
Birdsong in the Kitchen
Next to the kitchen’s French doors hung a cage large enough for several uccelli or songbirds, gorging on grains and figs or singing their full-throated calls. Continue reading Birdsong in the Kitchen
Next to the kitchen’s French doors hung a cage large enough for several uccelli or songbirds, gorging on grains and figs or singing their full-throated calls. Continue reading Birdsong in the Kitchen
Every morning around 7:00 in casa Chellini, Teresa the all-purpose donna, housemaid, and scullion would knock on our bedroom door, ask “Si puo?”which meant, “May I come in?” and after hearing one of us answer, would enter bearing a wooden tray always set with the same objects: several thin slices of stale bread or dry toast, two small slabs of butter, a tiny pot of jam, two coffee cups and saucers, and a small pot of bitter coffee next to a little sugar dish,two tiny spoons, and a small pitcher of milk. Continue reading A Tavola: Breakfast in Firenze
I was nineteen years-old, far from all that was familiar, and immersed in a new language I’d only begun to study seriously a year earlier. I’ve been musing lately about those first six weeks outside Siena Continue reading In Casa Vivante, or a First Stay in Tuscany