PANICALE, Umbria, Italy–Simone and Lorena are married. You saw their engagement announcement right here. And, if you have ever been to Panicale you would remember Simone. He’s our buddy at the bar, Aldo and Daniela’s only child and heir apparent of Café Bar Gallo. That is the institution that is the lifeblood of the town. They serve good coffee and good cheer and spread caffeinated sunshine all over all of us who wash up on these shores, local or foreign.

Lorena is from Sicily and they were really married a week ago there in 80 degree temps. People in the wedding party were swimming in the Mediterranean! But now everyone is back and taking the celebration local. So they had a dinner for a few friends.

A FEW HUNDRED OF THEIR CLOSEST FRIENDS

Imagine having five hundred friends over for dinner. It happened at La Lupaia outside Panicale for this “wedding of the century”. Food and wine flowed in great waves. Nine piece band with a singer and a brass section. The party started at seven pm and by 7:20 when we got there, there were already tons of cars and people. And food. What starts at seven in Italy? And on time? Now we know. Big old wedding feasts. Aldo met us at the gate and told us to get eating and get drinking. Several entire hogs were raised for and met their demise in service of this event. Aldo introduced us to a big, cheerful mustachioed guy named Mario who raised those pigs specifically for this. And so, without further ado, we literally stepped into hog heaven. Multiple porchettas, sausages at the grill sending smoke column up into the sky. Cooking staff in matching shirts, red aprons and traditional straw hats were carving up a storm and trying to stack up as many panninis as they could in advance of the rush.

Oh man, look what we have here: fagioli. Beans with bacon! Wow. At the bar this morning (yes, back at work already) Bella Siciliana Lorena was saying “Beans? Everyone was so excited they were on the wedding menu and I thought why ARE people going on about them. Beans, at a wedding? OK, fine. THEN I tasted them. I GET IT NOW.” Killer beans. Sausages were really something too. Made locally for the occasion. Mai ho mangiato altre piu buono. And the pasta, and plates of meat of every stripe. Huge tables full of everything being served by staff of La Lupaia, but they ran steaming plates of it around until you couldn’t see straight. Yes, Lupaia means wolf’s house named for the nature preserve the restaurant is set in. And wolf was almost the only thing not on the menu for this feast. Four foot long loaves of bread or three foot wide round ones, were hollowed out and filled with panzanella that rang Midge’s Panzanella Meter.

OMG. Just shoot me! You would have to probably shoot me to keep me from going back for more or saying yes to the servers forcing their wares steaming hot upon us. The prosecco servers were doing a fine job distributing their wares as well. Plus red wine, plus white wine, plus water plus stop stop stop, ok, one more. More food than truly imaginable and it was stellar.

And the cake. So good it caused a fine feeding frenzy. The same bakery that makes Bar Gallo’s daily pastries made this snow white mountain of a cake. Now, Italians have always seemed to me, to be passively disinterested in dessert as a food category in general. I’ve always thought they could take it or leave it. Not last night. No leaving anything during this special night. It was like a lifetime of cake deprivation had set in, prisoners rushing the gates at liberation. A cake stampede you had to throw yourself into at great risk of life and limb. Huge wedding cake stripped to nothing in moments. Other cakes without number being cut and carved as fast as the servers could fling them. Oh, the plates of cake were flying. Everyone came away smiling. All good. The happy couple beaming, their friends and family excited for them, the party a massive success and an inspirational way to start a married life.

——————
THE. NEXT. DAY.

Hmmm. What is that ringing noise? What time IS it? Where’s my sunglasses? Going out for coffee this morning I’m like what the heck. Lost in the confusion of the evening. Sunny out when we arrived more like midnight when we got home. Slept till ten when door bell rang. Sorry. Maybe later.

Went back to the location of the party (scene of the crime and all that) and one person who seemed to be the boss of the place knew exactly where my glasses were. Favorite glasses. Office present. Found them and found a new baby lake with walking paths by the party place.

Wandered home (a mere five minutes) and the town around our gate was choked solid with every kind of motorcycle or ATV ever made. Wonderful show. Does the party ever stop here?!

WHERE DID THAT 24 HOURS GO?

