Amore and Amaretti

by Victoria Cosford

  The next day, Gianfranco takes us to look at the villa. It confounds me, its warrens and entrances and dining rooms and staircases, its sudden little sitting rooms and archways and secret gardens. It dates from the fourteenth century and one of the rooms is still filled with furniture from that era. Several apartments are out of bounds, belonging to and constituting the home of an elderly family member; the rest of it is at the disposal of Gianfranco and his partners.

  The kitchen is enormous and the dining room gracious, formal and polite. There is an arbour outside, long tables under the arch of creeping vines where I imagine sitting until midnight on languid summer nights. Around the panels of one room are black-and-white photographs of dignitaries and celebrities coming to dine in the 1940s and 1950s. There is a very young Elizabeth Taylor and a youthful, dashing Shah of Persia. The grounds are glorious, with their beautifully manicured garden beds, fountains, statuary and huge ceramic urns of lemons trees.

  A wash of pride towards Gianfranco briefly suffuses me: the talent he has for finding the most beautiful restaurants in which to work. I am also seeing how much more grandiose an operation this is than any he has undertaken previously. The huge kitchen, for example, accommodates three chefs, including himself. Most of their work so far comes from wedding and communion parties of over a hundred people at a time.

  Standing in the middle of that enormous kitchen, I find myself feeling perfectly at home. The familiar low, wide pans containing simmering sauces invite me to give an occasional stir to their contents, and so I do, an instinct, the wooden spoon dipping through the unctuousness of a dark rich ragout, a peppery beef stew. Gianfranco’s second chef is a tall beautiful Albanian youth, who clears away stainless-steel bench space for me to set up my cheesecake-making paraphernalia; I can’t resist the opportunity to cook. The other chef is short, wiry and florid, and for a while the three of us dance around each other clumsily and politely as we establish our territories.

  Chocolate-hazelnut cheesecake

  Toast 3 handfuls of hazelnuts until golden, then rub off as many skins as come away easily. Set aside.

  Crust

  In a food processor, grind 250 g digestive biscuits to crumbs. Melt 85 g butter and add to biscuit crumbs together with 2 tablespoons caster sugar. Mix well and press into a greased spring-form pan. Chill while you make the filling. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F, Gas mark 2).

  Filling

  In a large bowl, add 150g (2/3 cup) of caster sugar to 600g softened cream cheese and blend well. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, then 3 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Coarsely chop the hazelnuts. Coarsely chop 150 g dark cooking chocolate, then fold through cheesecake mix together with two-thirds of the nuts. Pour into crumb crust and bake for about an hour or until set. Allow to cool. In a double boiler, melt 100 g of dark cooking chocolate. Scatter remaining nuts over cheesecake, then drizzle melted chocolate over the top. Chill at least an hour before serving.

  I am excited about seeing Ignazio. I had been told how he, too, had left La Cantinetta, met a woman, had a baby, bought a restaurant. Within two years, everything collapsed and so now here he is being waiter for Gianfranco all over again, single father of an eight-year-old daughter he sees twice a week. It is not lost on me the extraordinary coincidence of the three of us being together again a decade since the last time, as if we had been one smooth, untrammelled trio all along – something meant by it all.

  I hear his voice before I see him – and there he is, hair gelled back into a sharp peak, the same beautiful face I remember, the short compact body a little heavier. We hug tightly and I stand back: was his face always so spectrally white? Gianfranco has murmured mentions of drinking and gambling problems, and to be sure there seems to be a ruined beauty around my Botticelli angel. I always loved the way I could stand eye level to Ignazio and wrap my arms around his neck and we fit so neatly. I love this still. He makes us both an espresso from the coffee machine, which we gulp down, and then I am back to the cheesecake and Ignazio is clicking off to set tables. Smoothing the lemon cream filling onto the crumbed base, I have the strange sensation of never having left Italy at all, as if I am taking up precisely and seamlessly where I left off, like the trick photography that imposes a new entity within the outlines of the old. I have returned to my Italian persona.

