I walk for an hour every morning, letting myself out of the building quietly and crossing the road before plunging downhill. Via Chiantigiana is the main highway between the two important towns of Florence and Siena but is just a narrow twisting road between vineyards and fields; I often have to leap into a field when two cars pass each other. (There is another occasional walk I do, through a silent, isolated forest studded with signs warning, ‘Beware Vipers!’) All summer Via Chiantigiana is busy with incessant traffic, but in spring it is largely empty and often shrouded in mists. I charge past naked vines and olive trees and the pretty little church of San Tommaso, almost concealed by creepers with its statuary and terracotta urns and peacocks. I greet farmers tending fields and scarved women hanging clothes on lines, and finally turn to retrace my steps at a little bridge before ending up at the Chiocchio bar for a cappuccino.
The household still sleeps as I let myself in and prepare for the day. Down in the silent kitchen I turn on lights, gas and oven and fill the huge pasta pot with water. Ignazio appears shortly afterwards, terse, bleary and hung over. Gianfranco is rarely seen before ten in the morning, when he blasts through the kitchen, makes himself an espresso, then retires to the outside toilet with the pink Gazzetta dello Sport. Vera silently unloads the dishwasher in her floral blouse and stretch slacks, with the smoke from the day’s first cigarette coiling into her perm.
Towards the end of spring, the dining areas outside are completed and we have been discovered. One Thursday evening a group of Florentine professionals, friends of friends of Cinzia’s parents, drive out, four couples as sleek and shiny as the cars in which they arrive. It is still too cool at night for outside dining, so they occupy one of the little rooms inside.
Whenever a good impression needs to be made, Gianfranco becomes short-tempered and pedantic; he crashes around the kitchen barking at everyone. He has already asked me to run up batches of tiny savoury shortbreads, twists of puff pastry baked with anchovies to be served with the pre-dinner drinks, and cocoa-dusted chocolate truffles to accompany coffee. Gianfranco bends over platters of antipasti, his forehead tight with concentration, his fingers softly arranging. The Florentine women all have dyed-blonde hair and hard, beautiful faces; they smoke endlessly and eat little. Baritone laughter bursts sporadically from their private dining room. We are to see these people and ever-increasing numbers of their glittery golden friends throughout the summer. Every time they come, there is the same frenzy of production in the kitchen, which is merely expected and never acknowledged. Over summer their suntanned limbs and breasts spill out of whites, creams and linens – they all holiday in Sardinia, the Isle of Giglio or, more exotically, the Maldives and Bali.
Six weeks seems to be the time it takes for a group of people to assume their own peculiar dynamic, and to shift into their own formation. Six weeks, too, for activities to be repeated enough times to turn into habits: the foundation of familiarity.
And so it is with our little group, pivoting, of course, around the central core, Gianfranco. Vera and I companionably arrange hard-boiled eggs and capers onto chunks of bread for our 11.00 a.m. merenda. Cinzia and I engage in long discussions about literature and, specifically, as Cinzia is an educated girl, English literature. Ignazio alternates between terse and flirtatious behaviour with me. As for Gianfranco, he and I have slipped back into being comfortable as we work silently together in the kitchen before service, or when we stand side by side at the stoves. Sometimes – and, as we become busier, these times increase – we move with such synchronicity that we are as graceful and as fluid as ballet dancers, dipping and weaving around each other without ever colliding. And yet his moodiness and volatility have not diminished with age – for the most part, at least, not directed at me, but at poor long-suffering Cinzia. ‘Mi prende un nervoso,’ he barks. ‘E poi m’incazz.’ – ‘You make me irritable and then I get pissed off.’
I watch furtively as he teaches her how to tuck wine-glass stems into the webs of her fingers, to load the dishwasher, to carry hot plates all the way down the soft inner part of her arm. I see myself all those years ago, that pathetic desire to please him and to get it exactly right – and the impossibility of achieving either. He roars and bellows, or else subjects her to his famous ostracism while being warm and good-humoured to the rest of us. Much later on, when trust is established, Cinzia and I are able to build solidarity on this shared suffering.