And we haven’t even talked about the Santa Margherita festivities yesterday in Cortona with hundreds in costumes and pomp and splendor. Nor the airshow in Castiglione del Lago. What a 24 hours. We’ll serve up other photos and stories later. Simone gets his story first. He was up till who knows when last night and was slinging coffee by early light and when we came in said “when will we see the pictures on the blog?” Since he is the purveyor of the life-giving nectar around here I’m thinking he has the lowest number and is being served right now. Complimenti a tutti!

A presto,

See you in Italy!

Stew

PANICALE, Italy, Umbria–They celebrate their Fourth of July on April 25th. It is much more recent history here as this is their Liberation from the big war. Hard to imagine this languid, pastoral countryside covered in rack and ruin and everyone scared and hungry. Try not to think about it but there are monuments in every town, so the liberation from those dark times is something to celebrate.

When we pulled our Rent-a-Fiat into a parking spot under the countessa’s palazzo yesterday, this poster was under our car’s nose. I’d been describing to our friends at our design and marketing company how Italian sometimes use the exaggerated photo dot as a graphic element so this got my attention first. But the words worked very well too. We used the same big dots devise in the art for Paul’s delivery Ape. Photos just arrived!

This festa today is a good example of the feared multi-tasking that we sometimes get ourselves into, it’s a festival three ways that we know of. First, Independence Day and supposedly everyone is off work. But there was Linda and family in front of their store as usual. Yolanda too. “What the heck?” was how I believe I phrased it to them. Oh well, there were 30 camper trailers washed up on Panicale’s hilltop, full of happy campers. Until they found out they were about to starve because it was a holiday. So, Linda implied they HAD to open for that opportunity. I do confuse easily, may have this right or may not. All I know is everything is supposed to be closed and it is all open.

Second, Happy Easter again. Sort of. Remember this time last year when we talked about Pasquetta, the day after Easter, when the magic of Cheese Rolling happens? It is called Ruzzolone. Big Wheel. Wheel of cheese tossed merrily down a course at the edge of the town. I guess Easter this year was a three day storm of biblical proportion. People’s eyes go wide with respect as they describe mighty rain, wind, snow, lightning. Basic end of the world sort of unrelenting storm to celebrate the coming of spring. That was over a month ago. They put it way off in hopes, eventually, of finding a peaceful spring day. And I think they have found it.

Still quiet in town. The happy couple Simone and Lorena are back from their wedding in Sicily where people were swimming in the balmy mid 80’s temps. Everyone came back sunburnt and full of seafood. The renewal of their vows is tomorrow and that is all anyone can talk about. There will be dinner in a club out in the country. For the entire town. Dinner on the house. As Simone’s father, the legend that is Aldo, as he says, “from six till . . .” and then he just makes that horizontal slow drift off of his hand. Can’t wait.

But lets talk about today. The Ruzzolone is an afternoon event and that leaves the whole evening free and we might go catch the beginning of the third leg of this festaday. The two day Santa Margherita festival begins tonight in nearby Cortona. Midge’s middle name is Margherita, the nearby piazza where we park is Piazza Regina Margherita. Our house is more or less officially Casa Margherita. Midge’s favorite flower is her name sake the Margherita (daisy). We have bought a ton of flowers from the also nearby Daisy Brothers nursery. Filli Margheritti. So, we’re fired up to do a bit of celebration in Cortona as well. Gosh we haven’t seen our friends Nando and Pia in Cortona for, what, two or three days (have written that trip up but not put it up. Forgive sequence aberration) so it would be fun to get up there and get in the middle of that festival too. We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve got a bunch of gardening to do in between events as well. Planting beds of lavender which we love. Yesterday, we skipped Margheritti Bros and went to lovely Angela for our lavender. Do you believe the view from her green house? That is Lago di Chiusi past the petunias.