  Into our midst explodes Gianfranco at his most baggy-eyed, early morning dissolute, barking out instructions to his chefs, stabbing numbers on his mobile phone, cigarette between his lips and the coffee grinder roaring. I slide the cake into the massive oven a little anxiously – Gianfranco has told me that the temperature controls are dubious – and take off to one of the dining rooms to study the menu while I wait for it to cook. Did I ever leave?

  Ciò che si mangia con gusto non fa mai male

  What you eat with pleasure can never make you ill

  Within three days my Italian has returned in torrents. William and I set out early each morning from San Casciano to catch a bus somewhere. It is mostly to Florence, except for one wet day, to San Gimignano, where we join convoys of tourists and squealing school excursions under a canopy of umbrellas. I rediscover the little piazza where eleven years ago I had listened, entranced, to a German flautist ripple through his repertoire, but I am disenchanted by the beautiful old town’s determined pursuit of tourism.

  Florence that first day threatens to be as disappointing. It is cold and wet and only barely May, so why these throngs of tourists? I charge ahead of William and lose him periodically. I want to feel moved, and nothing happens. Is it over-familiarity? Why is my heart not swelling? Everything begins to irritate me, from the buffeting crowds to the haughty waiters whose frosty disdain I do not remember. I pine for the lira, money whose value I understand, rather than the euro; it seems to me that everything has become inordinately expensive.

  Several nights we dine at the villa. This means filling in time till ten o’clock at night, when the preparation begins for the staff meal, which we are joining. There are few customers at this time of year and the process of becoming known is long and slow. The vast imperious dining rooms seem too lofty, too cold for the two or three tables of diners, and Ignazio in bow tie carving meat from a trolley looks stilted, anachronistic, in all that emptiness.

  When it comes time to eat, I have to force myself to slow down. I want to try everything on the table. There is soft, sweet pecorino cheese cut into wedges to accompany fresh broad beans, marinated artichoke hearts in their pool of green oil, Gianfranco’s heavenly peposa, a peppery beef casserole he used to make at La Cantinetta, a chunk of spicy salami to wrap inside the gorgeous, spongy hard-crusted bread which I am never able to resist.

  Peposa all’Imprunetana

  (Pepper beef, Impruneta style)

  Heat olive oil in a heavy pot with several peeled cloves of garlic and some rosemary sprigs, and brown 1 kg of diced blade steak in batches until brown all over. Add 2 stalks of finely chopped celery and 1 large red onion, finely chopped, together with 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns, freshly and coarsely crushed. (Place under tea towel and pound with meat mallet.) After about 20 minutes, slosh in 1 cup of red wine and bring to the boil, then simmer until wine has evaporated. Add 400 g of peeled tomatoes, extra water and salt to taste. Bring back to the boil, then simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours – or until meat is very tender.

  Other nights, Gianfranco drives William and me into Florence for dinner. We arrive late at noisy pizzerias in the centre of town and are naturally whisked to the best table and plied immediately with food and wine. I am remembering his habit of surly taciturnity at the beginnings of meals, when he is concentrating on eating, filling his wine glass several times over with mineral water, and only seeming to cheer up when he has finished eating, extracted a cigarette, splashed out wine.

  That first week is wet, cold and windy; outside each front door on every marbled level of Gianfranco’s building
are crowded umbrella stands. We dry our underwear on the column heaters and I am obliged to borrow a stylish blissfully cosy cardigan from Gianfranco, who has already issued me with a spare mobile phone. Everyone is using them constantly, flicking back the tiny covers with unconscious grace.

  I had expected to celebrate my birthday night at the villa, with visions of being fussed over and spoiled by ex-boyfriends and new friends. As it turned out, a wedding and two communion parties were booked for that date, so William organises a table at Nello restaurant, which had so enraptured us on our first night. Gianfranco is anxious that after dinner we come to the villa for cake and spumante.

