Meanwhile, I’m planting fruit trees, dogwoods and roses.  I bought four seed packets of corn, several lettuces, basil, borage, hollyhocks, various sunflowers, cosmos and baby’s breath.  On breaks from travel, I’ll be visiting nurseries and stuffing my car with bounty for the garden.  My apple trees should arrive this week.  After such a fierce winter, I have an equally fierce desire for my garden to flourish.

Oh, to be two people.  One who goes out into the world and one who stays home and tends a garden.

Finally, a day is set, and now that day is near.  9 March. I’m excited about going on tour, meeting many new friends. I dread the flying. I hope I won’t have delays that put me in a hotel at midnight, facing a dinner out of the minibar.  What to read?  Will I get snowed in, like last time? What to say?  Will someone water the seeds I’ve started while I’m gone?  Will someone call out from the audience, “We used to date at U VA”?  Can I keep up my exercise?

Please click on “Tour.” If I am coming near where you live, I would love to meet you.

This is my third memoir about living in Italy.  As the title suggests, it is very much a book about the particulars and pleasures of every day life.  There are no chases, no drug deals, nothing more torrid than the fire in the bread oven.  There is one horrid scrape with an ugly threat–but otherwise, what I am in love with is rural Tuscany: the friends, daily passions, and celebrations of piazza life.  We’ve had so much fun expanding our vegetable garden and restoring another house from the time of Saint Francis of Assisi.  Although we did mind-bending labor on Bramasole, we did not work on the restoration of  the “new” stone-roofed house, merely oversaw every detail for three years–and combed Tuscany for authentic old materials.  Though I will lay a path or paint a room, I hope my drastic restoration days are over! I wrote one long chapter on Luca Signorelli, local boy, and profound renaissance artist.  He and I have become friends, in spite of him being long dead.  That hasn’t seemed to matter.  I propose a Signorelli Trail to follow, like the Piero della Francesca trail so many travellers take. If you don’t share my adoration of him, the places where his work lives are all sublime.  Everywhere in my book there’s food and wine.  I think, 25 recipes–all guaranteed to be terrific. I only wish the aromas could rise off the page!  Some were given to me by favorite Tuscan chefs. You can’t write about Italy without dwelling intensely on the table!  I had an especially good time introducing Italian food to my little grandson.  There’s an ode to friendship–both to our Italian friends and to the American expats who have taken to Italian life so beautifully.  Underlying all the places and events, my question throughout concerns happiness–what is it, how to hold onto it.

In July, we are celebrating twenty years since we bought our house, Bramasole.  We are planning a sparkle-plenty party, with music, great wine and food, and a gathering of friends who have been close over these years. I’m so happy that this new book coincides with this anniversary.  If you read it, I hope that it’s a reminder of life-in-the-moment, wherever you are.  Tuscany is a state of mind; you can have that state of mind anywhere.

]]> http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/03/02/around-our-house-excitement-is-building/feed/ 35 http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/02/24/san-francisco-was-home/ http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/02/24/san-francisco-was-home/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:20:29 +0000 francesmayes http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/?p=389 San Francisco was home.

Not only San Francisco, but earlier, Palo Alto, and later, San Rafael.  Returning to California after my big move back to the South four years ago, the place feels so familiar that it seems I never left. We stayed at The Drisco in my old neighborhood.  When I lived in San Francisco, it was a hotel where genteel elderly people lived.  I used to walk by in the afternoons and see them in armchairs by the window, sipping their sherry under lamplight.  I thought when I was 95, I’d move there too, trading the sherry for a good brunello.

In the meantime, the hotel changed and has now a very European style. This is a gracious and comfortable place to stay in Pacific Heights, close to Fillmore and Sacramento Streets’ restaurants and shopping. http://www.hoteldrisco.com I always loved the neighborhood.  It smells of tea olive and when the afternoon wind arrives at three, the air is moist and salt-tinged.  San Francisco houses seem to each contain a novel.  This neighborhood is lined with Victorian, Craftsman, and Mediterranean beauties and they are so well-kept, polished and trimmed that I always have the illusion that nothing could go wrong inside those romantic and inviting spaces. Ed and I walked by our old house several times. It was yellow when we lived there, with white trim.  The rose I planted to swoop over the garage door has become gigantic.  I will not be the one to prune it.

