Yesterday ranks among my most perfect days in Italy thusfar. It was Sunday & it was bitterly cold, I think about 30 degrees F (-1.1 C), so we bundled up in fleece & down & headed out our door to commence the final day of olive picking. We'd been at it 4 weekends in a row as this year's harvest was HUGE. I was working on my first or second tree when my padrona di casa (landlady) reminded me that her friend was waiting in her kitchen to give me cooking lessons. You see, I was bold enough to ask, at the prior week's olive harvesting, if I might watch lunch &/or dinner being prepared sometime so as to learn true, deliciozo Italian cooking. To my delight, they were quite eager to share their time-tested recipes & welcomed me into their inner sanctum where so much culinary exquisiteness goes down...
So, I stripped a few more branches of olives & eagerly climbed up to the house where my 2 instructors awaited. On the day's menu was (for pranzo, lunch): panini con prosciutto, salame or mortadella (note: these sandwiches entail bread + meat, nothing more) & crostini toasted with salsiccia and stracchino. I was downright giddy to discover the secret to making crostini con salsiccia e stracchino, a very popular antipasto in Toscana, as I'd tasted it several times before in local restaurnts & found it to be exquisite. Come to find out, this dish is beyond simple & consists of scooping out the raw salsiccia from its casing, mixing it with generous bits of stacchino, adding in some salt & then topping the sliced pane (bread) with this mixture. When you're ready, simply pop these into the oven for 10 minutes so that it can cook & lightly brown; the finished product is fantastico!
For dinner, the to-die-for Ribollita would be the star of the show. Ribollita is a specialty of Tuscany, essentially a stale bread & vegetable soup, & it's served mainly in winter, when items like cavolo nero (black cabbage) are in season. I understood from my landlandy's family that my instructors were pretty much legendary for their Ribollita so I was ear-to-ear smiles as I shadowed them & asked questions in my elementary Italian.
Both women were patient & yet excited to tell me all about what they do & why & when. One woman poured the 3 of us a small shot of amaro -- not to be confused with amaretto, although I think they may be beverage cousins. The amaro, at first sip, had a similar taste to the Amaretto that we have in The States but then soon it took on a cough medicine flavor which evolved into a bitter aftertaste. I liked it, I found it interesting, but I didn't love it as I do the sweeter & softer-tasting Disarrono Amaretto. Regardless, I was still beaming like a kid in a candy store.
Ribollita, they explained, is pretty much a peasant soup. Long ago, when there were aging vegetables & stale bread, folks didn't want to throw this precious food away. So they crafted this wonderful soup & added, also, fagioli (beans) to it. The result is like a giant, fuzzy, warm blanket in winter-- the ultimate comfort food.
We also prepared vegetables for the frittura (think fried food fest) that would accompany the Ribollita, specifically, carciofi (artichokes), zucchine (zucchini) & melanzana (eggplant). Some sliced veggis were dipped in farina (flour) & then egg, others were dipped in egg & then breadcrumbs. The result was quite tasty, especially the eggplant. I'd long assumed I didn't like eggplant (besides Billy McCullough's eggplant with won tons at Truckee's best-ever restaurant, Dragonfly) but, really, most anything dunked into bubbling hot oil tastes good. These ladies even dipped & fried the leftover chunks of tough Tuscan bread from the Ribollita! I was waiting for them to bust out the Oreos or Twinkies & fry those too... oh wait, I'M the American so I'll have to someday introduce them to our fried nuggets of decadence.
While the soup simmered & developed into ridiculous deliciousness I returned outside & helped with more olive trees.
When the last tree was stripped barren & the final olives were put into their burlap sacks, we all retreated to our respective homes for a quick shower in preparation for the celebration dinner. An hour or so later we sat down to a lovely meal, lively conversation & even the added bonus of a homemade birthday torta (cake) & tiramisu (Caiden was in heaven!!) for our landlady's granddaughter's 8th birthday.
I wandered home with a full belly & an even fuller heart. I went to bed last night overwhelmed with gratitude -- surprised that Italy, Tuscany keeps dishing up surprise after surprise for us, magical moment after magical moment.
Someday, when we're back in Truckee & this Italian Adventure is merely pictures on the wall & "remember when's" over the dinner table, these experiences will be the ones I cherish most. It won't be the times we wandered over the Ponte Vecchio, or tossed coins into the Trevi Fountain, or climbed to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It will be those stolen moments, tucked into the daily lives of these most kind, generous, warm, big-hearted, proud & blissfully spirited Italians.
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