Simple Italy

Celebrating Your Inner Italian

Making Fresh Pasta in Tuscany

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This article first appeared in the October 2012 issue
 of the award-winning subscription travel newsletter Dream of Italy

By Walter Sanders

Flour and egg transformed into gossamer sheets of fresh pasta.

Flour and egg transformed into gossamer sheets of fresh pasta.

While staying at Villa Pipistrelli just south of Siena, our group visited nearby Stigliano. We were on a mission: to learn how make fresh pasta from scratch. Our teachers were two older women from the village. They were beautiful, gracious and patient. Pasta-making rookies began combining ingredients, and our enthusiasm was evident despite beaten eggs leaking from collapsed flour walls.

With the help of our lovely mentors, everyone finished their dough and formed it into a ball. All the balls were kneaded together, then rolled flat, cut, stuffed, trimmed and transformed into ravioli.

The site was La Bottega di Stigliano, a combination retail shop—specializing in locally produced agricultural products—and a restaurant. The building was a former casa del popolo, a people’s house where in olden times farm workers would meet to sell products. The casa also served as a social center. It was, in a sense, a one-stop shop where people could fill their baskets with food and make social connections. [Read more…]

My Husband Is In Tuscany

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Is Tuscany a state of mind? It has to be when your husband is there without you.

Mio marito è in viaggio in Toscana. My husband is traveling in Tuscany.

Am I envious that he is in one of the most desirable destinations on earth without me? Or that his last email so exquisitely described a day in Firenze that it seemed surreal?

No. Truly, no. It’s not that I’m that selfless. But I am glad that he’s in a place that gives him so much joy. And—full disclosure—every time I’ve traveled alone on a media trip to Italy, he has been totally supportive. To not reciprocate would make me seem really petty.

The grape vines after harvest at Tenute Silvio Nardi near Montalcino, Tuscany.

Walking this morning, I felt assured that my Inner Italian is always available to transport me. The crystalline September light took me back to my visit in Toscana a couple years back, on a trip sponsored by Donna Franca Tours. The air was crisp and the sun warm even though it was November and the weather had been chilly and drizzly. My group was visiting Tenute Silvio Nardi, a highly regarded wine producer near Montalcino. The grapeless vines shimmered with tinges of gold and burgundy.

We enjoyed an early lunch of salume, formaggi, e focaccia with the elegant Nardi Rosso di Montalcino. It was tasty but the aroma of simmering ragù cinghiale (wild boar sauce) coming from the kitchen was distracting me like crazy. On my way out, I stuck my head in the cucina to briefly meet the cooks Lucia and Marizia who were preparing tagliatelle to accompany the robust meat ragù for an event that evening. (That time, I was envious!)

The Nardi cooks with their hand-rolled tagliatelle.

I purchased a Rosso di Montalcino from a good year as a gift for my husband. One of my trip mates, noticing the price, asked if he’d appreciate the value. “Yes,” I replied with certainty, “he will.”

And he did.

Max, Wally and Lampredotto

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C’era una volta. . . once upon a time. . . Max (Massimo Melani) met Wally (Walter Sanders) in Firenze. Here’s the story in their own words.

The Basilica of Santa Croce holds priceless artistic and historic treasures.

Massimo
First, a few words about the Leather School: Workshop, Laboratory and Show Room of the finest leather goods situated in the old Franciscan monastery of the Santa Croce Basilica in Florence. It was a marvelous place, as were the splendid people working there.

It all started with the Patron Marcello Gori, the owner and director of the Leather School.

Those years in the early 1970s were characterized by a kind of elite tourism. And the Leather School attracted many of these well-traveled, wealthy tourists from around the world. Marcello Gori ensured that his sales and service personnel were first class as well. The staff was multilingual, elegantly dressed, rather good looking and with long experience abroad. I was one of those.

One day in 1972, the owner presented us a colleague, an American boy from Chicago—a certain Wally Sanders, very smiling person, who looked like a survivor from Woodstock or San Francisco–absolutely the first foreigner who was going to work with us.

[Read more…]

IACP Culinary Expo

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At the recent International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Expo in Manhattan, I journeyed vicariously to some choice Italian destinations.

Sonia Di Centa (left) engaged attendees with information about the culinary program at the Dante Alighieri language school in Siena, Tuscany.

First stop was at Arte & Cucina, la scuola di cucina italiana in Siena, affiliated with the Dante Alighieri language school. Representative Sonia Di Centa welcomed me to sit and chat about the programs.

She shared photos of the spacious modern teaching kitchen, housed in a historic palazzo in the center of the lovely medieval city where the famous Palio horse race is held. The hands-on classes, taught in English, range from a single session to a four-month program. The curriculum in Tuscan and other Italian regional cooking styles emphasizes fresh seasonal ingredients. Several programs such as Siena Magnifica and Internships combine cooking and Italian language lessons.

The gentleman slicing the prosciutto was born in Palermo and has lived in the U.S. for 30 years.

The images of the food preparation and finished plates had me swooning and wondering if I could apply for a scholarship. As interested visitors crowded the table for information, I bid Sonia arrivederci and headed for a snack of prosciutto di Parma. The representatives of the Consorzio—a conference sponsor—offered samples of 18-month-aged ham and 36-month aged ham. The elder prosciutto was so delicate it had to be sliced by hand.

Elizabeth Wholey (left) promotes her culinary tourism business.

Next, I visited Elizabeth Wholey, a transplanted Californian who has lived and worked in Umbria for 18 years. After a career in art and graphics, she visited Italy and never looked back. She renovated the home in which she now lives and manages Altabella, a cluster of casa colonica guest villas on the border of Tuscany and Umbria. Elizabeth also teaches cooking classes and caters for Altabella guests through her Amore Sapore venture.
I continued my passeggiata and arrived at the illy coffee display. Illy was a conference sponsor and their pop-up caffés  seemed to be everywhere throughout the sessions which suited me just fine. At the Expo, the barista worked two sexy red Francis Francis espresso machines.

As I sampled a caffé made from Ethiopian beans, I noticed the sign that summed up my afternoon.

Cucina Povera

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Pomodori, Fagioli, e Cipolline (Roasted Tomatoes, Beans, and Onions) Photograph by Andrea Wyner

As cultural tourists, who among us isn’t dazzled by the Tuscan sun? We see ourselves feasting beneath its rays: Platters laden with antipasti, pasta, bistecca all fiorentina, Sangiovese wine, and sweets . . . la dolce vita.

But Tuscans in their 70s, 80s, and 90s tell a story of a different table.

These old kitchen hands are the witnesses who inform Pamela Sheldon Johns’ latest cookbook Cucina Povera: Tuscan Peasant Cooking (Andrews McMeel). Johns, an American cookbook author who owns Poggio Etrusco, an organic agritourismo near Montepulciano, has written a cultural and culinary history of a by-gone world. [Read more…]

Tuscan Hot Chocolate

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Photo by Judy Witts Francini

My American ex-pat friend Judy Witts Francini lives in Certaldo, halfway between Florence and Siena, where she teaches classes at her Divina Cucina Cooking School.

I have to share her recent post of a decadent recipe for cioccolato caldo , hot chocolate that’s as thick as a pudding because it contains an obscene amount of melted bittersweet chocolate. Just looking at her photo of a mug of cioccolato caldo— set against the backdrop of snow that Tuscany’s been pelted with— warms my spirits.

Judy credits the recipe to Leonardo Vestri who has a chocolate/gelato shop in Florence. He sometimes spikes it with a pinch of hot pepper which is the way Judy likes it. I can’t wait to sip some by the fire! How about you?