Restaurants – The Truth About Tuscany

By now, the persimmon trees have lost their leaves, so the branches, covered in hundreds of round, orange-red fruits, stand out against the often-grey sky. The grapes and olives are harvested, but it’s too early to start pruning vines or trees. Leeks and fennel grow, without much attention, in the vegetable garden. We’ve eaten, for the time being, enough grilled mushrooms, mushroom pasta and mushroom risotto. It has started to rain, and it is the time of year when the thick-walled farmhouses feel colder than the scirrocco-driven dampness outside, so we come in, light the fire, drink tea and play briscola.

On weekend mornings, we hear the dogs and gunshots of the hunters in the fields and woods around us. A friend brings me a piece of boar, which another friend makes into sausage and salami for us to hang in the cellar and eat this winter. Someone else brings chestnuts to a dinner party, and we sit up late around the fire with a good excuse to drink lots of wine. The ash of the fires and the dogs’ now always-muddy feet are reason enough to ease the housekeeping standards. Continue reading Ringraziamento

To those who come to me asking how to see “the real Tuscany,” I say, forget the Uffizzi, the wineries and the villas, and go to a bar—a bar in the Italian sense of the word, that is a café. Ah, you think, a welcome break in the pace and pressure of travel with family, twenty minutes to slip into neutral, park myself over a long, warm coffee, and shoot the breeze or flip through the paper. But that wouldn’t be Tuscany at all.

First, make your entrance. Open the door, step inside, and stop. The whole bar will turn and look you up and down (they know you’re American by now), at which point, stand tall, try to look bored and mildly disdainful, and scan the room, as if for danger or possible prey. Then, walk straight to the pastry counter. Order “un’ brioche,” which is the thing that looks like a croissant, or if you absolutely have to point, say “quella,” not “quello” because pastry is feminine. When you are handed your pastry in a napkin, resist the urge to thank anyone, and don’t smile; it looks suspicious so early in the day. Continue reading Bar Tips