the dining room of the main house of the Villa Il Paradisino. Cooked by our hostess, Costanza Belloni Filippi ,everything was fresh and tasty. Much of the food we would eat for the next few days was grown on the fourteen acres of the Villa Il Paradisino. The olive oil, the main ingredient in every meal came from the Olive trees on the grounds; jams were all made from the many fruit trees; most vegetables are grown at the Villa and a few dozen chickens and ducks provide both eggs and meat.
Off to Florence. Speeding through streets lined with cypress trees and tall adobe walls hiding secret gardens, we got our first close up view of Florence from the Piazza Michelangelo.
The Cathedral of Santa Maria Del Fiore and its famous dome designed by Felippo Brunelleschi tower over the Florentine skyline. Later we would see a statue of the famous architect siting on a pedestal to the far right of the Duomo keeping an eternal eye on the crowds and his famous creation.
Florentines are crazy about Michelangelo and the statue of the David. The real David is on display in theAccademia Gallery in Florence. But a copy dominates the Piazza Michelangelo and there are others around town including one now covered for restoration near the Uffizi Galleria. The Italians seem especially fascinated with David’s private parts and you can buy everything from aprons to underwear to salt shakers and key chains displaying only the admirable privates. I imagine that sociological dissertations have been written on this phenomenon, but if not it would surely make for good commentary on the character and obsessions of the Italians.
Climbing up from the Piazza we came to the Basilica of San Miniato Al Monte. The best example of Romanesque architecture in Florence, the Basilica was consecrated as early as 1018 and the current basilica was built at the beginning of the 14th century by Florence’s Wool Guild. The symbol of the Guild, an eagle clutching balls of yarn can be seen everywhere in the Basilica. As with almost every church in Tuscany, the beauty of the art and the palpable feeling of hundreds of years of culture seep through the marble and hold the visitor in awe. .
A littl
e shopping, a visit to the Cathredal Santa Mario Del Fiore also known as the Duomo, a quick look at the fabulous doors of the Baptistry, a light lunch and a tour of Florence’s narrow back streets, we crossed the Ponte Vecchio and back to our car. The Ponte Vecchio is more charming from a distance. Packed with jewelry shops and tourists, the Ponte Vecchio seemed a crass display of commercialism. Unless you can find a time to cross the bridge with fewer tourists, it almost isn’t worth effort. Instead consider its charms from a distance and imagine its use in the 15th and 16th centuries when the rich and famous used it to walk from the Medici palace in the heart of Florence to another palace on the edge of town. Originally a market for selling meats, grains and
other produce, Lorenzo the Magnificant, decreed the markets closed because he was so offended by the smells. In keeping with his love of beauty and decoration, Lorenzo decreed that only jewelry could be sold on the Ponte Vecchio and so it has been ever since.
Back at the Villa Paradisino, we hardly had time to catch our breath when we were called to the big house for our first cooking lesson. Cooking lessons were in a big room with a kitchen on one end, a sitting space with TV in the middle and a table, an antique scale on the far end. Our teacher was 33 year old Costanza Belloni Filippi. Costanza’s family includes a mother, father and younger sister plus several helpers. There is also a grandmother somewhere but we never met her. Costanza is clearly the energy behind the Villa Il Paradisino enterprise. Full of bubble and sizzle, Costanza radiates Italian charm. She presides over the preparation of traditional five course meals with great authority. From Costanza, we would learn the right way to chop, stir, brown and season. The recipes we prepared all came from the family recipe book. Cooking started at 5 by selecting greens and herbs in the garden and finished usually about 8 to 8:30. Dinner itself would last about three hours from about 9 to midnight.
When cooking was finished, we took a 15 minute break to morphe from workers to honored guests. Dinner was served in a beautiful dining room and lavish plates and other serving pieces. An open fire prepared every evening by Papa Belloni Felippi gave the room warmth and cozyness, which along with the plentiful wine, soon dispelled any feelings of fatigue from the strenuous day. Wine began being poured about half way into the cooking session and continued to the end of the evening. The wine came from grapes grown at the Villa and pressed by Papa. It was that light wonderful kind of Italian wine that you can drink forever without getting even a little bit drunk.
The first course is always a pasta or rice dish. We chose a tagliatelle with artichokes, pumpkin lasagna and a mushroom risotto. The fresh pasta for lasagna came from a local market, but we made the tagliatelle ourselves, a wide thin Italian pasta, ourselves. Costanza started the process with two types of flour and eggs. Ron and I ran the pasta machine producing perfect very flat wide tagliatelle. The artichokes came from the Villa gardens. Italian artichokes are smaller than ours and have a beautiful reddish sheen. We tore the leaves off the artichoke and saved only the heart which was cut into pieces and put in the pan for cooking. Another day we made Lasagne alle zucca gialla (Lasagne with pumpkin). We chose this dish because we had never heard of pumpkin lasagna and were curious about the taste. It was made with fresh pumpkin and was delicious. We are not sure, however, that we can reproduce this recipe with American pumpkins. It seemed that the Italian pumpkin was somewhat smaller and had a more dark orange color. The raw pumpkin was very tasty. We also made a Risotto with mushrooms. We learned that Risotto cannot be made ahead of time but must be served immediately when the rice is soft.
The traditional second course in Tuscan cooking is always a meat dish with a vegetable on the side. We chose rabbit, pork and lamb. We were shocked to see that the rabbit came skinned but with everything else intact - head, eyes, feet. Elda and I had a little trouble looking at the poor little flayed, skinned rabbit and agreed that it was probably not something we could fix at home. Nevertheless, rabbit is a delicious meat, very tender with a light,
smooth taste. We also had Arista al latte (Pork loin with marsala and milk sauce). A third meat dish was Spezzatino alla cipolla (Veal Stew with onions - you could also use beef for the same recipe). Vegetable side dishes included Cavalo saltato (savoy cabbage), Patate croccanti al rosmarino (baked potatoes with rosemary); and Piselli alla fiorentina ( green peas Florentine style). The potatoes were my favorite but the other vegetables were delicious too. All the main dishes and vegetables are made with plenty of olive oil (I mean PLENTY), red onions, garlic, lemon rind and other spices. Fresh spices included rosemary, bay leaves, sage, and an Italian herb I have never heard of.
Costanze uses aluminum pans in all her cooking (No Teflon coating) and swears by them. Other cooking rules from Costanze:
- Never preheat the oil except when searing certain meats for stew which you want to fast-cook to seal in the juices.
- The pan must fit the food; never use a pan too big for the food or the oil will burn.
- An aluminum pan for roasted potatoes is better than using glass or anything else.
- Use confectioner’s sugar for all pastries to mix with dough more quickly and avoid too much handling of dough.
- A half-moon chopping instrument is better than a chopping machine for the herbs because it keeps the juices in the herbs.
Nothing is thrown away at the Villa Paradisino. All the scraps from cooking went into a bucket which was delivered to the ducks and chickens. The chicken manure was later scraped and placed around newly planted vegetables - a wonderful sustainable system.
For our fifth, dessert course, we chose Frutti di bosco con panna montata e salsa al vino (berries with wine sauce and whipped cream). This was definitely my favorite. It was made with a combination of blueberries, strawberries and raspberries and brown sugar, vanilla, dark chocolate, lemon juice, mint, red wine and lady finger cookies on top. Oh Yum! We also had Torta della nonna (Grandma’s cake) with a genauche sauce, and Fondente al cioccolato (Costanze’s chocolate cake). I’m not much of a fan of chocolate cakes but I would definitely want to make this one. The cake came with raspberries and whip cream on the side.
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