Every Day in Tuscany (29 page)

We have cooking lessons and lectures in the afternoons, art exhibits, short concerts in the piazza, a fresco workshop, a Renaissance lunch—it’s summer camp for grown-ups, with a dash of glam. One night, Robert Redford reads poems that have influenced his life. He’s here because his wife, Sibylle Szaggars, has a show of her recent paintings. Since we have a mutual friend, he kisses me on both cheeks when we’re introduced and says how much he’s been looking forward to meeting me.
Mamma mia
—Robert Redford, oh, how divine he was in
Out of Africa
. He invites us to lunch with several of his friends and I’m seated next to him. We eat
tagliolini al tartufo
, truffle pasta, and talk about books, books, books—Steinbeck, Faulkner, Stegner, and Thomas Wolfe, whose books he read when he made a movie in Asheville, North Carolina. He talks about studying in Italy when he was young and how he’s always loved this country. He asks Ashley all about her work. I hear him asking others about themselves and when I later remark on this to Ed, he guesses that “Bob,” as we may call him now, probably gets sick of hearing the same set of reactions over and over. “Think of how many people have asked what is his favorite film of all time,” he muses. “Imagine how many people have told him where they were when they saw
Butch Cassidy
, or how
The Way We Were
reminds them of themselves.”

“Maybe he found a way around how fame isolates you. The American obsession with celebrity is so sick. He has to deal with that every day of his life.” I would hate to be so famous. “Well, how generous that he tries to connect with others.” All during the week he’s here, I see him graciously attentive to those he meets. He must fight hard to remain a “normal” person.

The late-night dinners are exquisite. Enormous candelabra with wavering candles forming wax drip castles on the tablecloth, waiters pouring all the Cortona wines, stars mapped over the courtyard’s sky, the entrances of the musicians and singers with the guests clapping and shouting. Then we serve ourselves at the bounteous buffet and settle down with friends at the round tables, reliving the concert and hearing the gossip, for, of course, there are affairs and fits and dramas:
She has a stalker. He has his wife at the villa, the mistress at the hotel. He had a baby with an old girlfriend
. The festival photographer, Henry Fair, holds forth about environmental ruin, jumps up to photograph a diva, allows Willie to take pictures with his camera, jokes far into the night. Barrett, the founder, and a pianist himself, basks in the momentary triumph of the evening, before the niggling details of tomorrow can catch him. Ed, tanned in his beige summer suit, Laura in a stylish Roman sundress, the handsome tenor in black silk, torches casting dramatic chiaroscuro shadows on shoulders and brows, high laughter, laden tables—we are feasting in this ancient
cortile
and we are not so different from those who have done the same in centuries before us.
Luca, were you here, too, raising a glass some long-ago enchanted evening?

A
T
F
ONTE, WE
suddenly are invaded by baby
cinghiale
. Albano and Willie scour the confines where the electric fence previously kept out the beasts. They determine that the
cinghiale
are scooting under the wire. The big hog-mamas, not wanting their noses shocked, wait outside while the
bambini
rampage. With Fabio’s help, Albano strings barbed wire under the electric wire, but every morning, Willie leans out the window and gleefully announces, “They came back! There’s a
lot
of damage.” They rip grass from under the oak tree in their vain search for acorns. Then they claw down in the earth hoping for grubs. We piece back the grass clumps and Albano rolls the lawn flat. What marauders. I get the idea to lay wire fencing over their favored spot. Maybe they’ll learn and leave. This enrages them. They tear up more. They learn to tunnel under the wire. Then they discover the roses and add a new level of destruction. Ashley hears them snorting under her window. Albano finds seven asleep under the apple tree. I am sorry to say he bashes one with a shovel. With this bumper crop of boar, the hunters will be happy in September.

Ed chases two at midnight, shouting
“Via, via!”
and I watch him waving the flashlight as he stumbles in the dark. “Out, out!” he shouts. The spectacle of him going full tilt after wild pigs—I’ve never seen him in a more ridiculous scene. He’s incensed when I laugh. They’ve upturned stone paths. “Do you have a better idea?” he snarls. In the morning he decides on another line of stronger barbed wire and another electrical cord as well.

Coming home late, we spot four of these young Turks stopped in the headlights. Willie is delighted to make their acquaintance. I know he’s on the side of these renegades, as I am. Maddening they are, but something in Willie knows to approve their wildness, their midnight raids to get what they want from the real invaders of their hillside.

