Okay all you foodies. This one’s for you.

Yesterday, after accusing Italians of being descendants of Hobbits,I found myself proved temporarily wrong by my friends who decided to skip lunch. I’m pretty sure Hobbits don’t skip lunch. While I headed down the hill to make myself a couple of fantastic little grilled cheese sandwiches, they stayed to work. I told them to call if they wanted me to put the pasta pot on. I’m really glad they didn’t.

When they returned late in the afternoon, I’d had a little lunch and started afternoon tea. The ladies ran in, grabbed a couple of handfuls of bread and two bananas, and we were off to Lucca. We were going for business, but Lucca is home to some friends, so we got to have a bit of fun, too.

Lucca is a beautiful city at night. The shops sparkle as people pass by on bikes and on foot. We found our friends and started our trek through the city. The ladies were pretty hungry, and had missed afternoon tea, so caffeine was high on the list. We popped into a beautiful shop that had chocolate everywhere. Chocolate in the case, chocolate on the walls, and a vat of ciocolata calda stirring itself behind the counter. I noticed this beautiful liquid loveliness as I sipped my macchiato, and thought that I would need to sample some soon.

After trips to a couple of businesses, we made our way to another shop with chocolate lining the walls. A simple sign “chocolat” adorned the front. The little storefront was jammed with people after one thing – ciocolata calda. “Kristin! Con o senza pepperoncini?” With or without spicy pepper. Yummy. Our lovely friend Manuella handed me a plastic cup and spoon of super-dark liquid chocolate sprinkled with flakes of red pepper.

We all stirred our scalding cups, sending great columns of steam up, along with an amazing scent.  We spent the next five minutes standing in the street spooning mouthfuls of chocolate and scraping the bottoms of the little cups.

We crisscrossed the streets of Lucca for a couple of hours, everyone growing increasingly hungry and tired. We had plans to attend a friend’s art exhibition in Bagni di Lucca, but the thought of finding some food and heading home was growing increasingly appealing.

In the end, we made the turn to Bagni di Lucca, hoping that we could eat at the restaurant where the exhibition was happening. The wine and focaccia we were greeted with, and the long table set for dinner, were good signs.

After mixing, mingling and checking out the art, we seated ourselves at the table. There was a fascinating mix of people from Italy, Germany, Monaco, Greece and the US. This made dinner conversation excellent. While my language skills were probably the poorest of anyone at the table, they were all very good sports, and more than willing to let me muddle through in broken Italian while we consulted my little dictionary for vocab lessons. Of course, it helped that my family is from Greece, Germany and Chicago, where a couple of the Italian guys had spent time, and that I shared a special kind of kinship with two of the others. For the first time in this kind of setting, I felt able to be more myself. The barrier of not speaking the language really puts me in a place where I’m the observer, listening attentively, trying to work out the words, missing half of what’s said. Last night, I found myself able to understand quite a lot, and even allowed myself to speak a few butchered sentences, which were lovingly understood and corrected by those around me. It was lovely.

By the end of the night I had a handful of new vocabulary words, an invite to hold Thanksgiving dinner at a home in Barga, an invite to attend a book club, an invite to another dinner, and an invite to stay in the north of Italy. I need to try to speak Italian more often.

While we talked, food began to appear. The owner announced that, per Luccia’s request (she’s the artist and is a fervent vegetarian), the entire meal would be vegetarian. Wow. Deb and Sandra looked at me with wide eyes. How fantastic! I’d be able to eat everything without asking if it had meat. Amazing.

First was a lovely, delicate pastry filled with zucchini, and drizzled with a saffron sauce.

When the owner came by with a dish to see who wanted more, I was very happy to oblige. It should have registered with me that Deb refused, saying she was full. Here’s a tip for non-Italians eating in Italy: If you are out with a group of people, and food that you have not ordered starts arriving, it’s very possible that you have begun what will be a 2 hour foodapalooza. Unless you are a champion food-eater, or are planning to head to a deserted island for the next month, do not accept second helpings from anyone. There will be plenty more. Have no fear.

After the zucchini pastry came polenta balls in some kind of a creamy cheese sauce, topped with black truffle shavings.