  Nello is an experience utterly unlike the first night – I feel it the second we are led to our table by the waiter. In the brightly lit buzzy dining room, it seems we are the only non-Italians, the sole stranieri. Without Gianfranco I am trying to improvise, unsure what to choose from the menu, chattering too brightly to the haughty distant waiter. I suppress my irritation with everything – with the waiter, with William for drinking too quickly, but above all with the fact that on this special occasion the situation is just William and I exhibiting our standard greed and not even particularly enjoying our meal.

  We choose badly – my pheasant is dry, William’s lamb a little tough – and even the three types of crostini we order for the beginning are less luscious than they were that first night. I conclude privately that it is less to do with the absence of Gianfranco than with my state of mind. I had so wanted a special, fancy, unforgettable birthday dinner, even if it were to be just the two of us bravely celebrating. There is a candle on my cheese platter, a redeeming touch, and then the owner insists on driving us to the villa, where the final guests are departing and the cleaning up is taking place.

  In the end dining room, exhausted waiters are setting up for the staff dinner. Gianfranco is already seated and engrossed in podding broad beans, smoking ashtray at his elbow. We slide in at the long table, and in dribs and drabs the rest arrive to settle into the leisurely business of eating and drinking. Ignazio, shirt tails flapping and bow tie discarded, brings out a bottle of the Cartizze Gianfranco promised me the day we arrived, flutes are filled and a huge chocolate cake brought to the table with a spitting sizzling sparkler on top. Everyone sings ‘Tanti auguri a te, tanti auguri a te, tanti auguri a Veeky, tanti auguri a te’ and I could weep at the loveliness of it all.

  The following day, grey and moist, Paolo, Silvana and I drive William into Florence to catch the train to Rome. I stand on the platform smiling fiercely at the windowed face of this exasperating, beloved friend of mine who I am suddenly missing, even before the train has pulled out. Then he is gone, and I am still standing there on the rapidly emptying platform, aware of a swelling of such freedom and possibility that I am for a moment frozen. Where do I begin? Two entire weeks of Italy, the keys to Gianfranco’s mostly vacant apartment a bus ride away, a smart mobile phone, old friends to seek out or surprise, and old stamping grounds to recover.

  Silvana and I begin at the little San Casciano market held every Monday near the main bus stop. Stalls create three aisles of shopping along the ridge whose dramatic drop throws up a vision of almost clichéd Tuscan countryside. I trail behind Silvana, who knows most of the stallholders, haggling, joking and filling her jewelled fingers with carrier bags in the process.

  Sunlight is splintering stubbornly through the damp fuggy air, the first real sun I have seen since the day we arrived. I need everything and nothing. I dither over a pair of shoes I like, but when Silvana urges me to buy them, I change my mind. She has bought underwear, two sets of bedlinen and three boxes of shoes, and is now selecting Parmesan from the mobile cheese van. The food aisle features several of these makeshift delicatessens and I plant myself in front of each, absorbing sights and smells and enjoying the lively bargaining taking place around me. Huge wedges of several types of Parmesan, wheels of pecorino, both aged and sweet, fat plaits of creamy white mozzarella, blocks of Gorgonzola, goat’s cheeses, pale craterous Emmentals: this is my vision of heaven. Alongside are cured meats, haunches of prosciutto, giant mortadellas and tiny crinkled sausages and salamis, and a whole roasted suckling pig sliced through its gorgeous lacquered coat.

  Behind me I can hear Silvana’s laughter peel out across the morning. I turn and watch her joke with the greengrocer, whose fingers are testing asparagus spears for firmness. Glossy zucchini and broad beans and artichoke hearts nestle alongside mangetout and green beans, aubergine and capsicum, four varieties of tomato, frilly lettuces, fat globes of fennel, bunches of celery, pert little radishes – produce so fresh I can almost hear it squeak. Silvana is now gathering me up, thrusting carrier bags into my arms, organising to meet me outside Nello at half past twelve so I can join her and Paolo for lunch.

  I order a salad, Silvana, crostini and prosciutto followed by chicken; and Paolo, grilled liver. He pulls bread apart absently and reminisces about the bachelor period in his life when he sat at the same table of Nello every single day until Silvana came into his life. The talk turns to Cinzia, the only woman Gianfranco had been involved with whom he did not betray. Yet she believed that he did, terminated the relationship, somehow wrested the restaurant from his control, took it over and eventually bought out the last remaining partner.