Happy Festivaling

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Bit dazed and dislocated from the typical overnight flight. And so happy to find out we’re not only here, but we’re wired. Was just iChatting and IM’ing with our office in the states. Airport/wireless thing continues to amaze as we walk in and fire it up and the messages they do pour in. Tiny glitch this time. Our friend Elida that came to visit from Panicale recently said she had checked our house for us and our broadband didn’t work. So I came in the living room a bit on tiptoes, edging up to our snakepile of wires and devises. And I could see there were loose wires. But. What goes where? Uuuugggh. Not a big thing for say, the proto typical fifth grader, but for old dog, this is a new trick. No earthly idea what any of it could be doing as it sits there sullenly hmmming to itself and flashing its many tiny green eyes. I can only do my few computer oriented things by rote. But I can take digi photos. And do. And I found the photos I’d taken of the hookup tech genius Maurizio did in 2006, and put everything EXACTLY as per those photos and bingo! his system still worked and messages started pouring in. Highly recommend that method of cheating for the low tech among us.

And our poor un-used Italian cell phone. Been languishing about lost and useless in my sock drawer since last June. Almost forgot to bring it. Charged it up and we were back in the game without missing a beat. How does that even work?

WE FLY, FERRARIS FLY AND TIME ON VACATION REALLY FLYS

Easiest best flight ever. Boston to Rome no changes, nowhere. Ugly food on ALITALIA but the many post touchdown coffees along the autostrada (so few miles per gallon of cappucchino) were even better than I remembered. I can still remember the first time I ever braved my way into one of those Agip “Autogrill” cafes and tried to figure how the heck to order anything. Decades later, it almost makes a modicum of sense or we’ve just quit thinking about it in the American part of our brain. Hmmm good. Cooooffffee. It is slowly dawning on me: WE MUST BE IN ITALY. When out of the blue this thought occurred to my barely awake self: WAS THAT A FERARRI? Cars passing us, trucks, trucks, trucks passing us. Voomm, voomm, vooom, they all sound alike. Except for that SNNAP, SNARL, GRRReat sounding silver coupe. Yike. What a voice. We sooo heard it before we saw it. And then we saw it no more. Solid gone.

We actually landed early due to big old tail winds and were in Panicale before noon and off to the races. Cool temps here but all is lush green and everything is in full flower. Which is good. Earlier they were complaining drought almost. Seems good now. Cherry trees, wisteria, lilacs, iris, stuff I don’t know what is, etc.

STUMPED AGAIN

Our garden has had a major prune/whack. How did that happen? And all the shutters have been redone. I mean I can guess which good friend did it but wow. Took the bulk of the old fig out. The main trunk is gone, stump about 10 inches across. Bruno and I had talked about taking that out and letting the good big side shoot that are major tree like items themselves, let them take over. Everything in the house is polished to within an inch of its life. So good to have good friends that will do this. I know we pay them for their work, but it is really so much better than I would ever expect that it really feels like there was a large helping of love mixed in with the work. Really an attitude fixer that is. I have to do (but want to and like to) do some heavy weeding but even the remaining weeds aren’t like disgusting or anything at all, I know they are weeds but when viewed from the street above, as most people see the garden, they are just green stuff. They even masquerade as fairly organized weeds. But their days are numbered.

Kind of an on-going shock to get here so relatively easy and to be so organized. Where ARE we?

TOY TRUCK, TOY TRUCK, TOY TRUCK

Yes, this baby blue bundle of toy truck was parked right outside our office and it is a real live Ape. English speaking people would, on seeing those three letters together say “ape” like, you know, our revered ancestors we supposedly evolved from. Italians say it like “aaah, pay” and it means, “bee”. Like bumble bee or honey bee. Ape is from those fine folks at Piaggio who brought you the Vespa. Which, by the way, means “wasp.” See a pattern forming? Why, oh why, you ask, do they do this? Bee cause of how they all sound.

Enough of the entomology of the insect-based brand names, let’s gather round all the real gear heads and talk about how this lost ape found itself in Yarmouth, Maine an ocean away from its native habitats of downtown Rome, Florence, Torino, Naples and beyond.

An almost seamless, zero degrees of separation chain of events seems to have caused this turn of events. Paul saw the classic Vespa on display at our office (from the legendary T. Turner Collection) and as guys trying to avoid real work will do, we got to talking and discovered we both really aspired to an Ape, someday. To me, someday means some day. A day off in the future. Many, if not most people go on vacation and come back with pictures of the Trevi Fountain, or the the Roman Coliseum. I have pages of Polaroids of Apes as far back as 1982 when this affliction first manifested itself on an extended stay in Calabria. And I even have brochures with prices scribbled on the back, in lira, by our friend Giuseppi. He got tired of hearing about it and called our bluff and said “So, order one, already. I’ll get it shipped over. Che problema?” How much was 4,182,000 lira worth in 1982? Whatever, twenty five years later I’m still musing about an Ape. Twenty five minutes later on the other hand, Paul is not musing about one, he’s driving about in one and there it is in our parking lot. Ok, maybe it was a month or so, but still. No grass growing under this ape.