Tempo, marito e figli vengono come pigli
Weather, husbands and sons come as you take them
In our hideous communal bathroom – hideous and largely left uncleaned – there is a tumbling pile of comics beside the lavatory, an ashtray on a stand, and a bath from which one’s nakedness is framed (if one is not careful) by the window overlooking the upper dining level. The washing machine belongs to Gianfranco and Cinzia, and so, once a week, after lunchtime service, I catch a blue SITA bus into Greve with my bag of laundry. In the early months I sit in the café in the central piazza in a shaft of watery sunlight with Amerigo Vespucci’s statue straight ahead and colonnades all around, writing endless postcards over a beer. I collect my previous week’s laundry from the laundrette and unfailingly feel pleasure at the way a carrier bag of crumpled malodorous sheets, towels and garments is transformed into a parcel resembling a stylish gift.
Down some undistinguished steps in the main piazza one enters the most exquisite bakery, a hole in the wall. There are always queues for the different loaves, rolls and cakes, but I often go in merely to absorb the aromas and visions. Sometimes I return from Greve with a wedge of fresh pecorino wrapped in wax-lined paper as beautifully as my laundry, to share with the others at dinner. A stuffed wild boar grins wickedly at the entrance of Falorni, considered one of the best butchers in Tuscany. German tourists clump around the racks of postcards; I move past them in the direction of the bus stop, clutching my parcel of laundry with the indifference of a local.
Up till the point Gianfranco decides to institute staff meals before instead of after service – a short-lived experiment – we eat together. The table is set in one of the rarely used end dining rooms until it becomes warm enough outside. We arrive in dribs and drabs, depending on any remaining customers. Gianfranco sits at the head, where his place is marked by a giant beer glass, from which he drinks his equal measures of wine and mineral water. We eat different things, although Cinzia tends to dine on whatever little delicacy Gianfranco has prepared. I slip effortlessly back into the soothing habit of eating the same thing nearly every night – an enormous salad to accompany the bread I love. It saves me thinking.
Occasionally, when he is at his most exuberant and magnanimous, Gianfranco suggests whipping up something for us all, and I eat one of Gianfranco’s specials. These are always exquisite, taking the form of his version of beef carpaccio, or pizza dough stretched thin onto a baking tray and then strewn with rosemary, garlic and coarse salt before being cooked quickly, or pasta with eggplant sauce. Or sometimes it is a steak tartare, for which he bends earnestly over the chopping board with his big knife breaking down a piece of the leanest meat into fine mince.
His mood dictates the mood of the table. At his most cheerful, he sweeps us all up into the beam of his humour with witty stories, jokes and comments about customers. But his ill temper sharpens the air with tension, which discourages conversation and hastens the meal to a joyless finish. The main reason why he decides to try out the notion of eating before service – I loathe it from the very beginning, finding that the meal and the two glasses of wine slow me down and dull me at a time when I most want to feel light, alert and empty – is because our late-night meals often tip over into the early hours of the morning, and generally we all drink too much. Grappa somehow finds its way onto our table amongst the debris of napery and breadcrumbs, and the smoking begins in earnest.
One night after service, I come across Vera on the landing that separates the stairs leading down to the restaurant and up
to our bedrooms. She has a jacket slung over her arm and holds her handbag. Calmly she tells me about the phone call from the hospital bearing the news that her husband has died. Her daughter is coming to collect her. Gianfranco later describes how she crumpled against him when the phone call came; now she just seems like her sweet and practical self. We all understand that she is to be absent for several days only.
When ten days have passed, Cinzia reluctantly installed in front of the dishwasher, Vera’s daughter rings to say that she will no longer be available to work for us. About six weeks later, she and her daughter return to collect her possessions – and this is the last we see of Vera.
Salsa alla norma
(Aubergine sauce)
Wash and cube one large aubergine. Fry cubes in deep olive oil until golden all over, then drain on absorbent paper. Add to the final ten minutes of simmering basic tomato sauce and check seasoning. Tear fresh basil leaves into sauce and serve with pasta, passing freshly grated Parmesan separately.
