We took a long walk around the village and down lanes, admiring some minor villas (some awaiting restoration) and breathing in the scents of tigli and magnolia.  The owners of the Margherita (www.villa-margherita.com) also own Hotel Villa Franceschi (www.villafranceschi.com) and the restaurant for both hotels is located there.  As we pulled up for dinner, guests alighted from Ferraris, the women dressed to kill and the men in elegant fitted pale biscuit or gray summer suits.  Turns out they were there for a Lion’s Club function. (That’s not going to happen in downtown Raleigh.)

We ordered risotto with scampi and vegetables.  Both were pureed to the same texture as the rice, adding subtle layered flavors–a blend, not a combination.  With my grilled fish and Ed’s mysterious-looking dark, small soft-shell crabs, we drank a cool sauvignon from Friuli, a lilting preamble to our next destination.

The revelation of Mira is that you can stay here and take a vaporetto into and from Venice any half hour up until 10:30 at night.  The hotel, at 150 euros, would be triple that amount in Venice.  When Venice is packed, this is an appealing option.  And you’re near the Giotto fresco cycle in Padova, as well as the Palladian villas.  Here is the sister hotel, the Franceschi, where we’ll probably stay next time, just to be nearer the kitchen!

We picked up our friend, writer Robert Draper (still smiling after a grueling month all over Afghanistan) at the airport and headed toward Cormons for the wedding of our friend Giampaolo Venica at his family’s superb Venica & Venica vineyard. But today is devoted to wine.  Robert steered us to the cooperative enoteca in the center of Cormons, where not only are wines from this tip-top region poured, the makers themselves often are there having a jolly time.  We tasted three whites, pure as white lilies.  Such exuberant wine makes you rejoice at the skill of the vintner–and the power of the land to give such gifts.

This was our second time staying at La Subida, www.lasubida.it , whose restaurant is definitely worth a detour. The owners, Josko and Loredana Sirk simply embody, for me, the spirit of the area—his robust friendliness and her gracious presence represent the hospitality you find everywhere around here. Their sleek new apartments in the woods make me want to check in alone for a month of writing, though I’d like to go with friends in winter for the cozy alpine atmosphere.

In the afternoon, we visited Franco Toros’s immaculate home in the lush hills, with the Slovenian border a stone’s throw away.  Franco is a genial, up-front man with a deft skill—his wines are stellar.  We left there with three cases.

We repaired to our room to rest after such indulgences, then as the long twilight started to settle over the hills, we drove to a perched medieval castle for dinner: Al Castello di Trussio dell’Aquila d’Oro, which is in Dolegna del Collio.  (They don’t seem to have a website but you can read raves in any of the guidebooks.)  The sommelier recommendeded perfect wines, the service was sweet, and the courses each outdid the other. At last light, a wobbly full moon rose over the fields below. I don’t want to go to heaven if it’s not as dreamy as this.

Two years ago, Robert introduced us to the Collio wine area and we are smitten.  Friuli is Italy, but it’s also influenced by an Austrian heritage and a proximity to Slovenia.  The food could not be better, nor could the vino. Mysterious Trieste makes a good gateway to the area.  With wine as fine as this, you’d think Friuli would be a hot destination–but we saw hardly a tourist. Two trips here lure us to see the rest of the area’s lakes, mountain villages and Adriatic beaches. And to explore nearby Slovenia.

The wedding took place in a tiny church on a knob of hill, with an eagle-eye view.  Robert was best man. Giampaolo and Chiara looked calm, happy and gorgeous. The flower girl was very important.  I became entranced with the shoes women wore.  I’ve always noticed the shoes in renaissance paintings—the Italians must always have adored their scarpe and the beat goes on.

There are many more but I’ll stop there.  The wedding lunch lasted eight hours, with all the Venica wines. There was then a break before the music started and the night went on.  For all I know, it’s still going on.  We faded because we have to leave early for Cortona.  Six guests arriving, then my family, then we have the 20^th anniversary celebrations, and, and, and.

