Fettunta al cavolo nero
(Garlic bread with cavolo nero)
Strip the leaves from the stalks of a bunch of cavolo nero, and drop them into boiling salted water until just cooked. Drain and squeeze out the excess water. Toast slices of rustic bread, then rub both sides with a clove of garlic. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil over this, then arrange cavolo nero on the top, grinding some black pepper over it, and drizzling with an extra thread of olive oil. Serve while still hot.
The chestnuts are here. Dotted around Florence are the braziers where they are toasted, then served in twisted cones of paper. Vito is telling us his preference when dealing with chestnuts: boil them in their shells with borlotti beans and a little bit of charcoal which, he claims, rids the chestnuts of their acidity. You then suck the flesh out of the shells. For the next month, he is explaining – clattering pots out of the dishwasher, hooking them up over the stoves, where they briefly swing – chestnuts are eaten with everything, and then you suddenly realise how sick of them you are. He talks about how rabbits become fat in this period by scraping the chestnut meat from their shells – which makes me briefly consider how delicious those rabbits might then be to eat.
One afternoon I make a dramatic departure from the kitchen in tears, due a combination of premenstrual tension and a reprimand delivered to Alvaro and me by Ignazio about our performance the previous Sunday lunch. (Gianfranco had been absent, Alvaro had been drunk, I felt that I had worked doubly hard to compensate and Ignazio had upbraided us both, furious, for the fact that we did not give Vito a hand.) I sit on my unmade bed feeling misunderstood and underappreciated and exhausted when there is a knock on my door. It is Vito, with a bowl of chestnuts for me to eat now while they are still hot. Feeling like a child, I eat the whole bowl in the dark, shakily, and cheer up.
A chi ha fame è buono ogni pane
All bread is good when you’re hungry
At least one afternoon each week, I board the bus for Greve with my bag of laundry. I drift, browsing through postcards on the racks in the arcade, pressing my nose to the glass of Falorni’s famous butcher shop, selecting a portion of cheese from the deli, sitting with a beer in the main piazza café. One afternoon Vito asks if he may accompany me. We stroll through the town, across a leaf-swirled stone bridge below which murky water stagnates, licking the gelati he has bought for us, not talking much. Then Vito completely astounds me: he asks me if I can give him ‘un bacino’ – a little kiss. Memories of Lorenzo in Florence all those years ago come flooding back. I feel briefly frozen, stunned by my failure yet again to interpret human behaviour. Suppressing the shock and revulsion I feel, I laugh his question off, clumsy as a teenager, mumbling words to the effect of valuing our friendship. And, in the same way that my rejection offended Lorenzo, I can see I am wounding stupid old Vito, who seems to withdraw into himself. The companionable quality of the air has shifted, and we return to town and to the bus stop in a silence heavy with reproach. I feel utterly miserable – Vito beside me on the bus with head turned away seems to be throwing out waves of venom through every pore.
From that afternoon onwards, our relationship is for ever changed. In the kitchen, he neither looks at nor talks to me, thus setting the pattern for the remainder of my stay. I tell Alvaro about the incident and he finds it merely amusing, and yet he is never in the kitchen when, together and alone, Vito and I work in silence, brittle with tension and hostility. I wait for Vito to stab me. I begin to dread being on my own with him, especially when I am obliged to deposit my pile of sweet-making paraphernalia on the sink for him to wash. He begins to snarl and swear and crashes them into the sink, muttering audibly for me to hear about how pissed off he is with the mess I always make with my ‘fucking desserts’.
The violence in both his voice and his movements terrifies me. I actually begin to rinse the chocolatey basins, the custard-filmed saucepans and the sticky sides of spring-form pans before taking them over to his territory. It makes no impression on the contempt he spits at me, and I am finally obliged to pour the whole story out to Gianfranco. Unlike Alvaro, he takes it seriously, though I can see how the episode constitutes another source of anxiety for him. I seek hastily to reassure him, when it is really me who so desperately needs that reassurance from him.