There were so many plates of these that I ended up eating 3, and almost had 4 before the plate (which had migrated, with others, to me) was taken away. Thank heavens it was taken away.

Next to arrive were long plates of pear and cheese salad. The slices of pear and pecorino were dressed simply with olive oil and black pepper. I had at least two helpings of this.

I believe I had a piece of bread at this point – or focaccia. Big mistake. While the brown focaccia you can find here is absolutely amazing – salty, nutty, yummy – it seems to be placed strategically to root out the non-locals. There were few of us who actually touched the bread. Fools, all of us.

As the first plate of pasta came out, I started to wonder if I’d make it through all the courses. The pasta, however, was so incredible, that I stopped thinking and started eating in earnest. Fortunately, I accepted only a few of the beautiful ravioli, which were filled with pureed squash (pumpkin, I think) and maybe caramelized onions, and covered in lovely butter, cloves and walnuts.

I was just thinking how I’d like a couple more when Deb turned to me. “Hey, you want mine?” She didn’t like hers. Joy! I shoveled her portion – which was about twice what I’d just eaten – onto my plate. Here’s a tip for Italian folks who are eating at a dinner like this with non-Italians (specifically Americans): We don’t know that there’s more food coming. Please don’t give us more food. It would even be kind to hide the food from us when we’re not looking. Really.

I’d just polished off Deb’s ravioli when the second THE SECOND plate of pasta arrived.

More squash, more butter, more clove. Ancora, ancora, ancora.

At this point, my head was swimming a little. I had consumed roughly 10 times the amount of food that is supposed to fit in my stomach, and I could feel it expanding as I sat at the table, wondering what amazing plate would be set before me next.

Instead of meat, the owner had prepared fennel baked in a béchamel sauce and covered in cheese (people, we don’t use fennel enough in the US. Its’ seriously good), a roasted tomato, braised radicchio, and baked tomino (cheese) with shaved white truffle and a mushroom that reminded me of a morel. All of it was excellent. I turned down seconds.
Then we sat. And we talked about how much we’d eaten. And how much we’d had to drink. And how much we needed a cappuccino. And then dessert arrived.

The cheesecake itself was almost savory. Very little sugar and lots of ricotta. The blueberries on the top gave it its sweetness. Any other night, I would have had three pieces. But, it was the dessert that sent me over the edge. While I was slightly uncomfortable before, I began to wonder if I’d be able to stand up straight when it was time to go.

When we got home, we didn’t have evening tea. It was a short trip to bed, where my distended stomach was comforted by the excellent dinner conversation and the excellent camaraderie of the day.

After a trip to Italy, one of my friends remarked that “all young Italian people are beautiful. But, something happens as they age, and they become trolls.” I have to say, I don’t think this is true. I think that Italians are just descendants of Hobbits. Or maybe just I am. It’s hard to say.

For real.

This is how my average day goes: Get up around 9. Have breakfast. Go to Barga. Have second breakfast, which might be before or after Elevenses with Deb’s mom (depending on the day). Work for a couple of hours. Go back to Fornaci. Have lunch. Maybe nap. Have afternoon tea. Work for a while more. Go home to start dinner. Have evening tea. Sleep. Repeat.

Now, this schedule suits me just fine. Except for eating dinner super late, I’ve adjusted to this without any problem. I like sleeping in.  Even when i get up an hour earlier than the ladies, it’s still hours later than I’m used to.  It seems that Deb and Sandra work more than most. It eems like it, but I’m not totally sure, because the work day is late (compared to the US), due to the extended lunch that closes down shops everywhere. It’s this late lunch that sends dinner late into the night, and allows for the multiple morning meals. (Okay, I’m also not sure that everyone takes both a second breakfast and elevenses. However, I’m here to experience the culture and the people, and what better way than to do it over a nice patry?)

This week was a week of good food. It started with Albertina, Sandra’s mom , and her niece and nephew showing up with a giant bowl of dough and two waffle-type irons. The next two hours were spent with the 7 of us crowded around the table building amazing sandwiches with the wafers that Albertina handed us, fresh from the irons.