MOM, ALL the OTHER kids have an ape. PLEEEZE?

When we were looking at the Vespa here, I mentioned Sean Potter just down the street here, who ALSO has one. Paul found Sean and found out there had been an Ape on eBay and before you could say “andiamo” he had made a deal and roped another friend into a road trip to Jersey to pick this one up. It is a 1982 coincidentally. With almost no miles on it. Or kilometers either.

Paul had the great good sense to figure out how to rationalize this. It is not a new toy. This, my friends, is a business expense. Yes, yes it is. Really. He’s importing his family’s great wines from Italy, and this will be his delivery truck for the greater Falmouth area. Stay tuned to this bat channel to see the graphics we’ve designed for this baby ape. Coming soon. You’ll be the first to see the reveal.

Float like a butterfly,
Sting like an ape.

For anyone who wants to see all the apes in the world, check out the Gallerie on this Ape site. If Vespas are your cup of tea, there seem to be an amazing stream of them on eBay coming in from Viet Nam. Oh, yes we’ve been stung by this ape/vespa bug. Look what you’ve started Paul. First, your totally addictive rose’s and now planting the ape seed in my mind.

We’re leaving for Italy in less than two weeks. And you know, I think there is plenty of room for a wild ape or two in our cantina . . .

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Honestly, I’ve never seen this done in Italy but twice we’ve had students from different parts of Italy living with us on April first and they swear its funny to stick a cut out paper fish on someone’s back on April first. They say they do the same in France as well. And that makes it right, because any country that thinks Jerry Lewis is a comedy god . . .

Anyway, remember if you are getting lots of attaboys and pats on the back on an April first, you may want to take glance at your reflection to see if one of your wild and crazy friends has stuck a fish on you.

Happy April Fishes Day, Happy Spring!

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

PANICALE, PECORINO, PROSECCO

Lucky us. This whirlwind visit all by itself was something to be thankful for. Elida’s great, but did you see that big old hunk of Pecorino, stagionato she had under her arm? The good, hard stuff that you shave off the wheel and grab with one hand – while raising a glass of Prosecco with the other. The oil gift was a tin of their own olive oil. Maybe even from olives we’d picked with them. Maybe not. Maybe we picked with them a year ago.

VENI, VIDI, VENCHI

And then there were the chocolate Easter eggs she laid on the kitchen table. “Straight from the airport!” Elida chirped brightly. “What! You didn’t make and wrap them yourself?” They came in a pretty forest green bag that I’ve since misplaced, distracted as I was by the shiny objects of gold and green and blue. What chocolate! “No, I’m not sharing!” Hope this love isn’t heresy since our Italian home is just outside Perugia, epicenter of the land of Perugina and we love all their Bacci. And I’ve never heard of the Venchi brand. The blue wrapped Bigusto Fondente are my favorite and what a good dark look and their taste is even darker than their look. Big wow. Can not believe a person could ever willingly put a Hersey in their mouth after one of these.

SPEAKING OF CHOCOLATE

Obviously Easter is a huge, multi-faceted holiday in Italy. And chocolate eggs like the ones The Elida Bunny brought us are omni-present in Italy just as they are in the states. “Just better chocolate” he said in his opinionated-who’s-going-to-stop-him on-his-own-blog sort of way. And then there are the big, hollow eggs. You’ve seen them outside of Italy in the occasional specialty stores. You know, the big and bigger ones dressed up in extravagant foils. We’ve seen them waist high and higher in Italy. Almost big enough for kids to play in. “There you go, eat your way out of that!” In a strange combo of church and state, these theoretically church-based holiday eggs can come with state-sponsored lottery tickets attached. The brightest and best are hand made by artisans hired by professional-strength gift givers who put anything from new car keys to engagement rings inside.