I find myself beginning furtively to count the days. The days, turning seriously cool, turning cold, are bringing fewer and fewer customers. Gianfranco prepares for his hunting trip down south in the company of Cinzia’s father. Pino, the butcher, will come and give Ignazio a hand – essentially, it will just be the five of us.
Each Wednesday I begin a diet, which lasts until Saturday evening when boredom or exhaustion compels me to cave in to the self-gratification of food. I am plump, or ‘in carne’ – meaty – as one of Gianfranco’s friends remarked jovially one day, with spectacular insensitivity. Once again I retreat into novels in my little perch up by the stove, while the others slump in front of televised football matches. I had vowed not to exclude myself, but I have no control over the wells of emptiness inside me, the need to be loved, hugged and reassured of my loveliness. Everyone irritates me: Ignazio and his moodiness, stupid giggling Cinzia, inexhaustible Alvaro, the utterly contemptible Vito spitting out his loathing for me in the safety of an empty kitchen. The bantering they go in for reminds me of children, and I long to be in the company of sensible, intelligent, calm adults who discuss interesting things.
There have been visits, though too rarely this time, from dear Piero. One night he takes me to a Pugliese restaurant in Florence specialising in horse-meat dishes, and over fatty salami which nearly makes me gag, I make a brave attempt at describing my life positively. And with him I am able; with him, away from La Cantinetta, I am reminded how much it is all giving me. And that, like last time, the measure of my dissatisfaction there is invariably the measure of my self-worth. I wish I could always see it this clearly.
‘Italia sì, Italia no. Una pizza in compagnia. La banda di buco!’ sings Alvaro as he swings into the kitchen for evening service. Shortly after lunch he had disappeared, driving his Fiat Bambino down the hill to visit a friend and to ‘take two or three glasses’. He is visibly drunk. He sets up his workstation sloppily, pouring himself more wine, fiddling impatiently with the radio dial, pinching the fold of flesh around my waist as he passes behind me. My heart sinks: this has happened before and it means carrying Alvaro through the evening, double-checking every order that comes in, ensuring Ignazio stays well away, praying we have few customers.
From my side of the stoves, I watch him discreetly over my pots of bubbling pasta: so much about the kitchen is anticipating several steps ahead, and I find I am doing this for both of us. Quartering radicchio hearts to be brushed with oil then grilled, thinly slicing bread for crostini, dunking battered vegetables into the deep-fryer: these are the little side-jobs we generally share in a harmonious, unspoken system and which I now assume on my own. At the same time I am anxious to keep Alvaro happy, so I humour him as well.
Then Ignazio brings back into the kitchen a plate of eye fillet steak, which he describes as disgusting, a disgrace, inedible – and at this point the blurry drunken amiability turns savage. As Ignazio leaves, Alvaro unhooks the side of beef from the fridge and brings it over to the chopping block, presumably to saw off another steak, but instead, his face contorted, he heaves the entire thing into one of the big bins. Vito and I look on shocked. Ignazio has seen nothing and I am racing over to Alvaro, telling him that everything will be alright and that we can wash the meat and I will cut the required steak, and even do the grilling, if necessary. I have watched both Gianfranco and Alvaro do the mains so often – many of them involve merely reheating; otherwise it is a simple matter of grilling or frying – so I feel confident. Alvaro is insisting he is perfectly fine, and then he is on the floor, his clogs scrabbling to re-establish a grip.
Radicchio al forno
(Roast radicchio)
Cut one radicchio in half (per serving) and place halves in a baking dish or small ramekin. Generously lace each radicchio with extra virgin olive oil, one crushed clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Place in preheated 180°C (350°F, Gas mark 4) oven until sizzling and golden, turn after 5 minutes and season again. Then roast for another 5 to 10 minutes.
This is a scene so farcical that I feel like laughing. If only the customers knew! If only Gianfranco would materialise at that moment! The enormous haunch of beef is still sticking out of the bin, enough Florentine steaks to feed thirty hungry men, and the head chef is in a comical sprawl on the floor, Vito and la Veeky in their mutual hostility unable to seek help from each other. Alvaro scrambles somehow to his feet, and the evening is able to continue, but my heart is pounding.
