Amore and Amaretti
Page 11
I teach Italian cooking classes in art galleries, pub kitchens and private homes. In between, there are private catering and short-lived jobs in dubious cafés. Most of all I harbour a sick sense that nothing is working out. I imagined that by my early forties I would be neatly married with three children – and now I don’t even have a boyfriend. Acutely lonely, I make the social rounds of dinner parties, restaurants and meeting people for drinks, most of it adding up to emptiness and pointlessness. I launch into an unwise affair with an old friend who has been with the same partner for years; it is as unsatisfactory as all such flings are, because, of course, he doesn’t leave her for me. On the one hand, there are more acquaintances with whom to socialise expensively and excessively than I want, and on the other an obsession with the gym and self-control.
The sun in my eyes one Friday evening prevents me from seeing the semi-trailer parked by the side of a busy road and I slide smoothly into it; had there been a passenger beside me he would have perished. Living inner city, I decide thereafter to rely on public transport. A job at a deli crops up, and I accept it with relief – running my own business had been a mistake – only to spend the ensuing months, however, becoming steadily more miserable as the boss chips away at my naturally precarious self-esteem until there is little left. It is almost a relief to be fired, although it means the ignominy of unemployment benefits (at my age – with my talents, skills and education!) and the round of job-hunting. And wondering why I am amounting to nothing, in spite of Italy.
Book Three
1996
Spedaluzzo, near Florence
Chi trova un amico, trova un tesoro
He who finds a friend finds a treasure
Donatella is the one blamed with sending Ignazio, in his new, sleek, silver car, into the wall. I am to hear the Donatella story later on – thanks largely to Alvaro’s great affection for gossip. At a great speed, and with blithe disregard for both seatbelts and prior intake of alcohol, he has managed to smash not only the car but also a large proportion of the bones from his right shoulder down to his wrist.
Gianfranco assures me over the phone, eighteen months after we last spoke, that the car’s condition is terminal, whereas – ‘Grazie a Dio!’ – Ignazio’s is not. He is, however, a one-armed member of the operation for now, requiring intensive physiotherapy and not being of much use to La Cantinetta, which is why I am being asked to step into the breach, as it were. And is also why I am, yet again, boarding the train from Rome to Florence dazed with jet lag after the endless flight.
An incident with knives at Fiumicino airport indirectly led to the loss of the bulky fur-lined jacket I arrived in and gratefully shed in the heat of a late European summer. My favourite chef’s knife and paring knife were forced by law to travel separately from the rest of my luggage, sealed firmly inside a plastic bag and accompanied by several stern documents that I had laboriously filled out at Sydney airport. There is a collection area at Fiumicino where dubious objects like knives are to be claimed, but after several visits, enquiring of several officials, my knives never materialise. I am back in my beloved Italy, though, and while it is disappointing, the loss of the knives seems entirely unsurprising. (Months later I ask Gianfranco to help me to construct a careful letter to the airport describing my experience. The fact that the letter is never answered also comes as no surprise.) I do feel sad about my jacket, which in my dazed state I presumably left on the train. However, I comfort myself with the prospect of being obliged, towards the end of my stay here, to buy a new one.
Meanwhile, the train is sliding me through hot lime and gold August countryside, the gentle curves of the hills, a sudden river crossing, car factories, a silver gas tanker moving through an avenue of green. We rush through the brief coolness of tunnels; some are so long you forget it is daytime, and then you burst into green and sunshine, your ears popping. Half-broken houses of stone, ruins taken over by ivy perched on hilltops, white roads twisting out of sight, calves lying hotly in fields beside their gently grazing mothers. Gallese, Settebagni, Orte – the towns swish past. Bassano, Attigliano…
I am only to be in Tuscany for a few months, just to help out over the end of a very busy summer; that factor, coupled with the sheer familiarity of my expectations, enables me to barely consider the negative aspects of two years ago. All it takes, then, is the sight of Gianfranco pouchy-eyed and rumpled hair waiting for me at Florence railway station, his face splitting into joy when he sees me, to make it all feel like coming home.
Yet, so many things are different. There is Tonino, for a start, a sturdy toddler with Cinzia’s dark beauty and – in evidence already – Gianfranco’s personality. There is also Vito, a sixty-something dishwasher whose cheery grandfatherly features both reassure me and remind me (obscurely) of someone from my past. He is leaning in front of the television positioned on the kitchen counter when we arrive, watching the Palio, the annual Siena horse race, with rapt concentration. The kitchen itself is different: now the stoves form an island in the centre of the room so that there are two distinct working areas.
I fling myself into Alvaro’s arms, delighted that the old kitchen hand is still there. Gianfranco told me on the journey home that when I left, two years earlier, he trained Alvaro to take my place. Now that I am back, Alvaro will take Gianfranco’s position as head chef and I am able to resume my usual role as assistant. Ignazio, thinner and paler, has one arm in an elaborate sling. Ever since the accident, he has been living back at his parents’ apartment in Scandicci, enabling me to occupy his large bedroom for the duration of my stay. This bedroom has nearly the same outlook as my previous one had, the green-shuttered windows opening out onto the main road of Via Chiantigiana, the white road disappearing behind ornate wrought-iron railings opposite. The first thing I do is to fling open the windows, then the shutters, and drink in the view and the sounds and the smells, and let the landscape part gently to readmit me.
