Siena and Bread

This is the third of the four travelogues I sent while away....

We got our first ticket in Italy!  We hopped on our train from Bologna to Florence with a reserved seat, but our ticket from Florence from to Cortona was similar to a regular old bus ticket. Since we found a train leaving in about a minute from when we arrived we ran and jumped on...failing to validate the ticket. The conductor was very happy to actually write us a ticket and point out that we failed to validate it.  5 euro fine.

After negotiating the process of logistics, language and rental car process we made our way to the "highway" or cassia, and first drove to the bread school area just to check it out since we were close.  On the way is a very large lake, just beautiful - Trasimieno.  John was pretending he was in his personal Ferrari rather than the "Go Ka" as we have aptly named our new wheels.  By the way, this car has answers for parking and gas mileage; we can fit just about anywhere.  Other than the fact that if feels as though the wheels may fall off any any moment, we are zipping about the country side just fine.  And, other than the fact that John backed into someone's house and scratched the bumper, we are still fine.  Backing into someone"s house is really more like driving up a narrow street with no turn around, therefore backing back down and brushing a "wall" - is someone's house.

We stayed in a farmhouse that is about 400 years old, and as John proclaimed when we arrived "Isn"t this just the most kicka$$ place you've seen?!!"  It is located about 12 km south of Siena.  And as predicted in Toscana (Tuscany), there are either villas, palaces or castles on nearly every hilltop.  We were able to cook our own meals each night, so that was not only a break, but a very pleasant rest in our travels.  I must say, I made some pretty good stuff with few ingredients.  This farmhouse is part of an old mill built around 1200a.d. It is run by two families (two sisters and their husbands) and I had the fun of playing volleyball with their girls Agatha and Matilda, both around 10ish!

We visited Volterra, a few other hilltop towns/castles over the few days, including St. Antimo, an abby where we arrived in time to listen to Gregorian chants.  We went into Siena on Saturday in time to catch the finish of a "5K" race....that's approximately 5K as you can imagine running around a town like Siena and finishing at a church that's 1000 years old.  We thought this was pretty cool to watch locals doing what we do in the States.  If that wasn't entertaining enough, suddenly we starting seeing old cars coming through the streets and we realized it was the Mila Miglia 1000, an old car race that is now more of a tour, but with cars 50 or so years old...you know, like old Ferraris for example.  Francesco, of our tour in Bologna, told us about this race happening in Italy that weekend and while thinking it was pretty fascinating, thought nothing after that including how or where we might see it, and there it was in our laps, in Siena on a beautiful sunny day.  We watched for nearly 2 hours as they were going through their checkpoint, revving their engines and having a good time....I think John took a lot of photos during this time....

We reluctantly moved on from our farmhouse, and made our way to la Mercatale where John's bread school is located.  Montepulciano and Pienza were a few of the stops along the way - lovely towns.  Have I mentioned that we are still upholding our average of one bottle a wine a day?

Since we'd already checked out where we were going, we arrived easily to our new/old farmhouse - approximately 1000 years old.  Most of the rest of everyone were already there as the dinner was about to arrive.  How this works is a German woman, relocated to Italy, who trains horses, also is a fabulous cook.  Okay, fabulous really is not the word I want and maybe a better one will come to me.   I've had some complaints that I've not given enough food descriptions up to this point.  I am glad I held off as nothing compares to what we"ve been eating for the last three nights.  Christina cooks for the groups coming in for the bread school in the month of May, and she arrives with hot pots, baskets and other paraphanelia to serve us up with a four course meal....each night for 6 nights total (for our group anyway).

The first night?   Tagliatelli, pork with potatoes, etc, salad, and chocolate mousse.

night 2:  quiche, beef with risotto and mushrooms, greens, and a berry tart.

night 3:  a bread salad (Pancinella), greens, lentils with sausages and tirimisu.

Sound rather average?  This is all made from scratch, daily, from her garden or the local market and typically organic...even the tart crust.  We're dying here.  Please make the food stop.  Can someone takes us home now?   NOT!  If it weren't for the hot water coming and going giving us the chance for a cold bath to wake us up, this would really be a horrible situation we're in.

We are grouped with an American couple living in Switzerland and is in some (um, "high") function with the UN and Refugees...yes he's worked with Angelina Jolie (and yes, the caribineiri/polizia questioned his diplomatic insignia on his license plates right next to the wood fired oven where the bread baking is going on).  A chef from Australia; we"re still working on understanding his accent.  Another couple from South Africa; what a hoot!  The couple from England who own their own bakery and he is teaching.  And Carl, the dude who happens to run this thing and by the way, yes, Burt of Burt's Bees is his brother.   It's a party every night for dinner, we figured out how to get the fire going nicely for atmosphere, and because it is raining kittens and pups for 3 days, and the only downside (besides the hot water issue), is that the party is right outside our bedroom door....need a bit more sleep.

Chiara owns the farmhouse and all the land we are on.  She is a classic farm Italian lady and very classy and speaks fabulous English with a beautiful accent.  She and her daughter, Francesca, took Lorna, my new South African friend, and I around yesterday for several hours showing us her property, but mostly her dog-horse.  This beautiful animal was raised with dogs and thinks it is one and would like to put it"s hooves on your shoulders.

John is LOVING this school and I must say I underestimated it - they have notebooks and everything.  They even have a "final" on Friday and they must bake 3 kinds of bread successfully.  Have I mentioned the giant stack of bread in our kitchen?  All of us are NOT eating it fast enough!  Wine helps though.....

So, for now, I must tour Cortona with Lorna, Lisa and her son Noah (wife and son of the instructor) who threw up strawberries behind me as I drove the winding roads to get here....

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[J]

Just sniffing bread carbs makes me fatter and even reading this blog may have done something...