During the run up to Pasqua, it seems every one in Italy with access to a cash register or a credit card scanner has their shelves filled to over-flowing with these eggs. Even the unsold ones have the potential to keep spreading the spirit of the season. Last year at our friend Aldo’s cafe, the unsold ones were broken up and doled out for nibbles for days afterwards. Coool, cappuccino AND chocolate. So, we’re all Happy Easter. And happy well beyond, too, thank you Elida for bringing all these new memories.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Midge Vreeland, who was recently named president of the Spannocchia Foundation, just found out that there is a good chance there will be a segment about Spannocchia on The Today Show tomorrow, Thursday, Jan 10th. We understand that it may be a feature about Travel+Leisure Magazine’s favorite travel destinations. You heard it here first!

If you haven’t yet heard about Spannocchia you should definitely make your way to the news stands or set your Tivo- it is such an amazing and vibrant place with a fantastic history. Their websites feature a new slide show with dozens of evocative photos. To really put you in an Italian Frame of Mind. Spannocchia’s just outside of Siena and an easy drive from two of our newest properties— Podere i Cipressi, high above Passignano and Pietrosa di Gaiche, outside Gaiche.

Happy New Year to all and hope to

See you in Italy in ‘08

Stew Vreeland

Welcome to shortest, darkest day of the year. Grab a couple books, it’s going to be a long, sunlight-impaired season. Why don’t we pretend we are in Sunny Italy for a few hours?

LITERARY ALERT– Do I hear an Ecco in here? Well, no. Neither of these books are up to Umberto’s level or Dante’s or Calvino’s. These two new books aren’t even by Italians. But they are about Italy and Italian life as seen through two foreigners’ requisite rose-colored glasses. If, for the sake of comparison, you say Umberto Ecco is a nine course meal with fine wine and, stand back! flaming deserts, well these two tiny morsels are snackish-like things that drop out of vending machines in brightly colored foil bags. But, in the putting-money-where-mouth-is department, I have to say I’ve liked both of these books enough to walk up to the check-out counter with them. And to read them. And to gift them to friends. Sure, gift is a verb. Why not?

PLAYING FOR PIZZA AND LIVING IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

That seems like a good title for one book. But it is two. And both are perfect for sampling by the open fire. So, feet up on the couch, pillow punched into shape. Open at page one.

Playing for Pizza first. It’s light but tasteful. Light, even by recent John Grisham standards. I rather think he’s newly discovered Italy’s fulsome charms, like so many people out there in the world. But unlike the rest of us, he’s figured out how to get his publishers to bend to his request for research time on their dime. In Italy. Sometimes his Italian connection is a stretch. The last book I read of his, The Broker, started in the U.S. President’s office and ended in the middle of Bologna. As if there wasn’t plenty of that in Washington. Fine, fine, whatever it takes. As long as the plot ends up with some trite, fairly obvious Italian words in italics sprinkled here and there, we’re good. In our house we have shelves and shelves of books of, by, or for Italians. And (gasp!) some even in Italian. Ok, those are mostly Dylan Dog comics. We had a whole small room set aside for Italian themed books in our previous house. Maybe that was extreme. Fear not, we haven’t thrown any Italian books in the dumpster, but just have all our Italian books in the same room with books on all subjects in one bigger room with more shelves. Still segregated, of course.

But enough about me and my book stacking habits. In Playing for Pizza, Grisham has an interesting premise: minor NFL player backs into the lineup of a huge game and being an idiot, blows his big chance, the game, and his career just like that: one, two, three. And he is consequently now so roundly hated all across America that he goes to one of the few places where they actually don’t care: Italy. In fact, in some quarters of Italy where they haven’t gotten the memo yet, he remains a bit of a big shot. But still, being Italy, where our football is teenie tiny minor eccentric leaning sport, our hero basically has a metaphoric sign around his neck reading “WILL WORK FOR FOOD”. Which, at this point in his life/career, he’s grudgingly willing to do. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, and you don’t have to be either to see how this will pan out. Othello it’s not; nobody dies. But it was a pleasant passa tempo even so.