Ne ammazza più la gola che la spada
Gluttony kills more than the sword does
It is the weekend, and I am already being persuaded to accompany Gianfranco, Cinzia and Tonino to the Isle of Giglio the following Tuesday. Barely unpacked, I prepare a small overnight bag of mainly swimming attire; we will only be gone for two nights. Setting off after service on the Monday night brings back, with a rush of affection, all those times years ago when Gianfranco and I would drive to his village. The drive itself feels similar, late at night and alcohol-fuelled, with the car’s headlights carving tunnels out of the blackness and the glowing tips of Gianfranco’s cigarette – the only major difference being my position in the back seat and Cinzia’s tanned arms enfolding a sleeping child in the front. We arrive at the port at four o’clock in the morning and have several hours to sleep uncomfortably before the ferry departs. I sleep fitfully, briefly, and quietly let myself out of the car just as the sun begins to rise to wander through foreign deserted streets in pursuit of a toilet, in a daze composed of lingering jet lag, tiredness and a seedy hangover.
By the time the ferry arrives, the sun is already scorching rooftops and searing my pallid winter skin. Gianfranco brings coffee and pastries to wake us up properly before driving the car on board. I feel as if I could sleep for a week, but remind myself stoically that the little island escapade will be a perfect pause before launching into three months of hot stoves and long, exhausting hours. Silvio and Carla, Cinzia’s parents – at whose holiday house we are staying – are there to meet us and escort us home. They have been on the island all summer and their limbs are the colour of chocolate.
That first day is a series of pleasures. Silvio and Carla take us out on a boat, where we drift for several hours in turquoise water, periodically splashing overboard to seek relief from a blazing sun. Carla fascinates me; covertly I observe the mesmerising way she rubs oil on a perfectly toned body barely reined in by the briefest bikini, her long scarlet fingernails turning pages of a magazine. She f
requently applies lipstick with the aid of a tiny mirror. I know from Cinzia that Carla and Silvio met at ballroom dancing classes twenty-odd years ago, and that she has continued the twice-weekly lessons ever since. I am impressed by her glamour, but uneasy about such an excess of vanity. Her neck stretches swan-like out of the water as she doggy-paddles in neat circles around the boat, her fashionable hairdo intact, while the rest of us bomb noisily and swim heartily. Much later, under a canopy of bougainvillaea, we sit down to endless courses of food in the company of Cinzia’s brothers and various family friends, who have brought contributions of wine and pastries, cheeses and fruit. We eat and drink long into the night.
Something I eat at the fabulous feast that night manages to ruin the following half-day we have on this island before heading back. The abdominal cramps can only be dealt with by sitting in shallow water at the beach and making regular dashes to the public toilets. All around me holidaymakers robustly hurl themselves into the day. I listen to most of the life story of one of the women who dined with us the previous evening, and then it is time for us to leave, to catch the ferry to the mainland and head back to La Cantinetta. I am apprehensive about my delicacy on the ferry, but in fact halfway through the journey I become extremely hungry. By the time we are back on land, I am almost euphoric with health.
I am astonished at Alvaro’s transformation of my old room. His double bed occupies three-quarters of the space, and the rest is a clutter of table and chairs, stereo system complete with enormous loudspeakers, television set, pile upon pile of magazines, a wobbly bookshelf stuffed with more eclectic reading matter, huge ugly ashtrays filled with cigarette butts, a gnawed teddy bear in a soccer jersey, flasks of wine. Clothes, both clean and dirty, drape over every available surface. It exudes cosiness and indolence, unlike the austere bedroom I have moved into, where quivering cobwebs drape from the high ceiling. Every time Gianfranco and Cinzia drive away late at night, it feels as if we are children left alone by unsuspecting parents, to run riot if we choose.
Gianfranco’s menu has additions to, and subtractions from, the one two years ago, though some dishes, clearly those that have become his signature ones, are still there. Although I have arrived in the second half of summer, there is still the plethora of gorgeous summer produce dictating the food we make. Furthermore, Gianfranco’s funny little garden out the back has now developed into a glorious source of herbs, fruits and vegetables, which we plunder with regularity. There are too many figs, and many lie scattered and skin-split at the base of their trees. They are perfect mashed onto roasted bread.
Crostini con finocchiona e fichi
(Little toasts with fennel salami and figs)
Slice a breadstick thinly and bake slices until crisp. Mash fresh figs in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Spoon a small amount on to each crostino and drape elegantly with paper-thin slices of finocchiona, fragrant with fennel.
