EN VOYAGE TO TUSCANY - THE CRAB TRAP
copyright Michael Safdiah 2000 all rights reserved
Saturday, August 12, 2000
Fire Island Pines

I finally baited my crab trap, and lowered it into the bay a few hours ago. My home is on the bay-front, so I can peer over my deck and see jellyfish, lazily floating in the water, transparent almost. I see iridescent fluids moving through arteries somehow akin to what might be a blood, or a digestive tract. The way they catch the light shoots back tiny rainbows, it’s mesmerizing. The season for Bay Crabs is here, they tell me, so my artsy-looking wire crab trap is now going to get its virgin use. It's a perfect pyramid, made of wire. The four sides, which lay flat and held wide open by springs, lift up when the string is pulled, trapping any inhabitants inside. Ingenious. It was a very pretty artifact around the house for a few years. It always gave the suggestion that here was an ISLANDER'S home. Sort of like fishnets and floats. Unless it was used, it fooled no one. Put flowers in it, like I do with rusty old barbecue grills. A few of the younger boys in the community who catch crabs say the trap is a joke. You have to just reach down with a net and quickly grab them when you see them, they’re fast movers.

Today however, foolishly ignoring the wisdom of boys, I become Determined Hunter-Gatherer. I loaded it with slices of Chilean Sea Bass, aged so they stink and attract the critters, and lowered the trap down off the bulkhead. The wind is now blowing across the bay from the East, you can see white caps. Dark gray skies. A chill in the air. Sailboats are hurrying back to home before what appears to be an imminent storm arrives. I would paint this for you, so you would see the boats, sails filled, fleeing before the wind chasing behind them. Changing the pleasure seekers into Homo Sapiens Seeking Shelter. The island giving all us city dwellers a nudge toward a more primal state of awareness. I’m wondering if my ruse will work. Would the weather keep them from having a meal on me? My crabs are certainly waiting patiently clinging to the barnacled old wood of my bulkhead. I’m imagining myself down there now, with them, trying to think like them. The aroma of the rotting fish by now must have drawn some of them inside, and I am faced with the fact that now I must decide how to cook and kill these delicious things. They deserve a good end, of course, my job is to make it painless, and to help them become something wonderful on my plate. Otherwise, leave them where they are.

I don't feel much like crabbing today, or killing, or cooking. I feel lazy, and crabs would demand a lot of attention. I think I will check my trap in a while, or maybe not. Maybe I'll just leave the trap down there, and let them steal all my bait. That way I won't even have to deal with the stuff.

Still, I dreamily recall that last incredible plate of Cantonese stir-fried crabs I had; that dish was immortal. I wonder if the cook ever knew how much I’ll remember his work. Hong Fat on Mott Street. Years ago. Closed, the end of an era. It was a shrine, that old restaurant. It was the single great secret that nearly everyone knew about. The penultimate Chinese restaurant. It didn’t have atmosphere, it WAS atmosphere. The detectives from the police station around the corner, and the fraternity boys, and the university students like myself, who were up all night overloading themselves on pre-exam stress in the Law School library, the kids spilling out of the discos, starved for sustenance and more socializing. I recall that elderly Mandarin who ran it, the warmest friendliest, but her eyes never missed a thing. Always at the front door, welcoming, and taking cash. I still use the porcelain spoons she gave me as a gift when I asked her where I could buy some. Chinese spoons are the most practical spoons on the planet, and our western spoons seem designed to only spill soup.

There were bits of ginger, and garlic, and scallions, in that dish of crabs, and certainly some chili, and oyster sauce, but the entire effect was that the flavors sparkled. I loved that meal so much that I'll probably keep trying forever to imitate it. Just like the mussels I had in Brittany, or the hand-made pasta in Tuscany. The pasta was in 1986. Both of those dishes were taught to me by old ladies who spoke not my language, and just taught me by showing, and emphasizing with pantomime exaggerated gestures and intense eye contact what was important to take note of:

I learned to pay attention to the aroma of the mussels when the wine was steamed, or how they opened, and just how much wine and cream to add, and when to add the shallots. Or, to watch the texture of the pasta dough, and the coarse texture of the semolina flour. With only facial gestures and hands, I was shown how to make the volcano in the flour so when the eggs are dropped in, none run off the edge of the table, and to close the window to keep the breezes in the kitchen from drying the pasta while it rests, or the gentle but confident way the oil was dropped into the bowl to coat the dough, and the bowl inverted over the dough to allow it to rest. All that was without a spoken word.