And yes. They DO have “real” football in Italy in addition to that popular imposter they call football, but which any right-thinking person can tell you is soccer. Be that as it may, Italians call our football “fooootball Americana” to differentiate it from their football/soccer/calcio thing. And why on earth would I actually know this semi-useless fact?

That would be Alexia’s fault. She was our foreign exchange student and her family owned the Padova Saints. I still have a Saints jacket as you can see. Oh, you wish you had that. And oh, the things I learned from Riccardo, Alexia’s wild card of a dad. The main thing we had in common was that he and I both hated any boy she brought home on either side of the Atlantic. “You let her go out with HIM?” he said just a bit too loudly (but at least it was in Italian) while pointing to the insolent, bad intentioned rogue slinking through the door under the porch where we were standing. “She’s YOUR daughter” I yelled back. “YOU should have raised her to know better.” Ecco il pappa. Times two. Of course Riccardo knew full well what bad American boys were up to. Because he “owned” a bunch of them and hung out with them as much as he could. Bon vivant barely covered this mischievous, wise cracking ad guy. As soon as we got to Padova he introduced us to his friend Prosecco. By the pitcherfull. I think that bottles, what, inhibited, Riccardo? He poured us Prosecco in dives high and low as we followed him around Padovatown. Hanging on his every fast-moving word. And he had lots of them. He could, and did, tell stories ninety miles an hour in all known European languages, blisteringly funny; subtle and not so subtle jokes and story lines spilled out across Prosecco- and pizza-covered tables. Occasionally there would be a gap in the blanket of Marlborough brand smog surrounding Riccardo. That is when you would see more cat-that-ate-the-canary eye twinkle than is surely legally allowed.

This was the “capo” of the football Americana team we knew. The Head Saint as it were. A character much larger than life, so any you meet in this book, just assume Grisham met some real ones and toned them down.

NEXT BOOK, PLEASE

Can I pass you Living in a Foreign Language while I’m up? Still comfy? Slippers? Anything we can get you at all? Quick trivia question before cracking the cover. What show was just like, but predated Ally McBeal? Don’t give me that look. Don’t tell me you only watch PBS. Here’s my theory: if there is a TV plugged in somewhere in your home you probably (just a guess) have at least occasionally watched the same shallow stuff we do. And you probably have secret favorites like all the other Neilson Families out there. LA LAW was one of ours. Michael Tucker, remember him? Played a short, soulful, over-sensitive lawyer in the show. In fairness, he probably didn’t actually play short, he probably just is short. Like his book.

It is the typical, misty-eyed, Isn’t Italy Amazing genre. He’s clearly happy, happy, happy with his new lifestyle there. The food is fresher, the sky bluer, people friendlier, the sun sunnier, you know how it is. The usual. We liked book. My wife bought it in an airport and elbowed me awake to say “We KNOW all these people in the book”. Awake now. And it was a gas to us. We do know, at least by long term email relationship, the people who sold the author his dream house. And we are pretty sure we know the people who drove him to it. They used to own a wild B&B we visited a few times with friends of friends. Their place was so over-the-top Michael bailed out after one night even though he had paid for several nights in advance. Could totally relate. He left Tuscany with his shirt tail flapping after him and headed out across Umbria to find a place to stay. Any place just a little more Italian and a little less kitsch. And in true novel tradition, he immediately stumbled over the traditional diamond in the rough, way off the beaten path that had never been on the market and was available to him that day. And it came with a full set of built-in friends for life.

I thought he had a nice, breezy, open, accepting, non-judgmental way of jumping into la dolce vita with both feet. Seems very in touch with himself, doesn’t do the “star” thing where the author puts himself in the center of the universe. And hey, he’s an actor. And an actor from LA. Even so, he still really seemed like the kind of guy you could party with. I know! He hasn’t called you either? What is up with that? I’m American, he’s American, we’ve both been to Italy more than the one time. Why aren’t we being handed the plates piled high with local indigenous treats baked to perfection in his massive wood burning oven? Think he’s lost our number? That’s it.