It is such a pleasurable process carrying with care the tiny zucchini or perfectly ripe tomatoes from the garden into the kitchen and transforming them into a dish, and imbued with a meaning greater than the sum of the small gestures involved. I love most the bay leaves that I snap from their tree, their almost medicinal aroma and especially the note they add to the salsa di guanciale, which I make every few days. This is a spectacular pasta sauce made of ripe plum tomatoes and quantities of guanciale – the bacon-like flesh taken from the cheek of a pig with a fat ratio equal to that of the meat. The guanciale is sliced into batons five millimetres thick, and added to lots of thinly cut red onions in a large pan, where the flavours intermingle and they turn translucent. Dried chilli is crumbled in at this stage, then a generous slosh of white wine, and finally the tomatoes, which are cut into spicchi or thin wedges. And then, the bay leaf! The sauce is brought to a boil, then reduced to a simmer, and after forty minutes it acquires a consistency both jammy and unctuous. It is sublime tossed through spaghetti.
Upstairs, in the space separating Vito the dishwasher’s tiny bedroom from Ignazio’s larger one, Gianfranco has created a chaotic storeroom to house box after box of wine and mineral water, but also culinary provisions and general junk. I search through squashed cartons until I triumphantly retrieve my set of spring-form baking pans and fluted tart tins. I come across other treasures, like boxes of Tortagel (to glaze cheesecakes and fruit flans) and sachets of vanilla-scented baking powder. There are also endless tins of prunes, purchased by Gianfranco well before my time, to turn into desserts for which he lost inspiration and which, two years previously, I had gradually been using up in moist chocolate cakes that I christened Wombat Cakes. Gianfranco tells me that, for several months after my last departure, customers would drive from Florence to La Cantinetta for a slice of my cheesecake, only to meet with disappointment. Fired with self-confidence, I launch into my dolce and, as usual, I am met with an ambivalent attitude from Gianfranco, whose tolerance of my sweet-making is determined utterly by his mood.
The task of washing up my chocolate-coated basins and saucepans, my flour-encrusted chopping boards and rolling pin, my batter-sticky bowls and whisks, starts as a source of amusement for Vito. Those first weeks I am still a novelty. I have no idea what drama is ahead. Meanwhile, I have decided to enrol in a Cordon Bleu course in pastry-making, held conveniently each Tuesday evening over eight weeks in Florence where, as before, I am generally to be found on my day off.
L’appetito vien mangiando!
Appetite comes while you are eating!
Ignazio props his torso on a bench-top and swings the arm which is not in a sling from side to side, looking so like an elephant swinging its trunk that I burst into laughter every time. He smiles wanly – since his accident, he seems permanently wan and somehow diminished – but we are getting along well enough. His father drives him to and from the restaurant, and it is clear that he resents the loss of independence. I have yet to meet his girlfriend, the famous Donatella, of whom everyone speaks in tones of both awe and amusement, and who apparently also does a lot of the ferrying around of Ignazio.
Lemon cheesecake
Crust
1 packet (250 g) digestive or wheaten biscuits
85 g butter, melted
3 dessertspoons caster sugar
Process the biscuits to fine crumbs and combine with melted butter and sugar. Press into greased spring-form pan and chill while making filling. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F, Gas mark 2).
Filling
170 g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
600 g cream cheese
Dash vanilla essence
Grated rind 1 lemon
3 eggs
Work the sugar into the cream cheese until well amalgamated. Add vanilla and lemon rind, then the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour into chilled crust, then bake for about an hour or until firm and set.
Gossip gleaned from Alvaro and Cinzia reveals that several years previously Donatella and Ignazio were involved, turbulently, then broke up, only to resume the relationship earlier this year. No one seems to actually approve of Donatella or her effect on Ignazio. Surprisingly, it is Gianfranco who has the few positive things to say about her. (When I meet her, I understand immediately; they are of the same mould.) It was after one of their high-spirited arguments that Ignazio tore off into the night and crashed his car. Somehow one-armed Ignazio manages most of his front-of-house duties, although they are more about public relations. Gianfranco, freed from the kitchen, breezes from table to table being his glorious exuberant self.
Alvaro and I have taken very little time to settle into our positions. In the mornings, with Vito stacking the dishwasher quietly in his corner, I am conscious of the absence of tension as just the two of us work our way through preparation and cooking. Tension is always around Gianfranco, whatever his mood. Alvaro is even and jolly; he whistles and sings along to the radio and comes up behind me to place his hands on my waist.
I return invigorated and sweaty, and shower in the nasty bathroom, Vito and Alvaro still asleep. First into the kitchen (like last time), I perform the ritual of setting up: the enormous pot – or bagna – filled with water, salted and straddled across a low flame of gas, the ovens lit, the radio and espresso machine switched on, my list of things to do consulted. Wet-haired Alvaro whistles his way in, secures the apron strings below his paunch, and organises a cigarette and shot of strong coffee.
Gianfranco’s four-wheel drive clatters across gravel to a halt mid-morning and the texture of the air changes immediately. Even though he is not in the kitchen with us, his moods continue to be the barometer by which the rest of the day is measured. He is unloading box after box of fruit, vegetables and meat from the markets where he shops daily, and the kitchen is cluttered and chaotic until we have unpacked and dispatched the produce. Cinzia floats and wafts: motherhood has brought out a silliness in her that I had not noticed before, or perhaps it has become her defence at being barked at by Gianfranco.