The Balsamic Times

News from Peggy Markel's Culinary Adventures

Siamo Quindici – We are 15!

Abbiamo 15 anni!! We are 15!

As usual, no newsletter is before it’s time. That’s why we call it ‘The Balsamic Times’. It’s when the sap has ripened and risen to the top of the plant and it’s harvested. The right ‘balsamic’ moment.

15 years. That’s how long I’ve been designing and directing Culinary Adventures. It’s a proper milestone anniversary. Since I am the mother, I feel like I have a teenager. It’s somewhat grown up. It’s personality is evident and growing on it’s own . . . but mama mia . . . where is it going?

We have lots of exciting possibilities. But, for a second I want to acknowledge where we’ve been. I want to give special thanks to Piero Ferrini, our illustrious and talented professor/chef. Albeit very professional, his best trait is his ability to relax and transmit his passion with natural ease. So unlike a celebrity chef, he is accessible, patient and very funny. He’s taught us (me) a lot over the years. I think most of it I took by osmosis. My gestures copy his. My fingertips rain salt over my food with the same rhythm. I fold raw eggs into sugar the same way. If I stood next to him it would be a ballet. I find myself sharpening my knife against another one in the same nervous gesture that he does. But I catch myself before I start moving my mouth in the Mr. Bean way that he does. Prof. Ferrini has never missed a beat in 10 years. He’s a dependable work horse of a chef and a good friend.

The first five years we were in the hands of Fortunato Domenici – a wonderful old world chef that looked like the Pillsbury Dough boy. I give wonderful thanks to him for listening to what I wanted in the beginning and giving it to me. When I said ‘authentic,’ he gave me ‘authentic.’ My first course, we were skewering little birds to roast on a spit. Try explaining this to a group of half vegetarians from Boulder, Colorado. He spoke in Tuscan dialect and proverbs. I wish I had written them down. He’s a bit on in years now and it’s hard for him to walk. I will always remember his grandissimo heart, his love for me, and how he could knead two batches of dough with his two hands at once . . . giving them a little ‘punto’ on the top at the end, with a big smile on his face. Un grande Chef.

Thanks to Silvia and Roberto Pincitore who own and operate ‘Fattoria Degli Usignoli’, Farm of the Nightingales. I was a naïve young thing that wandered into their villa with a filofax in hand and a big idea. I had just spent a week in the kitchen with their chef and restaurant manager Marco Betti. I presented them with an idea, and they bit. They gave me wine, olive oil and a blessing and said, ‘let us know what happens’. I came back with my first group one year later. La Cucina al Focolare – Cooking by the Fireside – was born in 1992.

November 1993: Todd Purdum, a political journalist from the New York Times, called. He needed a vacation after the Giuliani mayoral race. We welcomed him. After his gastronomic adventure, he asked if he could write about it. I said, ‘sure’. Thinking . . . what can a political writer say? He called me a month later telling me to watch for the article January 4th, '94. I thank him and ask him how his ‘ribbolita’ (bread soup) is going? He praises it as the best, then we say goodbye. The next morning was quite a shock. What I thought would be a paragraph was two pages starting on the front page of the Wednesday food section. After only one year of business, needless to say, it put us on the map. A recollection of history. Todd went on to be the Branch Manager of the LA Times, the Washington editon, and now he has left The New York Times to be the new editor of Vanity Fair. We wish him the best and will always remember our good fortune to have him attend La Cucina al Focolare at an auspicious time. I wonder if he still sings 'Jack the Knife?’

Another extremely important part of our Focolare Family is Pierre Cousseau, Sandro Benini the baker and Carla the Kitchen Fairy. If we were a Commedia dell’arte, these wonderful people would be the characters in our troupe. I thank them with all my heart for giving heart to the program and sharing their passion with everyone who comes through the door. Certainly they have changed a few lives. Carla’s smile and endless energy, Pierre’s passion for growing, drying and making special mixtures with his herbs, and Sandro’s magic bread, special artistic garden and house design, and touching operatic voice.

I feel extremely lucky to know them all, and working with them has been beyond work. We are a group of individuals who have like-minded views of food and cooking, philosophy of life, and how we feel about making an offering to humankind. We hold a certain flame to share, friend to friend, to those who come.

It has been a ‘passagio bellissimo.' Riding through the countryside of Chianti in these days around Easter, I feel a renewal. A renewal of what still lives and a renewal of what is yet to be discovered. I was on the back of a motorcycle with my friend Alfonso. He took me on all the narrow back roads, curvy with tall stone walls, sprouting herbs and flowering plants. The hills were emerald green and the trees were fragrant and bursting with life. The olive branches are full of primordial looking natural olive selection, yet to be determined. It’s the tangible fertility of the earth, ripe and ready for seed, that’s so moving. For anyone appreciative of what the earth can produce, it’s enough to make you pagan. The earth’s uprising force is as strong as ever. It comes from deep within, beyond politics, beyond religion, beyond whatever brings doubt that we can move through and beyond the negative, into the beauty and grace that is the fortune of the present moment of spring. I harvest this moment and savor it. Along with the last 15 million moments since PMCA was born.

Thanks to all of you lovely people that came to our door and stayed a while with us to taste the Renaissance in present day and became friends. Chapeau! Hats off to all of you! Come again! We MISS you!!

Note: if you have stories or photo’s that you would like to share, please do so and write to me at: peggy@peggymarkel.com. I would love to read it and post it in the next Balsamic Times.