Here’s the train of the wedding dress:

]]> http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/07/19/five-hours-north-friuli/feed/ 36 http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/06/17/back-to-bramasole/ http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/06/17/back-to-bramasole/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:43:01 +0000 francesmayes http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/?p=501 Returning to Bramasole, we found the garden in full frisson.  This is an especially good year for roses, after all the downpours of May.  The Edens on the herb terrace wall decided to run rampant and they are a joy.  Sally Holmes I always refer to as a cheerleader and this year she’s doing the twist and shout.  I love the full-bouquet blooms—a bride could not do better than three stems of these and a few ribbons.  From the third floor, I can smell jasmine, the yellow ginestre (broom) on the hills, lemon and orange blossoms, and the roses.  Soon the lavender will join the fray.  Already white and blue butterflies are dancing around the hedges, waiting for the blooms. Here’s Sally with her apricot buds and pale pink-to-white flowers:

At this time of year the sun hits our house at five a.m. and for a half hour before, all the birds are awake and singing their matins.  I can’t sleep because of their divine racket and find myself editing recipes at dawn.  This morning I was in the garden at six, deadheading roses and pulling weeds out of the stone terrace walls.  My sunflowers are ankle high; this time next week they will double.  Bramasole’s herb terrace:

I wanted to write from the cruise but the Internet was spotty on the high seas and when we were in ports, we were out walking all day.  I loved going back to Lerici and was about to write about it as a “hidden” place but Ed just told me there’s a recent article  and a slide show about it in The New York Times. So much for  hidden.  http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/14/travel/20100620Lerici.html

The last stops: Nice, Marseille, Barcelona.  Of these, Marseille was my favorite.  Nice is just too choked with traffic.  Barcelona, dreamy name, is a place I’ve never warmed to and I’m not sure why.   In Spain, I’ve much preferred Madrid, Sevilla, Granada, and Cordoba.  Walking down Las Ramblas in the rain was romantic and the market lured us until we had to sail away.

M.F. K. Fisher was right.  Marseille is a considerable town.  A day there is way short, but it was lovely to walk around the U-shaped port, so full of working boats, pleasure boats, service boats.  A long lunch looking out over that lively scene was a highlight of the trip.  We ate at Mirador, a lucky guess. My shellfish gratin:

Afterwards, we just walked and walked, marveling at all the gypsies dressed like your idea of gypsies, the Africans in their fabulous colorful fabrics, and taking in the handsome buildings.

We met many, many great people on the Corinthian II.  The historian Lamar Cecil, the art historian from The Art Institute of Chicago Margaret Farr, and the three musicians Amy Cofield Williamson, Scott Williamson, and Scott Beard all enriched our days on board.  The food was really good and not at all overwhelming, and we were lucky that the sea remained calm.  During one of my lectures, there were a few rolls and I had to brace myself by holding on to the podium.

We’re home.  Happy to be back with the flowers and birds.  I can’t tear myself away from the novel Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, so Ed worked in the garden then roasted a chicken with some potatoes and made a zucchini gratin.  When I finally came down to dinner, it was eight o’clock and a soft light suffused the garden and sky.  Tiepolo would have hauled out his brushes.  Jasmine is narcotizing!

]]> http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/06/17/back-to-bramasole/feed/ 53 http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/06/11/under-another-tuscan-sun/ http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/2010/06/11/under-another-tuscan-sun/#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:27:28 +0000 francesmayes http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/?p=494 11 June, Wall Street Journal link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282892054989772.html?KEYWORDS=mayes

I admire Kate Bolick’s articles and am happy that she chose to write about our mountain house, and also about my good friend Fulvio Di Rosa’s project, the renovation of a medieval borgo in the mountains near Cortona. Included are slide shows of our house and Borgo di Vagli.

Another Italian jaunt of Kate’s: -Back to the Futurists: Italy’s First Avant-Garde Turns 100 [it's a 5-part series in Slate, so you have to click on each "day"]

http://www.slate.com/id/2221458/entry/2221459/

I am aboard a small ship, the Corinthian II, “working” as a guest lecturer on a sweep around the blessed Mediterranean. We sailed out of Civitavecchia, near Rome, and stopped first in Naples, a city Ed and I love.  While everyone toured Pompeii and the great museum (we’ve been many times), we simply walked for our dose of street theatre.  Naples jolts all the senses.  So many spontaneous conversations happen, so much noise, music, traffic.  Grime and glory—that’s Naples.

