SURPRISES NEVER WORK
The plan was concocted in the evening somewhere between the third and fourth bottles of wine. JoHannah was to offer to take Rick out for breakfast the following morning. We were to go to Montalcino at ten and then come back to the farm a couple of hours later. During our absence Laura and Stefania were going to deck the outside patio in balloons and banners as a surprise to kick off Rick's birthday. We would then have the afternoon and plenty of time to prepare for his birthday dinner at Boccon di Vino back in Montalcino.
Here's what really happened. All of us scurried around trying to reinforce the lie until the plan took a u-turn forcing us to change the destination of our breakfast from Montalcino to Buonconvento, a nearer town. We then tried between my meager Italian and Stefania's English to figure out a restaurant we could go to that would serve a quick breakfast. As I mentioned, in Rome hotels seem to go all out for their breakfasts but local restaurants in Buonconvento not so much. I don't know if it was Stefania's intent but her suggestion turned out to be a sports bar serving haggard sweet rolls and espressos to a crew of old men with grizzled beards. We bailed on the sports bar and then started the near impossible task of finding another place before becoming exhausted and settling for another bar selling more haggard sweet rolls and espressos. The upside was the clientele had shaved.
We had squeezed in a little shopping, the highlight of the morning, before our breakfast of sweet rolls and coffee, but I was unable to convince anyone else that after our dining on sweet rolls and espresso we should head back.
By some quirk of mathematics the majority was now going to have us all go to Montalcino, our original destination. This is where things went really off the tracks. Traveling is great when you've reached your destination but it's the getting there that can ignite the fisticuffs. Give me a paved road with sufficient shoulder and I'm fine but ask me to drive on streets to small to accommodate two cars going in opposite directions and I'm no good. I thought I had made it clear that we should park at the lot at the bottom of the hill. Apparently I hadn't. When we got to where I thought we should park no one but me was willing to walk up the 173 steps to the top of the hill and the center of town. Rick said he would drive up there so I let him and I walked up the hill by myself. A wrong decision from anywhere you'd look at it. I made it to the top in minutes. They got lost and it took them half an hour to get to where I was standing. Furious...you bet. The only good thing and strictly from my point of view is I was able to stand in two parking spaces, one for each car we were driving and ward off anyone else that tried to park in them. By the time our two cars arrived I had been flipped the bird a half-dozen times but I had secured the only two spaces left for parking. No one thanked me.
By this time everyone was ready for lunch and with no way out it was going to add another hour on to the already two hours that had lapsed from the time we were supposed to have returned to the farm. The last straw was everyone seemed to have a reason for why we needed to stop at the coop, the local supermarket, before we went back to the farm.
We arrived at 4:30, four and a half hours after the designated time we were supposed to have arrived. Laura and Stefania's balloons had pretty much deflated but being the troopers they are they all managed to sing "Happy Birthday" and smile.
I think Rick was still pleased as he kept clinging to the edge of 69 insisting he still had a few minutes left by Georgia time until he was officially 70.
The crown of Rick's birthday was his dinner at our favorite restaurant Boccon di Vino perched high on a hill in Montalcino with a view stretching across the valley blanketed with a patchwork of fields of green.
The restaurant is now well established having begun in the early 90's and survived the pandemic it is now run by the second generation of the family.
We were thirteen for dinner, a dinner that began at eight that evening with the pouring of a sparkling rose and didn't end until close to midnight running through five courses designed to bring Tuscany to the table followed by a surprise ending.
The menu began with a tasting plate of appetizers, toast points with chicken liver pate, a crispy phillo pastry filled with melting Pecorino, slivers of Tuscan black cabbage, fried polenta with black garlic sauce and smoked goose breast Carpaccio.
This was served with a Veraccia di San Gimignano 2019 reserve
The entire meal was served slowly giving you time to savor the after flavors of what had been served previously. The next course was La Pappa col Pomodoro, a blended red pepper soup topped with crostini drizzled with olive oil and balsamic
The prima course was a signature dish, a highly guarded family recipe of homemade gnocchi tossed with Italian cheeses and garnished with shavings of fresh black truffle. This was the dish I was waiting for and as much as I'd like to describe it I can't beyond it was heaven the minute it touched my tongue. I wasn't sure if I wanted another course but I did know I wanted the taste of that "Gli Gnocchi di Mario" to rest on my taste buds for as long as it could
The secondo course was a plate of beef cheek medallions stewed in Brunello wine and served with organic chickpeas and rosemary oil.
For this course a robust Brunello Corte Pavone 2016 was served
The last official course was a dessert pairing a lemon sorbet striped with a mint sauce and a coup of chocolate coffee mousse set on meringue shards.
This was served with a Moscadello Capanna 2019, a sweet ending of dinner wine
The surprise, as if the desserts weren't enough, was a beautiful birthday cake after which everyone moaned basta.
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