I’d say it again, this book is a light and tasty treat. You sense the people, you smell the food. Every few pages I feel, just for a moment, sigh, that I’m there. Sitting at a plank table under Christmas lights strung through low-hanging grape vines. Glasses clinking. People laughing, telling stories. And here’s the Stew Personal Opinion: at the end of the day, on the slowest page of this book it’s metric tons more fun than Under the Tuscan Sun ever was. That’s right. I admit that I watch junk TV and that Under the Tuscan Sun is pretentious twaddle. Michael talks constantly about food. But does he slap in an impossible bet-you-can’t-do-this-where-YOU-are, you-poor-saps recipe every few pages? Thank heavens, NO.

Why in the name of everything that is good and sane and logical would I want a recipe? In a book. In a book I’m reading. Am I standing in the kitchen wearing a gingham apron with frilly trim? No. I’m on the couch, in my favorite purple NU Wildcats sweatshirt, shoes off. I’m r-e-a-d-i-n-g. Is this a book, or a cookbook already? Decide. Get back to me.

Oh. Did I go off on a tiny momentary baby-rant there? Sorry. We’re back from the dark place now. I liked Michael Tucker’s book. He’s surprised that he finds himself in Italy. He’s not strutting and posing, or worse, condescendingly gloating about his exquisite and well-deserved good fortune. He seems like a kid in a candy shop, honestly tickled to pieces to be there, basking in the moment. It’s infectious and fun. And he knows he’s living the dream. Thanks for sharing, Mike.

There you have it. Two book reviews for the price of one. Unlike real reviewers who get free pre-release books backed up to their office door by the semi-trailer-load, I’ve bought both these books, I’ve given them to friends, and I may buy them again for other friends. And I still want a copy on our bookshelves. I’m just not putting them up on the same shelf with Lampedusa’s Gattopardo.

Wiley Vreeland
————————————————–

ITALIAN IMMERSION. A MODO VERMONTO?

MIDDLEBURY, Vermont — Aspetta! Unhand that mouse! Credi sulla parola, you are in the right place. My cursor is taking us back to the states, but—as I discovered this past summer—really not so very far from Italy. In fact, given the rolling hills and aggressive pastoral pride a Tuscan could feel almost at home in rural Vermont (trade pecorino for cheddar). And, as it turns out, on Middlebury College’s small liberal-arts campus, could carry on a conversation quite nicely.

It may seem counterintuitive to look for Italian immersion in perhaps the only state to rival Maine in cultural diversity—we can’t count the cows—but every summer for two months Middlebury works to convert a collegiate bubble into a small international globe: something akin to Disney’s Epcot for the academically-inclined. The much lauded program enrolls around thirteen-hundred students from a mélange of backgrounds, a sprawl of future hopes and dreams. And by week seven—waking in bed with your textbook from the night before (come si dice: osmosis?)—more often than not those dreams are coming through on an Italian frequency.

But many conjugations before you start dreaming in translation, there is much work to be done. Living the everyday in a foreign language can make even reality seem somewhat less than lucid; it’s amazing what the inability to name things does to the mind. However, when I got desperate enough, I found myself a regular Petrarchan poet—reeling off fourteen lines just to court one elusive word (I can picture it on the vocab list: it was between the Italian for “to do aerobics” and “fishmonger”), and after dealing with my problem for about eight phrases, I usually probed a creative solution. But, as a beginner speaker with a severely limited verbal toolbox, sadly, sometimes the mot juste just would not come—usually because I was working in literal translation. But how to purge all those lovely, native, idiomatic phrases that made my writing—for instance—so blog-worthy? It was a genuine, if incomplete, process of deconstruction. And eventually I got my stubborn English self out of my own way and did my best to tinker with the Italian I knew I must have…somewhere.

Philosopher and sometimes lingual theorist John D. Caputo said, “Whenever deconstruction finds a nutshell—a secure axiom or a pithy maxim—the very idea is to crack it open and disturb it.” And what better way to take apart your own language than to chink away at it with another? Right? Unfortunately, I am allergic to nuts. But when in doubt in life, food is (almost) always an good place to start. What goes into your mouth may be the single thing more important than what comes out of it. Hence, I found out how to get back to basics at the language school dining hall. Everyone always has something to say about food, particularly—you may have heard—Italians. And the constructions are usually simple. The Pizza Regina pleases me. The gamberetti with the faces still on them do not. I would really prefer a Florentine bistec. Even the occasional idiom from the other side of the isle: the pasta was usually way past al dente—count yourself lucky if it stayed firm to the fork. So while even the mensa had the best of intentions (replete with green roof, in fact…oh, Vermont), sometimes the better classroom was the mondo vero.