The sound of San Francisco is the low bellows of fog horns.  Newly single, moving into the Victorian condominium with boxes all around me, I remember those mournful calls late that first night, sounding like a voice within the sea, some other-worldly, melancholy lament.  A tragic call to me then, but later, walking those streets with Ed, they began to sound mysterious and intimate, tied to the place.

These two days, time was short and I did not get to see many friends.  Peter, my agent and friend, took us to La Mar, a Peruvian place on the water. Check out the whole menu at : http://www.lamarcebicheria.com And I thought I didn’t like ceviche!  We ate four kinds, then causa casera, little purple potatoes filled with artichokes, asparagus, avocados—so fresh—drizzled with basil and cilantro in olive oil.  The beef empanadas were rich and flaky and the roasted scallops with corn risotto so nicely conceived.  Seasonings are tamarind, mint, chili peppers, sesame, all with a light hand. When I travelled to Peru in 1975 the highlight on every menu was guinea pig roasted with a stone inside.  The stone got hot and cooked from within.  Clever, but I passed.  Cuzco, I’ve been told, is dazzling today in terms of places to stay and eat.  It was always dazzling for its own reasons.  Los Rios Profundos, Deep Rivers by José María Arguedas is the book that was pulled from the heart of that place.

We had a lunch meeting at 54 Mint. http://www.54mint.com We were happy!  The food is truly Italian.  They got the pastas right!  I had one of my favorite Sicilian dishes, an arancino the size of a tennis ball.  Crispy rice filled with ragù. Claudio, one of the owners, came over to chat.  He’s Umbrian, where they know their pasta. This is a casual place for lunch, very San Franciscan but Italian, too. Here’s Ed’s seafood pasta.

I first tasted arancini at the Palermo airport.  Sometimes I make small ones to serve with aperitivi.  Here’s the one at 54 Mint.

The next day, we did squeeze in a lunch ($5.60!!) at Eliza’s, at 2877 California Street, right around the corner from our old house.  (I don’t find a website for them. Their original place on Potrero Hill is closed.)  This was one of our favorite haunts for Chinese food.  The joy of living in a city:  you walk out and the world of cuisines awaits.

We ended our stay with old friends at La Ciccia, a cozy, crowded Sardinian place. http://www.laciccia.com/ We just talked, talked, talked, ate all kinds of seafood, a cheese platter with hard-to-find pecorino cheeses, and drank a great sauvignon from the Alto Adige, whose name I have forgotten.  The whole wine list was Italian, with many new to me. La Mar is big, glamorous, city. The two Italian restaurants have owners right there to greet you and a highly personal cuisine.  Eliza’s  fresh Chinese is a city favorite.  We loved all four places.

So endeth a sweet visit to San Francisco.  The journey back to the east is long in time and space. Back to rain.  But at this minute, a brilliant cardinal perches on top of an astrolabe in my garden and the daffodils are swelling their yellow tips, ready to bloom.  I’ve cut wands of still-tight forsythia and plunked them in a Mason jar, forcing the moment of spring’s arrival.

]]> http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/02/24/san-francisco-was-home/feed/ 45 http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/02/18/at-the-wine-writers-symposium/ http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/02/18/at-the-wine-writers-symposium/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:24:17 +0000 francesmayes http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/?p=385 To leave North Carolina in the snow (after weeks of uncharacteristic cold), fly through Dallas in more snow, then to land in San Francisco and walk out to fresh warm air, then to drive to friends’ upright Victorian where they greet us with a house full of flowers and a dinner of Dungeness crab spritzed with lime–what a shock to the winterized mind.  Ed and I drove up to Napa the next morning. I came out to give the keynote welcome to the Wine Writers’ Symposium, organized by Jim Gordon, the team at Meadowood Inn, the Napa Vintners and Culinary Institute of America.  En route, more shock. The wild bright yellow mustard is blooming in the vineyards and rains have turned all the hills green, green, green.  Some vineyards are carpeted with golden poppies.  This forms a menace because people slam on brakes at a particularly gorgeous scene and someone leaps out of the car to take a picture. I, too, snap one from the car window but my phone camera is not up to capturing such glory.