I felt as though I was part of an ancient ritual, the essential knowledge being passed to me just as it was given to her in her girlhood over 8 decades ago. This old woman was glowing with the joy, smiling through cracked teeth, of being able to share it with me, a man, and an American. She must have thought it odd that a man would ever want to learn to make hand made pasta.

How could I tell her, in my broken Italian, that I’d just had a bowl of it at the Badia a Coltibuono for lunch and since then no food I could ever imagine cooking would satisfy me as much as that pasta al pesto with it’s handful of freshly grated fragrant Parmegiano.

It seems the crab trap brought me back to Tuscany. Brought me back to one of the most memorable lessons in my cooking life -- the making of hand made pasta. It’s so easy to return there when I allow my thoughts to roam. It was the day I drove from Pisa, my first landing in Italy. When I finally did arrive in the Chianti Classico region, and realized I was near the home of friends. The family business is wine making and olive oil, and she is a lady food writer, teacher, former magazine editor (Italian Vogue), and a di Medici. It was Lorenza who had invited me to visit. I telephoned, expecting a parade of happy people all wearing peasant attire, etc. It didn’t happen. I should have known. I mean, she wears Armani silks when giving cooking lessons! Ah, royalty.

Italian pay phones used to be frustrating slot machines which guaranteed that you lose. After I finally was able to purchase ‘Getones’ tokens to be used in the telephones, I located someone at the Badia: I had to rapidly keep feeding the coins in as the phone kept signaling for more, such is inflation in Italy.

"Hello bongiorno this is Michael Safdiah, from The Black Sheep Restaurant in New York, I called last week. I’m a short distance away, and you told me to visit you when I arrived here. May I speak with Larenza please?"
"She is busy may I help you?"
"Can you arrange for a room for me?" (there is an uncomfortably long pause.)
"Eeueuuwww. owwww, welllll, you seeee, it ssseeeeemmmss we arrrre fully booked at the Badia, (more pausing from whiney-voice. I say nothing)
"but let me make a few calls and find you something nice. And of course you will join us for lunch."
Not quite the welcome I’d expected, but after all I did just drop my tired butt on their doorstep, and with a very short notice. My great expectations were about to undo my happy frame of mind at finding myself in Chianti. Lunch, indeed!

I phoned again in a few moments to be told that arrangements had been made for me at Tenuta di Ricavo, in Castellina in Chianti. I never was able to follow driving instructions, and had already been lost several times that day, but by some miracle I found a beat-up weathered sign hiding by a bush at a dirt road, modestly announcing my destination. The place was interesting in that it was not a true hotel at all, but a tiny pre-16th century hamlet, a collection of ancient stone peasants cottages. Parked around in the guest parking lot at the edge of the property were some of the most expensive cars Europe has produced. Some made Mercedeeses look like Toyotas. Clearly, money is here. Forget my puny poor country-cousin rent-a car. I took a second to hate that airport rental place a little more, knowing I should have insisted on a convertible to enjoy this Tuscan spring weather.

The welcome at Ricavo was cheerful. I was made to feel as though they were happy to see me. My room felt definitely pre-Mussolini, dark, sparse furniture, with a crucifix over a hard, narrow bed, ancient plumbing which grudgingly delivered arguably warm water 8 minutes after the spigot was turned. I won’t try to describe the bathroom facilities, I’m just a spoiled American in God’s Country, and had to learn to make do. In short, I was prepared to hate it, which was pointless, and readied myself to go to lunch at The Badia.

The Badia is situated high on top of a hill, overlooking some of the prettiest countryside I’d ever seen. Housed in an old monastery, it was surrounded by farmhouses, and other old stone buildings. Lunch was served in the pale green 17th Century family dining room, which was hung with rare tapestries, frescoes and paintings.

Paul Draper was there too, with his wife Maureen. I love Paul, he’s a true wine GROWER, a ‘vigneron’ of the old school who uses modern married with old techniques. One look at him in a suit and you can see he’s more at ease in his vineyards, or with his wines as they age in his California cellars. He has no patience with the fake politics of food and wine society. He’s genuine with everyone, and he says what’s on his mind. The entire universe of California wine-growers adore him. His hands have that character of a man who farms with them. They are his tools, callused and weathered like his precious vines. A handshake with him says it all. Paul is also a friend, who makes my favorite American wine at his Ridge Winery in Santa Cruz.
I felt more at home at The Badia when I saw Paul there, small world and all that, sure, but I have spent time with royalty before, and still feel uneasy, as though I am out of place somehow. Wine lovers the world over know of Paul and his immense yet elegant wines. I was becoming a chef in my own right with a reputation for a fine cellar. I was lucky to have become his friend and to have had a large collection of his great vintages at The Black Sheep. I am certain he was at The Badia because of Roberto Stucchi-Prinetti, the son of the owner of the estate, and the wine maker.