We are now in June, with summer gloriously in train, and beginning to be extremely busy. Two enormous Sunday functions – one a communion, the other a wedding – have already taken place, and there are more booked to come. On these days we work through to the night, with maybe half an hour to sit down in the evening before hurling ourselves back into it.
Gianfranco tries out several surly Moroccan travellers, who are unsuccessful dishwashers. He snaps at Cinzia, argues with Ignazio, and is sarcastic towards me. One day I look at Cinzia and see how thin she has become, her face permanently anxious. She loads and unloads the dishwasher in her dreamy, graceful, inefficient way. We are already tired of the heavy hot days that are only just beginning. Privately, I am happy with my apple lattice pies and the tarts. I curl creamy custard into them, and then pile up an abundance of glazed berries.
Gianfranco returns from the Sant’Ambrogio markets in Florence with wooden boxes containing punnets of more types of berries than I ever knew existed. Deeper into the season I will use blackberries gathered from the bushes lining Via Chiantigiana.
Crostata di frutta
(Fruit tart)
My perfect pastry
125 g butter
230 g (1 cup) plain flour
230 g (1 cup) self-raising flour
75 g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
1 egg yolk
3–5 tablespoons cold water
In a food processor (or by hand), work the cold diced butter into the flours until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add sugar, then egg yolk beaten with water. The mixture should come together in a smooth ball – neither too wet nor too dry. Wrap in plastic film and chill for about an hour.
Roll out and press into the removable base of a flan tin and up the sides (you won’t need all the pastry). Trim pastry, then line with baking paper and fill with dried beans. Blind-bake in a 180°C (350°F, Gas mark 4) oven until pale and crisp. Remove and cool, discarding the baking paper and beans.
Custard filling
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons caster sugar
3 dessertspoons plain flour
500 ml milk
Vanilla pod
Whisk together egg yolks, caster sugar and plain flour until thick and creamy. Bring milk and a vanilla pod to simmering point slowly over low heat. Remove vanilla pod then pour milk on to egg mixture, whisking well to blend. Return mixture to saucepan and, still whisking, keep stirring over gentle heat until thickened. Remove and cover surface with plastic film. When cool, dollop into cooled pastry shell and smooth.
Topping
Mixed berries
Apricot jam
Scatter mixed berries over the top to cover completely, then glaze with warmed and sieved apricot jam.
When World Cup soccer season begins in June, Gianfranco moves our communal television down into the outside bar area. Every Friday and Saturday night for a month, matches are held between various countries and Gianfranco has made it perfectly plain that, as of 10.00 p.m., when the match begins, he will not be available in the kitchen; if customers want main meals, they must wait for half-time. He sits beside Ignazio in his stained apron and his clogs and they smoke in rapt concentration, periodically puncturing the thick air with howls of delight or derision, while male customers form small circles around them.
In spite of the harmony with which we work together, and a tamer side to his wildness I noticed from the beginning – and especially in spite of my determination all these years later not to be affected by his tantrums – Gianfranco remains a perpetual source of tension and mystery. One minute he is being so loathsome that I feel only contempt for him, and the next he has brought into the kitchen, cupped in his large hands, a sparrow from whose head blood gushes, which those same large hands tenderly wipe away. He calls me over to look, attempting to get the feeble little beak to sip some of the water he has trickled onto his palm. The tears that shoot into my eyes have less to do with the poor bird than with my compassion for this man with these crazy mood swings. Randomly occurring, they always manage to redeem him, to render him forgivable and lovable.
Non c’è amore senza amaro
You can’t have love without bitterness
Tuesday is the day we close the restaurant. I invariably catch an early-morning bus into Florence and spend the day there. Gianfranco and Cinzia often travel to his village, while Ignazio tends to sleep until midday before linking up with friends. Sometimes he drives to hill towns like Montalcino and Pienza, returning with wheels of pecorino both fresh and aged.