They had the feel and taste of a cake cone, but were thicker and a little chewier when hot. And they were HOT. We’d each take our turns accepting one from Berti and then spend several minutes burning ourselves while trying to cut them in half, or open them like pitas. The others filled them with meaty meats, thinly sliced from the deli. I filled them with slices of lovely cheeses and roasted peppers Sandra had prepared. Three or four of these I had. And then we started filling them with nutella. I stopped myself just before I exploded (yay me). And declared that I might never eat again.

And then we went to Deb’s family’s place for dinner.

The week was filled with lovely breakfasts: bits of toast and jam and tea or croissants and cappuccini; lovely coffees with Barbara, Andre and Deb – and sometimes Alfredo (a funny man who always plays with Andre.  Pictured here with Andre’s dog).

Second breakfasts that included a lovely ricotta pastry.

It was so good I didn’t even mind that there were raisins hiding in there.

Deb is usually the mistress of lunch, preparing amazing and simple pasta dishes for us. This week we were treated to tortellini with butter and sage. She threw a hunk of butter into the pan and went to the garden to pick the sage leaves.

This week’s afternoon teas included a nice poundcake made by Sandra’s mom. It was hugely long and wonderful and had a crust of chocolate chips. It put me in mind of breads my mom and nana make. I also stopped by a favorite coffee place for an afternoon cappu and biscotto. I don’t know what it was, exactly, but it was good for dipping and perfectly sweet.

We hit the same place twice this week for dinner Il Baretto in Gallicano– a great place that serves pizza, primi, secondi and everything else. When I walked in, I felt like I was in another of Deb and Sandra’s galleries. The walls were adorned with one of Sandra’s murals, and a series of pictures detailing the art of pizza making. Beautiful.

The first night there we all had pizza. Amazing, wonderful pizza. We watched it being cooked and then scarfed it down.

The second night Sandra opted for a meaty dish and fried artichokes and Deb and I opted for calzone.

This calzone was one of the best things I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. It was a huge, 4 cheese creation with a reservoir of sauce on the top. The best part was the gorgonzola that was lurking inside, just around the edges where the crust was doubled up and folded over. I reached it last, after attacking the mozzarella in the middle, drawing out great strings of it. When I found it, the lovely liquid gorgonzola oozed out to mingle with the tomato sauce. I mopped it up with chunks of the crunchy crust. It was absolutely divine.

The dinner was almost exclusively in Italian. I sat quietly observing, Sandra and Deb checking in on me periodically. As the dishes were cleared, Sandra told me to say something in Italian. I chose “penso che vorrei qualcosa ciocolata, e caffe, forse.” I’d been thinking about dessert since about half way through the calzone.

So Paula, our fourth, and I ordered something chocolate. Profiterole with chocolate sauce.

Sandra offered me bread to clean up the sauce. I seriously considered it.

As I’ve mentioned, I really enjoy Italian words that sound similar to each other.  Come to think of it, I really like English words that sound similar to each other.   For years, I kept a list of homophones in my underwear drawer.  They might still be there.  I’ll have to look next time I’m home.  Yes, I know I’m a freak.

Anyway, one set of words that I’ve learned is ancora (stress on the first syllable) and ancora (stress on the second syllable).  The first means “anchor” – as you would find on a boat.  The second means “more”.  I use the second word quite a lot.  When Franca and I won at Burraco, for example, “Ancora!” and we played on.  When I finish a befuddlingly good meal, “Ancora!” and my plate is suddenly full again.

Today was a day of ancora.  More great food, more beautiful places, more fantastic people.

I had no idea (my Italian is improving, but I miss some of the finer points), but Franca works in Florence!  Fabulous.  She’s the regional secretary for the country’s largest union.  Too cool.  So, Giovanna and I decided to take the bus with her and bum around the city while she worked.

When I was here last time, my family visited Florence for a day.  We knew it was a bit insane, but armed with Rick Steves’ (incomplete) guide to Italy, we got up super-early and hopped a train to Florence for a whirlwind tour.  One major thing I want to accomplish on my current leap is to experience places with locals, as though I’m living here, and not as a visiting outsider.  Today, that happened in a couple of ways.

