another eye opens

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Wednesday centered on a Tuscan-style cooking lesson from Linda, which started first thing in the morning at the farmer’s market in town. Everyone got to pick some item that looked good, and we would decide later what meal to compile from the collected goodies. Linda provided some background on veggies we don’t see for sale in the U.S., such as puntarelle, agretti, zucchini blossoms, and sedano rapa (below — it’s celeriac).

The town’s community garden supplied herbs for the occasion — lemon balm, sage, rosemary, lavender.

We stopped into the Co-op supermarket to supplement the fresh produce. This pasta called out, for some reason.

We brought the market bounty back to the villa and spread it out on the table to ponder.

Linda helped everyone figure out how to create a yummy dish from the ingredients they’d selected, and the next couple of hours were a frenzy of cleaning, chopping, and cooking. Jay prepared the first course — melon soup garnished with fried prosciutto.

The collective ownership made the long leisurely lunch especially satisfying — one of the best days I’ve ever spent in Italy.

At the end of the afternoon we hopped in the van and headed to Siena for some sightseeing and shopping. I collect hand-painted Sienese ceramics with a particular geometric pattern and picked up two beautiful bowls to take home (the third was too big to lug home).

Nothing beats sitting in Il Campo with a cocktail watching the sun set.

Andy and I had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the back of the Duomo — this picture was designed specifically for sharing on social media with the caption “Neener fucking neener.”

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Around lunchtime we made an expedition to the nearest picturesque Tuscan hill town, Pienza, with its scenic fortress wall and crumbling church, behind whose altar looms not the crucifix you might expect but an icon of the Madonna, who is the real star of Italian Catholicism. We also spied an artwork whose smirking Madonna and smirking Little Baby Jesus could have been drawn by Roz Chast.

After a pecorino tasting at a tiny fragrant cheese shop, we scattered for lunch (Andy, Linda, and I secured a table at place that advertised “No pasta, No pizza, No cappucino, No internet”) and reconvened at a superb gelateria specializing in unusual vegetable and herb flavors (I had lemon with basil and something called “Detox Rosso,” consisting of beets, carrots, and apple).

Linda, our chef, loved devising a dinner for us to eat with our hands as a sensory experiment in Touch.

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Andy and I began our days with a gorgeous 20-minute walk from the apartment in town where we stayed to the villa where the retreat took place, which meant walking through an actual castello (castle) currently inhabited by several families and a truffle museum.

The day’s sensory experiment involved conducting a sniffing tour of the premises and sharing fragrances with blindfolded partners.

The afternoon took us to a nearby winery, Sasso di Sole, where handsome Lorenzo gave us a smart and informative introduction to the vineyards, the winery, and the superb wines they produce (an orcia rosso, a rossi di Montalcino, and a brunello di Montalcino).

Un bel di, indeed.

As the sun set, the fog rolled into the Val d’Orcia.

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Sunday morning we woke to the horrible news from Orlando. Dreadful as it was to hear about the tragedy from afar, we consoled ourselves with our own warm community. Two handsome soulful guests joined us for our Sunday barbecue, David and Fabio.

After lunch, we walked down the road to Il Bosco della Ragnaia, a beautiful and witty combination of sculpture park and botanical garden created by an eccentric American artist and took pictures of his witty constructions as well as satyrs and other wildlife.

We ended the day with dinner at Osteria delle Crete, where Donatella the chef whipped up beautiful and tasty food art — a zucchini frittata and eggplant with pine nuts, raisins, olives, feta, and panko breadcrumbs over homemade hummus, among other things.

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Andy was determined to buy something at Alice’s Mask Shop, which we’d spied last time we were in Florence late at night when the store was closed. He chose this fantastic piece handmade by the Professor, Agostino Dessi (below).

We celebrated the purchase with a delicious meal directly across Via Faenza — my gnocchi with gorgonzola and sausage couldn’t be beat.

Much of our posse gathered Friday night before the retreat began for cocktails in front of the Duomo and dinner behind the Uffizi, which meant pausing to check out Jan Fabre’s sculpture “Searching for Utopia” in Piazza della Signoria.

We stayed in a cute small hotel called Casa Howard, formerly a private house — immaculate, smartly furnished, complete with a lovely veranda where we took our breakfast.

The Mercato Centrale now has an extensive South American produce vendor.

And the upstairs has been transformed into an elaborate Eataly food court.