One Wednesday morning Gianfranco erupts into the kitchen clutching a paper bag, which he thrusts at me, demanding that I open it. Even before I do, I recognise the smell, but am still unprepared for the vision of so many black Umbrian truffles, like nuggets of coal. Gianfranco’s smile is wide enough to split.
We set up a trolley outside, in the top dining area among all the tables, and adorn it with the pecorino, the truffles, fat fresh cappellacci pasta stuffed like little pillows with ricotta and porcini mushrooms, rolls of salamis, finocchiona and pancetta. Also included are the two baked ricottas Gianfranco discovered in Greve – one studded with rocket and the other with strawberries – a whole prosciutto, a bottle of balsamic vinegar and several straw-wrapped flasks of Chianti. He arranges deep-green vine leaves around the platter of truffles, and on the bottom shelf of the trolley, beside a pile of white plates, he places one of my berry tarts, a glass bowl layered with creamy tiramisu and a splendid torta della Nonna.
No one eats inside any more, and most nights the sounds of ongoing parties drift into the kitchen, the guests staying later and later. We rarely dine together anymore, either – I usually finish work well before everyone else, so I carry my large bowl of salad, bread basket and wine out to a vacated table to luxuriate in the bliss of finally sitting down, observing other tables, and eating and drinking my way through a soft, warm night.
Torta della Nonna
(Grandmother’s tart)
Pastry
350 g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
75 g sugar
150 g cold butter, cubed
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk, beaten
Whizz in a food processor until it comes together in a smooth ball. Wrap in plastic film and chill while you make the filling.
Preheat oven to 175°C (340°F, Gas mark 4).
Filling
600 ml milk
1/2 vanilla pod
2 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk, beaten
75 g caster sugar
65 g plain flour, sifted
75 g ground almonds
Slivered almonds and pine nuts
Milk for glazing
Icing sugar mixture
Heat milk with the vanilla pod to boiling point. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and
sugar until thick and pale, and whisk in flour. Remove vanilla pod from milk, scrape out seeds and reserve. Whisk while trickling milk into eggs. Pour mixture into saucepan and, over a moderately high heat, cook until thickened, stirring constantly with whisk. Remove from heat and beat in ground almonds and vanilla seeds. Cover with plastic film and set aside to cool.
Roll out the pastry and press into a greased flan tin. Blind-bake until crisp – around 10 minutes in a moderately hot oven. Cool, then fill with custard filling. Scatter over lots of toasted slivered almonds and pine nuts, then dredge thickly with icing sugar.
There occur the occasional days off when, in an anti-Florence state of mind, I catch a bus somewhere, anywhere – a randomly plucked village in Chianti.
One of the first lessons Gianfranco taught me was about Gallo Nero and the Chianti Classico wine zone. This was in the early days at the restaurant where we met and where I would type up the lists of wines, enchanted by the poetry of their names. That first restaurant was a celebration of Chianti wines, and its cellars – three, vast, low-ceilinged rooms at the back of the dining area – were crammed with endless bottles laid horizontally in wooden racks depicting every type, year and region. It was a collector’s dream. I learned that the Chianti Classico zone covers about 7,000 hectares between Florence and Siena; that the black rooster (gallo nero) appearing on the neck labels of many Chianti Classico wines is the symbol of the Consorzio del Vino Chianti Classico, a foundation of producers in the region whose aim is to promote the wines, improve their quality and prevent wine fraud; and that the wine must be produced with a minimum of eighty per cent Sangiovese grapes.
And so, to bump along roads which wind through valleys and hills gazing out the bus window at these familiar names feels like finding myself the character in a book I have read, as well as constituting a journey through towns, villages and vineyards that compose a list of Chiantis I have drunk: Impruneta, Radda, Castellina, Querciabella, Badia a Passignano, on and on through postcard countryside. Until, suddenly, I am inspired to alight. At Panzano, there is just one main road leading through a medieval town which was originally an entire castle among vineyards. It always amazes me that, despite the ongoing fashionability of Tuscany, there are so many villages where you may be the only visitor browsing in shop windows, having an espresso in a bar, taking photographs of church façades.
Amore and Amaretti Page 8