First, we took the bus, and not the train.  Interesting.  While the train ride from Lucca was kind of dirty and took a couple of hours, stopping in a gazillion little towns along the way, today’s bus ride was just over an hour, very clean, and direct from Lucca to Florence.  We were really proud of ourselves to have figured out the train last time.  I would never have thought to take the bus.  Good tip:  take the bus when traveling from Lucca to Florence.

Second, while we tried to cram everything into one day last time, today, we picked out one exhibit and spent the rest of the day wandering around.  The exhibit was at the Palazzo Strozzi, and was about all manner of trompe-l’oeil.  Everything from the program to the paintings to the floors of the exhibit were designed to fool the eye.  The art was beautiful-  but the exhibit was marvelous.  I kept trying to step over decals that had been placed at the thresholds of rooms, making it look like you needed to step up or down to enter.

And there was an entire gallery dedicated to experiential art.  Giovanna and I took turns posing with the other optical illusions, walking through a wonky room that looked normal from the right perspective, and donning 3-D glasses to watch rotating images pop to life.

Then it was off to wander.  We grabbed a sandwich and coffee and strolled the streets of Florence.  In this off-season, the streets were very quiet and the experience was much different than last time.  The temperature was perfect, prices were really reasonable, and we were able to walk through the streets easily, just enjoying the day.

This morning, I had a pretty serious fashion crisis.  This is somewhat rare for me, but it hit today.  Over the last couple of days, Franca and Gio have outfitted me with new coats and boots, totally suitable for strolling around fabulous Italian cities.  I wasn’t able to wear anything new yesterday, because it was raining the entire time.  However, today, it looked like the rain had stopped, and so I decided to get duded up.  That meant figuring out what, exactly would go with the navy blue coat and tan suede boots.

After a wardrobe change or two, I had it worked out.  Now, walking down the streets of Florence in my hip Italian clothes, I felt like I could melt into the city.

After a while we decided to visit Franca at her office across town.  A short taxi-ride later we were sitting in her second-floor office surrounded by union slogans, books and materials.

We chatted about Franca’s work – what she does, how much she truly loves it – and when I left, I had a film about workplace discrimination and a beautiful book detailing the history of women in the union over the last century.  Bello.  But heavy.

When she finished up work, we headed back downtown for some shopping at a fabulous department store, and then a bookshop, where I picked up a super-handy Italian-English dictionary.  At this point, my little computer bag was overflowing with goodness – heavy, heavy goodness.

While we waited for the bus to Lucca, we sat in a café drinking tea and eating a chocolate-dipped cookie.

By this time in the day, I’d had 4 coffees and declined two more.  I especially love that the people I’m around not only drink coffee, in actual cups at bars, but they also take English-style tea – in pots – in the afternoon.  It’s lovely and somehow more civilized than grabbing a venti latte to go, or drinking tea all day long from a mug at my desk.  It means more stops for little coffees, and more interactions with more people.  Ancora.

Once we were back in Lucca, we sought out an open restaurant.  Many restaurants are closed on Monday, especially in the off-season, but we found one where they knew the owner and the lights were on.

As has become customary, we sat at the table identifying food items in dueling languages, deciding what we would eat.  Tonight it was gnocchi with truffle and pumpkin.  Buono.  The ladies had spaghettini arrabbiata and some kind of fish balls.  While they ate fish I had a plate of baked cheese with honey and tomato.  This cheese and honey thing that the Italians have going is pretty great.  I’d suggest trying it, but I can’t remember exactly which cheeses you’re supposed to do it with, or which honey goes best.  I’ll let you know if I get a hard and fast set of rules

Finally, it was time for dessert.  When we walked in, Franca and I rushed to the counter to look at the torte.  All manner of yummy things stared back at us.  The most interesting is a vegetable pie that has peppers and pine nuts and spinach, I think.  Tonight’s was extraordinary.  Giovanna asked for a sampling for one person, and a plate big enough for three arrived.