And it was in the spirited moments outside classroom walls that my Italian came forward to realize itself—Middlebury knows what it’s up to. The program offered a host of extracurricular distractions: movie nights, theatrics, tango lessons, soccer games, our very own Sistine facsimile from the resident fresco expert. No doubt many students found their Italian between their toes on the tango floor. However, I have two left feet….or, case in point, ho due piedi nello scarpa (two feet, one shoe).

For me, all it took was an improvisational step outside into the verdant Vermont summer and you couldn’t help but comment. Italy has its own graces, but here the sights (green, heaving mountains), the smells (manure that makes you remember where dinner comes from), the sounds (OK, maybe bocce practice, maybe birds) gave you a sense of immediacy that I couldn’t help but think of as Italian.

In a childlike embrace of experience the passato remoto tense felt a little bit less important, and, thus, left you more free to remember it. With good company and a good picnic blanket I was able to say all that I needed, without stress or urgency. The word sentire issued in full force: to taste, to smell, to hear, to touch—to feel.

So many more words in English than in Italian. Striking that a single verb could mark the spot where such distinct, refined senses coalesce; deliverance from a muddled mind back to the world that makes those thoughts worth thinking. Complex categorization simplified by basic need. Watching La Dolce Vita (1960) to suss out the Fellini of Amarcord (1973). Looking for Italy in Vermont and, on some level, actually finding it.

Jenn Corey, 2007

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Thanks Wiley, thanks Jenn! And now that you are all so fluent, lets get you all on a plane to Italy already! Think of the times you will have!

Stew Vreeland

CORTONA, Tuscany, Italy–I’ve got to admit my only experience with the wine harvest involves swirling the end result around in the glass and making it magically disappear. Olives, we’ve picked. Grapes, no. I’ve had offers, but weasled out of them to my great regret. Next time! We have friends who are selling their Villa outside Cortona and moving back to Australia. We hate to see them go. But, if you have to go, do it like they are doing and go out with a bang! They have just finished a stellar, multi-year renovation on their property that they can be truly proud of plus, as you will be able to tell from the letters below, they just had the fine experience of growing, harvesting and bottling their own wine. They have been in Italy for years and they really have been living the dream while they were here. Complimenti a tutti e due!

Stew Vreeland
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Hi Stew,

It’s hard to describe the pleasure of holding a glass full of just pressed novello from the rich harvest of our sangiovese grapes after a perfect, hot, dry summer nurturing these abundant vines. That we could share the process, initially with one, and later with three groups of friends was an added joy.

In the end, the best words that spring to mind are total satisfaction.

First came a full week of pruning in January. Then watching the vivid foliage burst forth in early primavera and working hard to maintain the truly biological, organic fruit - despite the insistence of neighbours that we should be dousing the vine leaves and swelling grapes with copper sulphate. Days with friends when we thinned foilage to let the sun and vitality of the vines concentrate in the fruit in summer. The heartbreak of pruning almost half the crop in the last month to improve the quality of the bunches we retained, followed by meals, wine and many happy hours. In late September, picking, de-stemming and crushing the grapes, all by hand, ready for fermentation and two weeks of testing sugar and alcohol levels until the “must” was ready to press. The last winding of the arm of an antique wine press in perfect Tuscan sunshine, followed by a fabulous al fresco lunch as our first vintage sits in a cool wine cantina to clarify before we move it
into an oak barrel. We’re not in Italy. We’re in Heaven!

Cheers!
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Hi Guys,

stew

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Hi again, Stew,

The vineyard was here when we got here. The equipment was too. But it was pretty rusty (and not antique) so we threw a lot of it out and begged/borrowed/stole/bought what we needed as we needed it. As for studying, apart from sommelier Arnaldo (from Trattoria Pane e Vino in Cortona) there’s a great consulente enologica in Pietraia (about 5 minutes drive from us) which sells ‘everything’ you could possibly need to make wine and has knowledgeable staff whose brains we have picked extensively :) Salute!