Amicizie e maccheroni, sono meglio caldi
Friendships and macaroni are best when warm
It just happens. One minute I am forking the last of the chicken salad into my mouth, wiping oil from its corner, stretching along the length of bunched-up sheets and blankets on Alvaro’s unmade bed, and the next Alvaro is crawling on top of me, breathing rapidly, his cigarette mouth covering mine. His hands are on my breasts, rippling down my thighs, and his tongue in my ear. I respond, the past month of feeling unloved and meaningless exploding into pleasure and the unfamiliarity of sex. I am not in love with this dear sweet man, yet our arms are fiercely claiming each other, returning me to a sense of my being the womanly, desirable self that I thought had gone: I love him for this. We wriggle around and kiss wetly, and then I manage to slow us both down, slide away, smile with sweet foolishness and button my jeans.
He lights a cigarette and watches me, amused, as I gather up my salad bowl and cutlery and empty wine glass and thank him ironically for having me and pad back to the room I inhabit down the hall. In the kitchen the following morning, I am relieved that it has changed little between us, that in the place of the self-consciousness I was fearing is, on the contrary, a lighter, freer air, and Alvaro’s hands on my waist when he walks past me remain a fraction longer than usual.
Gianfranco is showing us the ancient Tuscan method of cooking toscanelli beans in an empty Chianti flask. He tips them in and adds water, garlic, salt, sage and a little olive oil, then seals the neck of the flask with cotton wool. The flask is then placed onto a cloth in a deep pot of boiling bubbling water, where it will continue to cook for about three hours. By this stage, he tells us, the beans will have absorbed all the water and be ready to eat. I am already imagining them alongside one of Pino’s fat spicy sausages.
Hate and love swirl through the kitchen like waves of shimmering heat. Vito persists with his private war against me – my telling Gianfranco about it has not assisted at all – but in compensation there is Alvaro’s wink across the stoves, ‘una bella trombatina’ – a great fuck – whispered in my ear, and only several more weeks before it is all over, anyway.
Alvaro and I have succumbed to panting, hungry sex several times, the television turned up loud to prevent sleeping Vito from hearing anything, and I am conscious of feeling luminous, that near-forgotten sense of being desired and desirable. Plump I may be, but Alvaro wants me. Rita has barely visited in this latter period and I am grateful; tangled up with the luminosity is the treachery of my behaviour. I am aware, as well, that it is not properly love, this feverish coming-together of Alvaro and me, and more a neediness and a loneliness, a companionable exchange of comfort and caress. I smile inanely at unexpected moments.
Faglioli lessi
(Boiled beans)
Soak 500 g of dried cannellini beans overnight. The next day, cook them in their soaking water, together with 1 to 2 sticks chopped celery, 3 to 4 cloves of garlic peeled and chopped, 1 peeled and chopped onion, 1 roughly chopped ripe tomato, and salt. When they have come to the boil, lower heat and simmer until tender. Drain, check seasoning and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.
This is lovely as a vegetable accompaniment or toppled on to grilled, garlic-rubbed bread.
Even the baptisms and communion lunches are thinning out. Cinzia has been rarely with us, spending most of the time at Gianfranco’s apartment in Florence being a mother. Gianfranco, who never explains his disappearances and appearances, keeps us all on guard but is increasingly absent. I transform minestrone into a lush, dense ribollita and spend dreamy half-hours up to my elbows in a vat of bright-red oily oxtail sauce, gently separating meat from bone. Gianfranco dollops a ladleful of it into another pot of simmering leek risotto, to create a masterpiece of a new dish. He chops up a box of green tomatoes, softens lots of onions in butter and bubbles the tomatoes until they become a jammy sauce, which we serve with fusilli, grating pecorino thickly over the top. He tosses Vin Santo and strawberry liqueur into the giant pan of roasting pork – the perfume is glorious – and then adds the fresh chestnuts we have all previously peeled laboriously.
On to my plate of evening spinach sautéed with lots of garlic and chilli, I drizzle some thick green olive oil, brand new, delivered that morning by Mauro. It is mid-November and nearly time for me to leave. Alvaro tells me that I seem remote, a little detached: I am not ‘there in the head’ and I know exactly what he means, because I have already begun the process of removing myself, readying myself for the return to such a different existence, my little flat and the usual dreary cycle of a mostly ordinary life.
