There is dedication in this group. After taking many mental notes until near midnight on the details of how one creates a crema della crema of an olive oil, my gals were up with the sun and ready for the market in Camucia, then onto the train to Florence, back for some wine and rosemary crackers, before dinner of ditoline with sausage and mushrooms, roast chicken with prunes and grapes, and a sformata of bread pudding with a warm apricot sauce at the Villa La Macchia.
It is lovely to be a guest in the Scarpaccini home–an evening in a world we would have never known if we hadn’t been invited. The history of the family seems to stretch back as far as the creation of the hills–it gives an American the feeling of having just arrived, like a small green sprout.
I am not sure what to make for breakfast, after such a meal. Maybe a selection of meats and cheeses with white wine and sliced oranges. Or long thin cookies with toasted walnuts and steaming pots of coffee. If they are up before I make it down the road to town, I have left a pile of wood for a fire in the kitchen stove.