Franca, who pretends not to like sweets the way she pretends not to speak English, and Giovanna, who had declared herself too full, found it in themselves to help polish off the plate while we examined my little dictionary for words we weren’t able to translate during the day.

As we walked from the restaurant to their flat, a stone’s throw away, the night was magical.  We saw only one other person in this often busy city.  Very few stores had open windows, and the cobblestones of the street glistened with the memory of that morning’s rain.

“WHEN you return…” Franca had said over dinner as Giovanna nodded.  “WHEN you return we will…”  Ancora, ancora.  It’s a lovely feeling to know you aren’t the only one wanting more.

I just got back from dinner with two of the nicest people I think I’ve ever met. We met two weeks ago on my first night here. Giovanna and Franca live in the city of Lucca, a wonderfully beautiful city that lies within an ancient wall. They live near the base of the Guinigi tower in a beautiful flat that overlooks a giant clock-tower and piazza.

I am spending the weekend in their home – an extra adventure from my day-to-day in Barga and Fornaci.

The day started with my figuring out the train schedule from Fornaci to Lucca, packing for the weekend, and seeing Sandra and Deb off for their own adventure on a family cruise. Sandra’s mom, Albertina, and I waved goodbye as the van pulled away, and then headed back into the house, as she mumbled about how I don’t speak; shaking her head and looking concernedly at me.

I pulled out a couple of words of Italian, and it seemed to make her feel a little better about me. I went upstairs with the dogs and she went downstairs to bustle around the garden.

As I finished up packing, Berti came by to say “ciao.” In Italy, you don’t just say goodbye. You say ciao, and then you talk for a while. Then you say ciao and talk for a bit longer. When you finally say ciao, it’s more like “cia-ciao,” or as Deb says on the phone “cia-cia-ci-ci-ci-ci-ciao”. The problem is that Berti and I can’t chat so much, so she came in, kissed me on both cheeks and then said ciao, looked at me, shrugged, said ciao, shook her haid, said ciao, smiled and said ciao, and then left. I took that as a good sign. I think it was a breakthrough for us.

As I went to grab my gear, and get ready to leave, I noticed it had gotten substantially darker in the house. The dogs were both firmly inside, as well. About 10 minutes before I was set to walk to the train station, the rain came. Cazzo!

Not to be daunted, I grabbed my rain pants and pulled out the rain cover I bought for my backpack. Why not test everything to its fullest on its maiden voyage? I mean seriously, why not. Everything fit beautifully.

I rounded up the dogs, picked up the keys, locked the door and headed out. The first stop was the “New York Cafe,” a nice little shop around the corner from Deb and Sandra’s that serves all manner of pannini, pizza and paste (pastry). (Update:  evidently the name of the shop is actually “Pasticceria De Servi”. “New York Cafe” is the brand of coffee they serve.  Of course.) I had been instructed in my first days in Italy that you can never go to someone’s house without bringing something. So I stopped for a bite of lunch and paste. After picking out a fantastic egg sandwich and a plate of paste, I gently packed the lovely pastries in the place I’d saved in the top of my pack just for them, and struck out to find the station, egg sandwich in hand.

Sandra and Deb had told me that the station was at a “T” in the road with big trees lining the street, and pointed in the general direction . There are a lot of big trees in Italy, and a lot of forking roads. So, after a short, slippery walk on not so wide shoulders of the wrong road, I made my way to the stazione, figured out the ticket machine (I even managed before a local could work it out), remembered to validate my ticket, and even got on the correct train (with the help of the same local who couldn’t work the ticket machine).

After a beautiful and thought-filled train ride with a load of apparently commuting high-school students, I reached Lucca, where Franca and Giovanna picked me up. Two hours and two cappuccini later (neither of which I was allowed to buy), we had attended a conference on prostitution (as in violence against women, not a how-to course), gone shopping with another friend, Vittoria; and I finally had my first Italian copy of Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale. (I am 100 percent – cento per cento – convinced that this is how I will become fluent in Italian.)