In a moment of mad impulse I decide that, before returning to Australia, I must dine at the Michelin-starred Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence and, furthermore, that I must dine there with Ignazio. I am aware that it is very expensive, but I am prepared to use my credit card: it is to be a combined birthday present to Ignazio, gesture of my affection and farewell treat to myself.
We meet as arranged in a little bar nearby. The restaurant is in the same street where we once shared an apartment, the same street where so briefly, another life ago, I had attended the Michelangelo Institute. Ignazio looks beautiful in a well-cut camel suit, his hair pomaded back, his eyes dark and dancing as he propels me through the giant iron gates and the grand, hushed entrance to the restaurant. We sit at a corner table in a room with chandeliers and stiff waiters. There is a rarefied air of luxury and benessere – well-being. The chairs pulled out for us by a waiter each are high-backed and solemn. There are fragrant flowers on a table busy with slender-stemmed crystal glassware arranged in neat rows and classical music murmurs.
It could almost be a scene from a play, and throughout the evening we speak in lowered tones. From the two different menus on heavy expensive paper we are handed, I whisper to Ignazio that we are obliged, for reasons of economy, to select the menù turistico, which offers a series of courses, without wines, for a mere 150,000 lire per head.
Entranced by everything, I feel as if every other diner there belongs to a privileged world that I have only read about and never encountered. The couple beside us who order off the standard menu and who barely speak to each other all night, he pouchy-eyed and she thin and taut, the silver teapot arriving to serve him tea with his main meal, which seems to exemplify the height of sophistication. The larger table of eight adults, whose features are chiselled and polished. The single elderly man, clearly a regular, judging by the familiarity with which he gestures to the waiter at his table, a nonchalance in the drape of the napkin, an air of bored refinement.
Each little course arriving at our table is more breathtaking than the one preceding it. We sip fizzy Müller Thurgau with the first few courses: a tumble of alici on panzanella and a dob of pesto; seared red mullet on fennel puree; potato tortelli with shaved white truffles. Then a soft Tignanello to accompany the pancetta-wrapped prawns on spelt; a fish soup; duck in a sticky balsamic sauce; more syrupy balsamic vinegar spooned delicately over a sublime chunk of Parmesan on a plate containing goat’s cheese and poached pears; the delicate flaky apple tart with cinnamon ice cream.
We eat in a sort of trance, two wa
iters hovering throughout to minister to our every need, topping up wine and water, whisking away and replacing plates soundlessly, almost invisibly. With our coffee arrive two trays of unordered dessert wine and miniature pastries, biscuits and petits fours, which look like jewels, too pretty to eat, though of course we manage. The bill comes to about 500,000 lire (€260), which seems, after I have prepared myself for 600,000, to suddenly be almost ludicrously inexpensive for all we have experienced. It is easy to leave a 50,000 lire tip, the cost of a meal for two at La Cantinetta.
Afterwards, Ignazio drives me to a noisy bar on the outskirts of Florence, where we drink more and where I appal myself by eating an entire bowl of salted peanuts. Throughout the evening we have been comfortable and close, although I feel we never really talk about anything that matters. I tell him I will always love him when he eventually restores me to Spedaluzzo, before driving himself back to Scandicci.
It is my final day of work. It is cold and sunny and on my last walk the air is sharply wintry as I power along, fuelled by hurt and rage towards Alvaro, who promised to join me in my bedroom the night before, after we made fantastic love in his, and who never appeared. The complicated directions he had issued me to avoid Vito suspecting, and the trusting way I trotted off to wake alone at six o’clock, are too mortifying, too reminiscent, moreover, of Gianfranco’s infidelities all those years ago. I am aware of how absurd I am being, and that the late little affair to which we robustly abandoned ourselves was as meaningless and as meaningful to both of us, but all I am feeling is that the emptiness after an affair gapes more widely than the emptiness that preceded it.
Amore and Amaretti Page 14