Meadowood’s cottages scatter over hills studded with twisted oaks, madrone and mossy rocks.  Ours has a tree-house feel and a porch, a fireplace and a windowseat where I would like to sit and read all day.  Ed insists that we hike, even though there are signs warning of mountain lions.  He wants to swim and go to the spa and work-out room. I have a facial and can’t wait for it to be over. He has a massage and glows.  We dine on the grounds at  The Restaurant, which has been awarded two Michelin stars.  The food is quite conceptualized and very tasty. Each morsel arrives solo, to be admired visually then slowly savored.  There’s wit, too.  Four tiny radishes with their leaves arrive in a little square bowl of whey (or was it a grain?) and they look as though they are planted in sand. We both order golden tortellini. I loved the suckling pig in four guises, especially the bite of crusty confit.  Ed ordered the squid. If this sounds like a hearty meal–no.  The servings are quite restrained.    http://www.meadowood.com/wine-and-cuisine/the-restaurant/

Many of the participants at the conference are in transition or just in the process of creating writing opportunities for themselves.  As everyone knows, a lot of print has dried up and boundless as the internet is, making actual money there is hard.  At the symposium, there’s a focus on improving writing skills through one-to-one coaching with editors.   There’s also a lot of meeting / greeting and wine tasting.  There are dinners at wine country hot spots–so  many to choose from.  This is a far, far cry from the academic conferences I used to attend!  There we had jug wine and potato chips.  Here, they’re passing the lobster fritters and pouring the finest.

We slip away to have dinner with the Rothfelds.  Steven is the photographer I work with on my Chronicle Books yearly agenda and we did Bringing Tuscany Home together.  Since we’re always together in Italy, it’s a treat to dine at his home with his family.  Ah, Dungeness crab! It’s the season.

Write about what you know, teachers always said.  Italy is what I know and I’m talking to the group about how the sensibilty around food and wine differs from anywhere else on the planet. In Italy, wine is food.  Wine is not usually a thing in itself but always served with food. In Tuscany, when we go to a vineyard for tasting, a very full lunch is served. And the Italians are surprisingly moderate–they drink as much water as wine.  I spoke about the difficulty of describing taste.  Some of this I write about in my book that’s about to come out, Every Day in Tuscany.

Although I’m not on the writing staff here, I do have a little advice.  To get over writer’s block, go back and read something you’ve written before, something you like.  This helps reconnect with your own best voice.  And, to me, voice means more than anything else in making your writing distinctive.  My other hint: words, words, words, as Shakespeare said.  Collect words, keep a work notebook, scroll around the the dictionary.  Take what you’ve written and substitute a synonym for every noun, verb, adjective and adverb.  Then go back to the original and take into it, some of the fresher, more surprising language from your exercise.  I could go on and on.  I did teach poetry writing for 23 years! A lot of exercises actually do improve your work.

The afternoon session adjourns and we move to a reception with more Napa wines to taste.  Many are taking notes.  Then, a really fun time for me.  My new book has arrived–two weeks before actual pub date– and the publisher gives one to each participant.  In signing them, I get to meet so many bright and talented people.  New friends, old friends, a buzzing atmosphere, good food and wine—California dreamin’.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6717806.html?q=%22Frances+Mayes%22

When I’m travelling, I always search for the book that will be a fine companion for that place.  One of the best I’ve ever found is David Mayernik’s Timeless Cities: An Architect’s Reflections on Renaissance Italy. Rome, Venice, Florence and Pienza are his focus.  During a February trip to Rome with my husband, Ed, and our friend Alberto, an architect, we read this aloud to each other as we sat in ruins, churches, and as we had our coffee at a different bar every morning. We all got a new sense of the city.