  Paolo and Silvana do not hide their contempt for her. I listen carefully and insert occasional questions. There is still much I fail to comprehend. How could she throw him out of a restaurant of his own inception, a restaurant so successful that there would be queues of people waiting to get in? How could she ensure that he received nothing at all for everything he had done? There seems no justification for such a cruel act of revenge. Paolo tells me how Gianfranco slunk away for six months to lie low, barely seeing anyone. Then the opportunity of the villa arose.

  La Cantinetta is now a mere half the restaurant it once was, and mostly panders to tourists. I ask desultory questions about Gianfranco’s love life, the string of women – mostly foreigners – who fall in love with him and whom he drops with regularity. The only time Gianfranco and I are really alone in the ten days I am his guest is when we go to the Metro, the vast wholesale emporium on the outskirts of Florence. When he was teaching me how to cook, we used to go regularly on shopping trips that were the stuff of fantasy and spend extravagant amounts.

  This experience is both the same and different – twenty years separate us from the two people we once were. When we arrive, we procure one of the huge, ungainly trolleys and proceed up and down the aisles, me pushing and Gianfranco loading. Rounding a corner into an aisle of tropical fruits and punnets of multicoloured berries, we are suddenly standing face to face with a man so familiar, whose mouth splits into a wide smile of pleasure as he says, ‘How lovely to see you both!’ We chat for several minutes, then move on and I hiss to Gianfranco that I do not remember who it is. ‘Neither do I!’ he laughs. We both laugh. Afterwards I do remember his name and recall that he was a waiter at a restaurant we frequented, but it must have looked for all the world as if Gianfranco and I had been together all these years in one unbroken thread.

  Being with Gianfranco this time is so comfortable, it is almost familial. Here we simply are, devoid of any of the tensions associated with sex and work, two grown-ups connected by such a fond mesh of our younger, sillier selves. It is not that I find him unattractive – dressed up as he was on the first night in smart black trousers and flowing white shirt and polished pointy boots, he was meltingly lovely – it is that I know him too well, and so the nature of the chemistry has altered. During the course of the journey, he has become enthusiastic about ways to extricate me from my ongoing impecuniousness, computes with speedy calculations how a little business of private catering could rescue me, reels off simple menus, the ideas tumbling out in his lazy Umbrian accent, the cigarette waving circles above the steering wheel. The man becoming passionate fleetingly, then losing interest, distracted quickly, but the mind, like an ov
erexcited heart, almost audibly hammering out the rhythm of rapid thought.

  Quando la pera è matura, casca da sè

  All things happen in their own good time

  Meanwhile, I am re-establishing contact with other people. The day William leaves I find my way down to the villa, earlier than usual, a book to keep me company. I walk into the back dining room, which to my surprise contains tables and diners, and there at the head of one is Fabio, our jack of all trades from La Cantinetta. I am enchanted and swoop into his embrace. I always loved this big bear of a man and I would periodically meet his English partner, Lidia, in Florence for coffee. Lidia is there, as well, talking with a couple I dimly recognise; a chair is pulled out for me, wine splashed into a glass, a wheel of fresh, bulgy pecorino cheese and a basket of broad beans pushed in my direction.

  At a corner table sit three girls whose peals of laughter pierce the formality of the gracious room with its high ceilings and vast mirrors. Around an ice bucket they are waving their champagne flutes with animated gestures and blowing out ribbons of smoke. Lidia whispers that they are call girls from Moldavia, and suddenly the periodic visits to their table by the waiters and Gianfranco make sense. Beppe, in his bright waiter’s shirt, has seated himself at their table: it has now become a compelling piece of theatre. Lank-haired Gianfranco has emerged from the kitchen, stomach sculptured into a globe by apron strings. He leans over our table, graciously hosting, before joining the call girls’ table, to which my eyes drift back.