L
ASAGNE DI
V
ERDURA
Vegetable Lasagna

Pasta sheets, rolled thin, make lasagna an ethereal dish. I could write a book on lasagna. An old favorite, pesto lasagna, has about a hundred calories a bite. Worth every morsel! The cooked pasta is layered with pesto,
bechamella
, and
parmigiano
, topped with coarse bread crumbs. Another beauty—layer the pasta with
bechamella, parmigiano
, and lots of tiny veal meatballs. Some winning combinations for vegetable lasagna: zucchini and tomatoes; eggplant and peppers; roasted asparagus; caramelized onions and chopped parsley; yellow, red, and green bell peppers in separate layers.

Serves 4 to 6

6 sheets of fresh pasta

FOR THE BECHAMELLA SAUCE

4 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon thyme, chopped

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

FOR THE FILLING

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil or butter

1 minced onion

3 cups fresh vegetables of the season, chopped

Herbs that complement the vegetables

1½ cups
parmigiano

Butter and coarse, toasted bread crumbs, for the topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cut pasta sheets to fit a large baking dish. (Some of the middle layers can be in more than one piece.) Lightly oil the dish.

For the
bechamella
sauce: Melt the butter, stir in the flour, and cook together without browning. After 3 or 4 minutes, remove from heat and whisk in the milk all at once. Return to heat, stir, and simmer until the sauce thickens. Add the garlic to the sauce, along with the thyme, salt, and pepper.

For the filling: In a large pan, heat the oil or butter and sauté the onion and chopped fresh vegetables and herbs for 5 to 10 minutes, until almost tender.

Assembly: Cook one sheet of pasta until barely done, remove from the boiling water, and briefly drain on a dishtowel spread on the counter. Place the semi-dry pasta sheet in the lightly oiled baking dish and cover it with a layer of
bechamella
sauce, a layer of vegetables, and a sprinkling of cheese. Continue cooking the next pasta sheet as you prepare each layer. Add a spoon or two of the pasta water to the sauce if you’ve used too much on the first layers. Top the dish with buttered bread crumbs and more
parmigiano
. Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

T
ORTA DI
P
ESCHE DI
M
ELVA
Melva’s Peach Pie

Melva is certainly one of the most meticulous and joyous cooks I know—what you’ll find at her table without fail is exuberance of taste. She brings out plate after plate of wonderful tastes, and her husband, Jim, keeps the glasses full of Tuscan wine. Her antique napkins are big enough to curl up in after dinner and dream soporific dreams.

Melva prefers white peaches for this pie. If the peaches are not sweet enough, adjust the sugar. Here’s her recipe:

Serves 6 to 8

1 cup flour

½ cup white sugar, plus 1 tablespoon

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup unsalted butter, very
, very
(emphasis Melva’s) cold
and cut into cubes, plus 1 tablespoon butter

¼ cup ice water, with ice cubes floating in it

5 to 6 cups peaches, sliced

½ cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon flour

Juice of ½ lemon to prevent discoloration of fruit

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Pulse the flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor until they take the texture of small peas. Transfer to a bowl and add the water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing it lightly with a fork, adding a little more until it binds. It should start to stick together, but do not overmix. You don’t want it too wet or it will be tough, and if it’s too dry it will fall apart, so that’s why I like to use my hands. Make a ball, put it in a plastic bag, and flatten it a bit. Chill it for at least 2 hours. You can do it the day before, but not more than that. Then roll it out (see Note), put it in a 9-inch pie pan, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Combine the peaches, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, and lemon juice, being careful not to mix everything together until you’re ready to assemble the pie. Pour the mixture into the piecrust and cover the edges with foil to prevent browning. If you are using one crust, and have excess dough left, you can fold it over the peaches so it looks like a rustic tart. If you use the second crust, roll it out, place on top, crimp edges, and prick holes in the top. Bake for 20 minutes or until you can see the bottom of the crust start to brown a little, then reduce the temperature to 375 degrees F and bake for another 30 minutes.

During the last 10 minutes, remove the foil from the crimped edges.

Let the pie sit out for at least 40 minutes before serving.

N
OTE:
Melva sometimes adds chopped pecans (very difficult to find in Italy) to the dough when she rolls it out. The pecans go especially well with the one-crust approach
.