Mayernik starts with Romulus plowing with a cow and bull the outline for Rome’s perimeter walls, teaching us how to experience the city as a palace of memory.  (The memory palace was a mental technique of storing knowledge before books were printed. These techniques have a fascinating and stirring history way too involved to go into here.) He explores connections among major building programs and monuments.  The shape of Augustus’s tomb reflects the older Etruscan mounded tombs.  Later, the shape of Hadrian’s tomb (now called Castel Sant’Angelo) echoes and remembers both.  Even the massive dome of the Pantheon links to the Etruscan memory. In the renaissance, the echo still resounded.  Bramante’s perfect tempietto, little circular temple built on the legendary hill of St. Peter’s martyrdom, cunningly recalls the Pantheon because  Bramante built the tempietto in the exact diameter of the great oculus.  It was a rainy day when the photo above was taken.  That’s Alberto in front. Soon we will sit down with cappuccino and our book in the quintessential Roman bar where a vase of mimosa gathers to it what sun there is. At night, we’ll dine on little veal meat balls with artichokes, melted tomatoes, and grilled polenta.  February is Rome for Romans–and lucky travellers. Such a feast, this city. For the mind, body, spirit.

Bramante went on to design St. Peters by overlapping, blending, and assembling components from the past.  I wish I could paste in here the whole saga of Bramante.  But if this intrigues, read the book. There’s an excerpt on www.davidmayernik.com

Knowing architectural connections, not just landmarks and their individual histories, gives you the power “to begin to read the whole city as a comprehensible story.”  The city as a book—I love that concept.

I love the velocity of movement, the closed-to-traffic streets, and the many utterly charming places to dine outside (even on New Year’s Eve once) elbow-to-elbow with Romans who really know how to eat.

A life lived where there are roof gardens overlooking domes, pines of Rome, and distant villas seems the epitome of civilization.  Five lifetimes and you can’t know Rome, but paradoxically, you can know it in a day—a morning for the colors and light, the rhythm, the wild cats, the astonishing style you can try on, even in the least expensive shops, the robust food, the splash of fountains, the clacking dialect, and sublime gelato—pistachio, melon, hazelnut all on one cone. The afternoon for a walk along the Tiber when the sycamores are breaking into new-green bud or curling their leaves and striking a somber note of sepia light in early fall.  Evening for an aperitif in Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina, dinner at a righteous trattoria, and a late espresso under the stars in some hidden piazza.  There’s Roma!

Today, as often happens, a friend wrote: “My brother and his wife are spending three days in Rome. Where should they stay?”  Sometimes it’s “I’m taking my grandson to Rome for graduation. Any recommendations?”  Or, “I’ve got to get away, girlfriend. Really away.  Where should I go in Rome?”

Good question. The possibilities are limitless.

En route to our house in Cortona, we fly in and out of Rome, always spending a night or two.  My visits are quick and intense.  Over the years, we’ve stayed in all areas of Rome and I could not choose a favorite. Since we’re in Rome often, sometimes popping down just for a night to see a concert or exhibit, we tend toward neighborhood places. Once we rented a small apartment full of books—that was the best.  The fantasy that we lived there lasted a whole week.

Friends coming and going, usually on big trips commemorating a significant birthday or anniversary, stay in the pleasure domes such as the Hassler (www.lhw.com) or La Russie (www.rfhotels.com).  They eat in the starred, guidebook restaurants and have a fine time.  I love to travel that way myself, it’s just not the way I happen to know Rome. We do sometimes stay at D’Inghilterra (www.hotelinghilterraroma.it) for it location on Bocca di Leone near the Spanish Steps and for the Henry-James-stayed-here atmosphere.  Friends of ours love Art Hotel (www.hotelart.it) on Via Margutta, which always makes me long to live in a painting garret.