Then it was off to dinner at the house of yet another friend. It is amazing to me how open people have been with me. Not only do they open their homes for dinner, preparing vegetarian meals for a stranger, but they open the houses of their friends and families as well. A woman I met for the first time tonight asked me if I’d like to spend a few days with her daughter. Then she bought me a macchiato. Seriously, she asked Giovanna to send my phone number so we could plan the trip. Amazing.

Dinner was lovely. We spent an hour in an extended vocab lesson. I find fascinating the usage of words that sound similar – probably because I’m listening all day, trying to identify words, and noting the sounds that I hear repeated most often. This seems to be very endearing, because every time I ask a question like “is ‘fiore’ ‘outside’ or ‘flower’” I find a new person who is willing to spend a ridiculous amount of time talking with me about the language. (By the way, fiore is flower and fuori is outside or out.” They sound super similar when spoken by the people around me.)

Then we spent another hour or so eating – eggplant, zucchini, peppers, garbanzos, bread, rice, and a fabulous pair of torte, one made of apples and one made of vegetables. Eight of us sat around the table by the end of the meal. We had decided that, even though most spoke better English than I spoke Italian, it was important for me to learn. So the talk was almost exclusively in Italian. I don’t have my verb tenses sorted out yet, but everyone was super kind and super helpful as I muddled along. We shared vocab words for each and every item on the table (and some on the floor, including a fabulous doormat that had a 3-D Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs).

We left with hugs, kisses and more vocab words hurled back and forth on our way out the door.

Back in Lucca, Giovanna and Franca showed me to my private suite complete with an amazing Italian bathtub (very deep and luxurious). Then, with sly grins, they pulled out a bag of clothes. O dio! Time for a dress up party. Evidently, after my last visit to Lucca – one week ago – they put aside some clothes that they thought would fit me and suit me. I was more than a little skeptical, but after Franca put the first jacket on my shoulders, all doubt went out the window – into the beautiful piazza below.

Tomorrow when I go to Viareggio – a city on the Mediterranean sea – with Franca, Giovanna and Vittoria, I’ll look less like the American visitor in my fabulous long wool coat. And the white and navy jacket that Franca says is for summer is going to be worn long before it’s warm out. Maybe just around the house – when I’m practicing my Italian vocabulary.

When my family gets together, we spend our days largely eating, and talking about what we’re going to eat at the next meal. I have no idea if this is a uniquely Italian trait, or just something that follows me.

Today was a planning day. We don’t have dinner plans, so we talked at lunch about dinner. We’ll likely make “jacket potatoes” with a bag of potatoes that Sandra’s mom bought from the local fields.

Yesterday was an eating day. Sandra and Deb are putting together a very cool exhibition in the region (I’ll post as soon as info is online), and every few days they have meetings to talk about the project with potential contributors, sponsors, collaborators. Last night was a dinner meeting in Castelnuovo, just up the road in Garfagnana.

The restaurant/shop had exactly two tables: one long one that seated 10 of us (and a couple others who wandered by or transferred from the other table when their party broke up) and a second one that could probably fit 6 if it needed to. We were first to arrive, and seated ourselves in front of three great slabs of wood placed as chargers. The first of Deb and Sandra’s friends arrived, and I was introduced half in Italian, half in English, as the English-speaking visitor. We all smiled at each other, traded what pleasantries we knew in each other’s languages, and then I sat back to observe and soak up as much Italian as possible. As others arrived, the routine repeated itself.

Being the only one at the table who doesn’t speak the language is one thing. I, apparently, seem the deep, exotic observer, snapping pictures, and not the mildly thoughtful, painfully self-aware outsider that I sometimes feel. Bonus. Adding to that the fact that I’m a vegetarian who doesn’t drink alcohol, and doesn’t usually drink coffee or eat sugar, and I’m like someone from Mars. Especially in a shop that has legs of dried meats hanging in the corner.

Fortunately, my hostesses are very kind, very thoughtful women, and they made sure that the shop owner knew I am vegetarian. I’d been looking forward to the type of meal that we were about to have – one where the owner of the shop just starts bringing food, plate after plate, specialty after specialty. And, this shop specializes in local dishes. Sacks of local potatoes and walnuts sat in heaps around the shop, and bottles of wine, honey and all other manner of things lined the walls.

