TWO DINNERS

FIRST NIGHT

"We have big surprise for you this a evening" Stefania beamed her eyes wide with excitement. They were taking us to a movie premiere in Montalcino. We had no idea of where we were going so we left ourselves totally in their hands as they pointed us into designated cars for a caravan into the adjoining hill town of Montalcino. They told us we'd be starting out with pizza before the movie and that's about all of the secret we knew up front. I had no idea of what to expect, only that their best friend Mirando was about to become a movie star. The only image I could muster was a scene for Cinema Paradiso with an open courtyard and a film projected on an ancient wall.

Montalcino is not a big town by anyone's categorization but our hosts guided us into a part of the village we wouldn't have been able to discover on our own. Once we had all parked we followed our Italian hosts down the cobbled streets as the streets narrowed to barely more than walking paths.

We were expecting a small pizzeria for just our group of nine. What we encountered once we turned into the final narrow streets was a table dressed in white and lit with a string of amber lights, set for at least a hundred additional diners. This idea of community dinners goes back centuries in these small Tuscan hill towns. There's a strong sense of pride and loyalty given to the place you grew up in and either still live in or come back to frequenty. These little pockets of our planet still exist where neighbor knows neighbor, and children play in the street under the watchful eye of an entire community. It's where Saturday nights are filled with the sounds of local chatter from groups of men in suspenders and women in house dresses sitting outside their front doors on chairs worn from decades of use.

It's where a pizza dinner on a Saturday night for a hundred and the viewing of a locally made movie are a part of the fabric of life. We were so grateful to have been included with seats at the table even when there were five courses of pizza to get through and the movie shown only in Italian didn't start until almost midnight.

Oh, and Mirando was a total star!























A RETURN TO SAN QUIRICO D'ORCIA

I don't believe we've ever made a trip to Armena without having a dinner in San Quirico at Trattoria Toscana al Vecchio Forno. Here the art of dining al fresco is raised to a four star level. The restaurant is set in the sleepy hamlet of San Quirico d'Orcia.

We've eaten here in every season sitting either inside or out, but summer dining under the typical Tuscan arbor ceiling on pea gravel floors and surrounded by lush greenery is the setting we like the best.

Once again we were a table of nine stretched out as three nations, Dutch, Italian and American, with so much more in common with each other than differences with the biggest commonality at this moment being food.

Lets get to the menu. Allesandro played the roll of matre'd for the appetizers ordering plates of Bruschetta with Tuscan white bacon and rosemary, a puff pastry au gratin with diced vegetables and a smooth smoked Scamorza cheese, an aubergine roll with Ricotta cheese and Porcini mushrooms and a cheese pie stuffed with Ricotta cheese from Pienza, pears, Saffron from San Quirico and a touch of honey from Montalcino all accompanied by both red and white local wines

We didn't go full out skipping the second course and deciding that a pasta course was going to be enough after all the appetizers and there was a hint that we might want to save room for dessert. Rick chose Gnocchetti, a plate of delicate potato dumplings stuffed with spinach, Tuscan sausage and crunchy bacon.

I went somewhat out of my comfort zone to try Paccheri della Val d'Orcia, a tubular pasta cut into short segments and served with fresh leeks, chives, Bronte's pistachios and prosciutto Toscano croccante. If that doesn't make your mouth water maybe Italian cooking isn't for you.

I decided that any new clothes I was going to be purchasing on holiday were going to have to be one size up from what I normally wear in order to make room at the waist for the desserts.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to resist. I went on a no sugar diet for two months before we were to leave, a lot of good that did.
We decided we'd wait the extra ten minutes for a soufflé al ciccolato, a pure chocolate soufflé served with a dish of orange slices in a spicy thick syrup. It was almost definitely death by chocolate!

But the closer was a regional specialty, Pesche cotte al forno nel Brunello di Montalcino: baked peaches cooked in Brunello di Montalcino served with vanilla gelato and drizzled with the reduced peach and Brunello wine syrup.

This is the look of satisfaction