Hotel Campo de’ Fiori

Usually, we like to stay in old-world ambience in Trastevere, the Ghetto, or the Campo de’ Fiori.  Here are four suggestions in those neighborhoods—for you, your best friend, sister-in-law, or your college roommate:

Hotel Campo de’ Fiori (www.hotelcampodefiori.com) right off that lively piazza.  The rooms are chic, with bronze and mossy taffeta bedspreads and draperies and chandeliers even in the bathroom.  Each is a little jewel box. The three I’ve stayed in all were quite small. I especially like the top floor with quick access to the roof terrace.  Rates seem to vary.  I suggest calling.

Relais Le Clarisse (www.leclarisse.com), a discovery that formerly was a convent of the Santa Chiara order. Very friendly owner and only five simple rooms, all of which open to a courtyard.  A short stroll to the heart of Trastevere, this quiet spot is very inexpensive.

Hotel Santa Maria (www.Htlsantamaria.com) is another convent redone as a peaceful refuge where rooms open onto a courtyard of orange trees and small tables for writing in your notebook.  Rooms are quite large and plainly furnished.  You can take one of the hotel’s bicycles out for a bumpy ride over the cobbled streets. I love the location, right in the middle of all the enticing Trastevere streets, but hidden down a pedestrian vicolo.

Hotel Ponte Sisto (www.hotelpontesisto.it) in the old Ghetto, right near the Sisto Bridge over the Tiber—a perfect location.  I like the leafy courtyard and the large rooms and baths.  The décor is nice—see their photo gallery on-line—although it does not resonate Roma in any way.  Prices are very reasonable here.

Supplications in Santa Maria, Trastevere

Street of Dear Life

Afternoon in Roma

Looking for this information, I came across a note I wrote in the taxi as I was leaving Roma this fall:

The sycamore leaves do not blaze into glory; instead they dry, darken, and fall.  But they do lend their autumnal scent, so complementary to the sepia, ochre colors of the buildings, to the ancient woman with scary red hair lifted by a breeze that shows broad white swaths against her scalp.  She is buying one orange. Yesterday’s rain pools in the uneven cobbles; the pale sky is a color a painter might mix then decide to add another dollop of cerulean. I am leaving Rome—the impossible sweetness of fall, the odd nostalgia for a life never lived in this mother-city.

I’m flipping through my agenda.  When can I go back?

We have bought a farm here in North Carolina that has walnuts and pecans but not a single fruit tree. We have old cedars everywhere.  Right away, my neighbor mentioned that they’re a disaster for apple trees, just what I want to plant.  The centenarian cedars are full of dead limbs and look terribly scraggly up close, though from a distance they punctuate the landscape and appear quite at home. An allée of them leads to a house that no longer exists. I don’t have the heart to chop them down.  As if one problem tree were not enough, we have walnuts as well.  Grand black walnuts, shady and venerable. They too are poor neighbors.  The roots send out something noxious called “juglone,” which goes for the jugular apparently, strangling the systems of most every plant you’d want to plant.  Nothing to be done there; I’m not cutting them out either. Hostas are impervious and although that’s not my favorite plant, we have hostas.

Some varieties of apples resist this cedar-apple fungus that one website describes as causing “sticky orange lesions.”  I must choose two of the stalwart varieties for pollination and they have to bloom at the same time.  This requires research and I’m not sure of the taste of some of these resistant trees because I’ve never heard of Zestar, Milton, Runkel, Sansa, Jerseymac and the others.  Any recommendations? Meanwhile, my local grocery store has a selection of twenty types.  I’m munching through them one by one.  By early March, I’ll be armed with knowledge and planting my little orchard.

Reading about apples reminds me this morning of a special fruit arboretum in Umbria, near Città di Castello.  I describe it my new book Every Day in Tuscany:

Among the charms of the upper Tiber valley is Archeologia Arborea. The late Livio dalla Ragione collected rare varieties of fruit trees from abandoned farms, monastery and convent cloisters and orchards. With his daughter, Isabella, who carries on the work, he started an arboretum in San Lorenzo di Lerchi, just outside Città. The trees survive not only as themselves but as a remembrance of an earlier way of life. The Clogmaker’s Fig reminds us that the fig wood used to be preferred for making farmer’s clogs. When the farmers left the land, the tree almost disappeared. Peasant’s Steak Pear speaks for itself.