The shop owner, a man who clearly loved his work, and looked remarkably like the painting of Baccus on his wine cask, came over to speak with me in broken English about what, exactly, I do and don’t eat. Once we established ground rules (no fish, but yes cheese), he set to preparing dinner. First came focaccia. No, not like the kind in the states. Much, much better. Then a plate of farro (spelt) which is a regional staple.

This was prepared with oregano, olive oil, cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. It was really, really good. The meat eaters also had some kind of fish salad.

Second came smoked trout, lovingly carved at the table and passed from friend to friend.

Every dish, even those I wasn’t eating were proudly explained to me, with questions of whether I was familiar with the ingredients; whether we have trout where I come from.

Next came beans on squares of delicious, toasted bread. The olive oil that was drizzled over the beans was intense and beautifully colored. As seems to happen at meals, the surplus food ended up next to the visitor. That meant not only extra beans for me, but access to the plate with gorgeous, green olive oil – perfect for more focaccia.

Then, two fantastic “cakes,” one with rice and one with spelt. Lovely and eggy and savory. Again these ended up at my end of the table for far too long. (Side note: last time I was here, I realized on the last day, that the fabulous pastries I had been eating in the mornings were made with rice. Rice is used in a ton of dishes. After eating the rice pastries, I feel like it’s really underutilized in the states.)

The owner then came by to make sure I was alright. He let me know that he would be preparing vegetables and then “pop beans” to make sure that I would get enough to eat – you know, because I was really feeling underfed at this point. Evidently my athletic frame is cause for great concern to most of the people who feed me. “Anchora? Anchora!” is a familiar phrase at meal time. “More? More!” Pop beans are something like pop corn Nobody else at the table knew what the owner was talking about, but we were all game to try something new.

The vegetables were beautiful. They included artichokes, which are known to be some of the best in the world, as well as fennel (which is something I never know what to do with when it comes in the harvest box. Turns out it is fabulous sliced, with a little olive oil and salt).

And then it was on to the pop beans. These were excellent. I don’t really know what he did to make them, but they were definitely “popped” open and contained a good amount of olive oil. They were a hit.

After pop beans came a great wood slab of salami, sliced from various hunks of meat that still resembled the animals from which they came. And cheese. Everyone else, transfixed by the meats, passed on the cheese. I tried to decline, but Deb and Sandra know that I love cheese, and the owner wasn’t going to let me out of his shop without sampling his fabulous cheeses. Here’s a side-by-side. I really think I got the better deal.

The cheeses included a mozzarella coated in local herbs, a misto (cow and sheep milk together), and a couple of other sheep’s milk cheeses: one with balsamic reduction and one with something that resembled marmalade. These went perfectly with the several different kinds of bread on the table – including pane coto nel forno a legna.

Along the way, the table had several carafes of red wine poured from big bottles, and small amounts of an amber dessert wine.

As for dessert, we had an assortment of fantastic things. A chocolate cheesecake, some kind of pound cake that might have made me a bit tipsy, and the best thing: a nochi torta. Walnut torte. The walnuts were so delicate and the torte so fresh, I was totally absorbed.

From the other end of the table, where he was now sitting and smoking with the ladies, the owner caught my eye and asked whether I enjoyed the desserts. “Bella, i noci.” “Anchora, more!” he declared, over my objections, and the plate was passed down to my end again.

While we ate and drank, Sandra explained her project. Given over to the confidence that only comes with being surrounded by supportive friends, she smiled, joked, and commanded great attention. It’s amazing what you can understand even when you can’t comprehend. Sandra’s passion and vision were palpable – as were the enthusiasm and admiration in the room.

People continued to chatter, excited about the project, as the owner walked around the table, humming “here comes the bride” and handing out little, paper-wrapped bon-bons that he pulled from his apron pocket. He reminded me of an Italian Hagrid.

Coated in delicate dark chocolate, these little gems were an absolutely perfect end to areally great night of food. We had been eating for over two hours. We didn’t just sit and snack, we ate – for two hours. When we got home it was almost midnight – and time to plan for breakfast.