scrape together our Italian.

What an evening. First of all, can you tell me, how is it possible that on a Saturday afternoon each of the women, including the biologist, was cooking some delicious thing? And those that weren't brought superior gelato. Daniela made a small fire in the waist-high fireplace of her kitchen over which she cooked steak and sausage, keeping a casual eye on it while building an enormous Greek Salad, assembling plates of cheeses and salami, tomato and mozzarella. Someone brought pasta with veggies, another, stuffed zucchini, while another donated a huge bowl of tomato salad from her garden.

Conversation was easy and animated and candlelit. The doctor to my right not only inspecting a bothersome toenail but adding to my vocabulary, remarking on how theatrical the scene appeared in the penumbra - dusk.  It was he who also pointed out the crucial difference between the word gamba which we had learned meant leg, but which apparently refers to only from the knee down, as opposed to coscio, which is the thigh and from what I understood is the only part of the female leg that the Italian male considers noteworthy.

Having the furthest to drive home we were the first to leave, reluctantly. Embraces, kisses and offers to take us to concerts and the beach as soon as possible filled up the last tiny space that food had not already sated and we sailed off in the night.

This morning, lying on the little table outside were 2 handmade belts from and by Gianni. Why? To thread through the handmade pouch he made for me two weeks ago, that now houses my pen.