You can walk the orchard in the warm months, make friends with the Little Convent Apple, Goose Cherry, Giant Fig of the Zoccolanti Friars, Icicle Pear, Small Bloody Peach, Drunken Apple, Ox Muzzle Apple, Pink Stone Apple, Little Fox Pear and many more. The names seem to contain old tastes: Pink Strawberry Apple, Chestnut Apple, Butter Pear, Lemon Apple, and Cinnamon Pear.

If you adopt a tree, you are entitled to its harvest. The proviso, however, requires you to leave three fruits—one for the sun, one for the earth, and one for the tree itself.  This sounds like something Saint Francis of Assisi could have written. Che vita, what a life, to dwell among these fruit trees.

I love winter food.  While the cold this year is just too much, it’s warm in the kitchen with all the burners fired up at once and bread rising and the oven sending out aromas of cheese wafers and toasted pecans. This is a dinner we made this week for four friends.  Six around the table, with a centerpiece basket of purple, yellow and pink primroses to remind us that spring may come.

Arista (accent on the Ar) is king of the pork roasts in Italy.  The top photo shows Ed’s favorite, pork loin–browned, stuffed, crusted and ready for the oven. With a sharp knife, he makes a big pocket in a five-pound center cut loin, then brines it for three hours. Brining makes a big difference. Simply put the pork in a bowl with one third cup each of sugar and salt, then let it sit in the fridge.  He then concocts a mixture of olive oil, red wine, splash of vinegar, parmigiano, bread crumbs, parsley, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper, fennel seeds and a quarter cup or so of odori (equal parts of sautéed carrot, celery and onion). The quantities are improvised but with these ingredients you can’t go wrong. Sometimes he uses a little cognac instead of the red wine. Sometimes he adds a tablespoon of mustard.

He rinses and dries the meat, stuffs the pocket to fill, then drizzles the top with olive oil and packs on more stuffing.  Roast at 325 degrees and check at 50 minutes. Internal temp should be around 145 degrees—slightly pink.

Dinner started with an antipasto platter, followed by saffron risotto for the primo.  With the pork, we served rapini, broccoli rabe with lemon juice, and the red potatoes shown in the photo.  These I steamed until barely done, placed them on parchment and smashed them with the bottom of a glass. I anointed each with olive oil, seasoned them and added rosemary. They then travel to a hot (400 degrees) oven until they become a bit crispy, about ten minutes.

This dessert–photo doesn’t do it justice–causes silence to fall at the table. Then someone inevitably says, “What is this?” Or invokes the deity: Oh, mio dio! Can anything be this close to heaven? Maybe it’s best not to mention to guests that it has enough butter in it to make Paula Deen blush. This recipe I found in Rogers Gray Country Italian Cookbook, where they call for pears. I’ve adapted it to  summer plums—marvelous–but this time I used apples. Whatever fruit you use should be firm.

Pastry:

½ pound (2 sticks) very cold butter cut into pieces

2 ½  cups sifted flour

1/8  teaspoon  salt

1 ¼ cups powdered sugar

3 large yolks, beaten

Filling:

2  cups almonds pulverized to fine powder in food processor

3 whole eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ½ cups fine sugar

¾ pound (3 sticks) butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees for pastry, then reduce to 350 degrees.

First prepare the pastry.  Mix the butter, flour, and salt until crumbly; beat in powdered sugar then the yolks.  When well combined and adhering together, roll into a ball and chill for about an hour.  Slice into pieces and press dough into a large glass pie plate or a twelve-to-fourteen inch spring-form tart pan.  Chill about ten minutes then prick all over and bake the pastry in a hot oven until slightly toasty, about ten minutes.

For the filling, cream butter and sugar until fluffy, add vanilla, mix with ground almonds, then add eggs one at a time, beating well.

Arrange quartered apples, 4 or 5, depending on the size, in the pie pan, pour filling over them and bake until set, about 30 minutes. Serve slices with a dollop of mascarpone whipped with a little cream and sugar.

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