A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi Page B

Mediterranean.”
    “I’ll get you enough rosemary to stuff a dozen mattresses and I’ll happily sit through any number of your exotic suppers. But will you always make me my own personal loaf of normal, daily bread? And will you pour me a glass of wine and put a pitcher of oil on the table? I think it’s time for me to do what Florì does, to practice making the parts come out even, the bread and oil and wine.”

5

Sit the Chicken in a Roasting Pan on a Pretty Bed of Turnips and Potatoes and Onions, Leeks and Carrots . . .
    Some mornings we abandon our walks down to the thermal springs and trudge up behind the village to the site of the original terme, spa. The very word spa is a Latin acronym for salus per acquum, health through water. Peeking into the derelict halls where the the Medici once came to soak, we’re wondering if what village intelligence touts is true. A grand reconstruction of the spa by a Florentine corporation would surely change the color of the village, a seduction for the chic and the stressed who would come to be revived by warm waters and kneading hands across their aching backs. The sleepy little village would be awakened, but not necessarily by a handsome prince. I steal a look at my own handsome prince as we walk without talking, each of us wanderinginside his own reverie. But what is this? What is this long, slow shudder in me? Could it be caused by the tizzy of the winds, trying to push away the summer? Is it from the strength of my husband’s hand on my hip as we walk? My face is burning where he held it a moment ago as he kissed me, and I like the taste of him that stays on my mouth and mixes with the tastes of coffee and milk and bread, the grains of undissolved sugar on his lips. Like a good buttery kuglehopf, he tastes. How can he do this to me? How can he make me giddy? Maybe it’s not him at all. It’s high blood pressure. Why didn’t I think of that? I’m sure of it. High blood pressure is causing the quiver. Or is it a hormone rushing away, then rushing back again, just for fun? Maybe it is Fernando. I decide it’s him, but it’s horrid not being sure. More horrid is it that this man can just as skillfully send up a shudder in me of a different sort.
    I am out in the garden tending to a chicken, fixing it the way Florì told me her mama used to do it for Sunday lunch. I’d done just what she’d said, sit the chicken in roasting pan on a pretty bed of turnips and potatoes and onions, leeks and carrots . . .
    Her directions had stopped there, so I continue on my own. I fill its belly with a handful of garlic, the cloves crushed but not peeled, then rub its bosom to a glisten with olive oil, finally ornamenting it with a thick branch of wild rosemary. After an hour or so in the wood oven, the skin is bronzed and crisp, the juices running out inlittle golden streams, and I remove it to a long, deep, heated plate to wait. In the house, I set the roasting pan over a quick flame, scraping the bits of caramelized vegetables and the drippings that cling to the pan, blessing it all with splashes of white wine, finally transforming the juices into a sauce that tastes like Saturday night as much as Sunday noon. I lay trenchers of bread in the sauce, leaving them to soak in it for a few moments while I heat a half cup of vin santo, throw in a handful of fat zibibbi, raisins from the island of Pantelleria off Sicily. Wild lettuces, all washed and dried and tucked in a kitchen towel, are ready in the refrigerator. I open a sauvignon blanc from Castello della Sala and set it in an ice bucket.
    Monet would have loved the terrace table, bejeweled as it is with a jugful of poppies and lavender, candles set in old ships’ lanterns against sultry nine-o’-clock winds. I call for Fernando, who is upstairs somewhere. I lay the cool lettuces on a serving plate, drizzle them with more of the sauce, lay the soaked bread on top, strew the warm, winey raisins over the bread and, finally, set the