This Travel Dynamics trip emphasizes music art, history and food.  What a treat—a 75-person group, fabulous ports of call, and interesting events on board.  Before arriving in Sicily, for example, we heard a lecture on the spotted, complex history of the island, then I spoke on understanding the place through two of its writers, Giuseppe did Lampedusa and Leonardo Sciascia.  In Naples, our resident musicians performed Scarlatti, Donizetti, and Verdi at the Museo Diocesiano.  Tomorrow, we dock at Lerici and will visit Puccini’s home then hear a concert at the Oratorio di San Giovanni in Lucca.  In port, Ed and I often will wander off on our own.  The sense of discovery I seek in travel is best accomplished by turning off on side streets.

Meanwhile, we’re at sea.  I spoke today on one of my favorite subjects, food in these Mediterranean lands.  The company is convivial.  I’ve had the pleasure of reconnecting with a college friend who happens to be on board.  There’s no end to the great people one can meet in life and that’s a joy—always the prospect of a new friend.

The great sensation is the sea: the horizon line straight as though drawn by a lapis-colored pencil,  the shushing sound as the boat glides forward, moonlight’s silver path, and then just the feeling of enormity and a sense of connection with the old navigators who set sail toward unknown lands.  I wonder if my fellow passengers feel, as I do, a knot of sadness looking out at such stupendous beauty, knowing that hideous black oil is shooting into the gorgeous waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  Now and then I glimpse a plastic bottle and rage hits me again.

I would like to post photos, especially of the color of the water!  But the internet is drastically slow so that must wait. Now off to a lecture on painters in Provence, just around the big land curve.  Nice, Marseilles, Barcelona.  Much to anticipate.

For example, the quick two-day trip Ed and I just took. Our friend Steven Rothfeld, the photographer, was with us when we took off for Marina di Bibona to eat at La Pineta. We headed toward Volterra, an austere and handsome little city with Etruscan roots, then through idyllic countryside—no traffic–to the coast.

Fish!  Fish!  We went  in search of inspiration for cooking fish.  (Did I say that Ed and I are working on a cookbook?) .  At fish-mecca La Pineta, there’s a Michelin star–which in Italy often is awarded to something the French like because it seems French.  La Pineta, instead, looks like a seafood shack on any beach.  Twin waiters greeted us in the surprising formal dining room–right on the beach–and proceeded to stun us with course after course of the freshest seafood I can remember. The owner, Luciano Zazzeri, who was once a fisherman himself, came over to the table twice to make sure we were happy, and we were. Although it was lunch time, we quaffed the complimentary prosecco, a bottle of wine, and then the extra glass they offered.  As we talked to Luciano about how amazed we were at the sweet, sweet shellfish and the delicate pastas, and the fritto misto, he told us about his cousins and friends in nearby Cecina, who dock on the river when they come in from the sea with the catch of the day. At La Pineta, here’s what I ordered:

After this sybaritic lunch, we checked into a modern, charmless hotel, which did have a pine forest on the sea.  It seemed to be headquarters for German and Swiss bicyclists.  They looked happy and rosy from their rides along the deserted roads where there are many umbrella pine and cypress lanes.  In the afternoon, we loved wandering around Bolgheri and Castagneto Carducci.  This area, with lots of sun and sea breezes, is ideal for wine.  (Look for wines from this area–you can’t go wrong!)  The poet Carducci wrote a poem about the staggeringly long cypress lane leading to Bolgheri.  The trees were planted in 1801 and they look like gods–overpowering and majestic. You might be entering heaven, if hosts of angels greeted you at the end of the 5 KM. long avenue.  Instead, there’s a low-key stone town, with a seated statue of Carducci’s grandmother.  I sat down beside her and imagined that we had a chat.  The countryside invites you to take small roads leading only to other small roads, with only the green countryside, chestnut copses, and hidden villas to entertain you.

Luciano recommended Zanzibar in San Vincenzo’s port for dinner.  Again, we feasted on the freshest of fresh fish.  We were seated in an airy alcove overlooking the boats in the harbor.  Two men, both alone, were the other diners.  In true Italian style they began to talk from adjacent tables and–perfect strangers–enjoyed an evening together, each intermittently talking on their phones and explaining that they’d met and apparently had much in common.

Early the next morning we were in Cecina among the dozen or so friendly men who’d just pulled in with their nets and were putting out on styrofoam trays small silvery fish, sea urchins, shrimp of many dimensions, something dire that looked like a cross between a snake and an eel–everything you need for a batch of fried fish, a stew, or a simply grilled fillet.

We drove on to Castiglione della Pescaia, walked around the medieval upper town and stopped for a fine lunch on the piazza at Pierbacco.  I had big shrimp on a little lake of pureed chickpeas.  We all tasted Steven’s grilled eggplant with caper sauce and slivers of parmigiano. Then we meandered down the street and tasted honey gelato with pine nuts.

So much one can see in such a short time.  We drove back to Cortona via Monte Amiato, Tuscany’s highest point.  From our mountain house, we can see this mystical extinct–let’s hope–volcano on the horizon.  The slopes are dotted with tiny medieval villages and the views as you ascend are heart-stirring.  We all longed to find a cozy inn and take long hikes with a big hunk of cheese and some rustic bread.  Chestnut beer is a specialty here, as are all chestnut dishes.  We’ll come back in the fall for the blue light at evening and the layers of hills.

Tuscany crowded?  Off track of the grand sites, Tuscany remains idyllic and alluring. Many readers here know Tuscany well.  Any favorite spots to suggest?

Speaking of guidebooks, I did a review on Amazon of Fodor’s new guide to Italy, a compact and packed little tome:

http://www.amazon.com/Fodors-Essential-Italy-2nd-Full-Color/dp/1400007283/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273846062&sr=1-1

Home!  We simply pick up where we dropped off last fall.  Ed goes out to get his hair cut.  He’s been waiting for Francesco’s special touch with his spiky hair.  I pick up the book I didn’t finish last October and fall to bed for a three hour sleep.  Lovely that the days are long now.  We walk around the land and see that our fava beans are coming along, and the artichokes will be ready soon.  Half of one plum tree looks dead.  Ed builds a fire and we have dinner pulled up close to the heat.  This stone house hasn’t given up winter yet.

We talk about how the summer looks and how busy we’ll be with the 20^th Anniversary party, loads of guests, a wedding in Friuli, a cruise where I’m to be the guest speaker, The Tuscan Sun Festival (Sting is coming!) and on and on.  This summer, I’ll probably spend most of my time in the kitchen because we’ve decided to gather all our favorite recipes into The Tuscan Sun Cookbook.  Ed is delighted because when it’s published, we won’t have to search through my books, our folders, and in odd drawers for scraps of paper where I’ve scrawled the ingredients for something we’ve eaten somewhere.  Steven Rothfeld will photograph as we go. www.stevenrothfeld.com We work together every year on an agenda with photographs (Frances Mayes Under the Tuscan Sun Agenda from Chronicle Books) and he did the good work in Bringing Tuscany Home. We’re excited about creating a book together and look forward to the inspiring fun of being with Steven.

We’ll start with spring’s bounty: peas, asparagus, fave, artichokes, green almonds, green garlic—green, green green.  We’re seeing green and will be tasting green for weeks.  First dish: risotto primavera.  Tomorrow, we’ll go to the market.

When I come home on Thursday, I’ll go into departure frenzy: Sunday we leave for summer in Italy.  This requires that the garage is in order, closets are winnowed of clothes not worn, and the pantry is cleared of all sad items past their sale date.  Then there’s my desk to attack. That’s just the beginning.  I sometimes rewrite my will. My daughter makes fun of me, Ed is too busy with his own exit strategy to notice, and by the time I leave, I’d like to be taken to the airport on a stretcher!

Why this zeal overtakes me, I hardly understand. It’s just that Italy still seems so drastically foreign to me, such a break from normal life, that I almost have to tie up everything here perfectly before I can start over there.  It seems that my American house will be abandoned.  Ah, that’s it, the old fear of abandonment! (My father died when I was fourteen.)  And all that ocean between!  Travel always seems drastic.  But as the plane lowers over the Rome airport and I first see the sheep in the green fields and the toast-colored houses half as old as time, a deep familiarity returns.  By the time I pass through customs and emerge into the airport, I’m completely there.

Our Bramasole Olive Oil is featured on the Taste Book site and I’d love for one of my blog friends to win.

They also have links to three recipes from Every Day in Tuscany.