One of the fathers of California winemaking, a native of Russia, Andre Tchelistcheff, even then a very old man, spoke to me one evening at dinner at the home of Becky Wasserman, a wine dealer at Savigny-les-Beaune, in Burgundy. We were sitting together alone in a room, as was customary, waiting for dinner to be served, and when I realized this was himself, I became overwhelmed. He was the winemaster at Beaulieu for over three decades. Can't help it, it's always the same with me, when I meet someone who's done great things in life, I get impressed and never learn to say the right thing, or just treat 'em like anyone else. I've learned to keep a cool but friendly exterior, but inside I'm all bubbles and excitement. Again, my wine and food connections had brought me into contact with someone who'd made enormous contributions to the wines we all drink today. I will always have The Black Sheep to thank for that.

A large pot of potatoes and onions, and garlic too, was bubbling on the stove in the kitchen. Mashed potatoes a la Bourguignon. Of course I sniffed at the pot, what else would you expect! There was the aromas of real potatoes and real onions. Dinner was delayed because someone’s goats had broken into the garden, and unless the goats were dealt with, the garden would be history. If ever you don’t like someone, give them a goat. So to make conversation, goofy Michael asks him, after a polite introduction, what it must be like to be able to have great wines all the time. He wasn't at all condescending, he indulged me, and said that he preferred ‘smaller’ country wines to the Grands Crus, which he said were too strong for his constitution on a day-to-day basis. He laughed, saying he just couldn't handle those big wines every day any longer. "I was lots younger then, and my system was strong." I loved big wines. It was an eye-opener for me to hear this soft spoken man who could drink any wine he wished any time he wanted to, saying he preferred so-called lesser wines, country wines. He had been a teacher to many of today’s great winemakers and experts. He was a mentor of Paul’s, and of Roberto as well. We chatted some more about wine as food, and my passion for cooking, and mostly for hosting. He agreed that too many winemakers from California were making wines that were ‘arrogant’, too big and powerful, self-indulgent, and didn’t support the food they should be eaten with. He was gentle, and tired from a long trip, but listened to me, kept the conversation going and never spoke down to me. Greatness shows.

Today’s lunch served some local Tuscan white wines that Roberto had made and was justly proud of. In contrast to most traditional white Chianti wines, where the best one can say is they aren’t sweet and they are wet, these had a fresh, youthful lively flavor. They were very drinkable, and accessible. Of course it was true these wines hadn’t traveled. Wines consumed where they are made are almost always better. Still, I felt a happy thrill at these, at Roberto’s success, also due to a good grape harvest, and a cold fermentation process which retains the fresh flavors of the grapes, and at tasting a simple country wine which was clearly as excellent as this one.

It was a simple country meal. The most memorable part, in fact I’m not sure what else was served, rabbit, I believe, was the pasta. It was served to me by one of the staff from a large bowl she carried in her arms. Fresh hand made egg noodles with pesto and grated parmesan cheese. The cheese was clearly the best. Parmesan is already a great cheese. She had the greatest of them for her table. Lorenza had cultivated the best sources for everything, she even has her own chickens, to lay the eggs. You see, Martha didn’t do it first. The flavors of the basil were not overbearing, the texture of the pasta was chewy, totally satisfying. I never tasted anything like it. It filled you up, and left you hungry for more. It stood out because of it’s homey quality. It went straight to my soul. I had to possess the secret to making it, and like most great cooking secrets, it wasn’t a secret at all. It was just about using fresh and excellent ingredients, and the right technique. To a Tuscan, that means you don’t overdo anything.

We had a Spumanti di Alba after lunch, there was some small talk in the room adjoining the dining room, and Roberto invited me to tour the property with him. Now the family winemaker, he’s a graduate of UC Davis, the American school of wine making, where almost all of Europe’s best winemakers have attended. He took me on a tour of the winery, including the old cellars, the abbey and his pride vineyards. He was proud of his new stainless steel temperature controlled tanks, which, he said, blended modern technology into old fashioned wine making. He was thrilled with the results of his modernization’s. We tasted, and tasted some more. I still hadn’t learned how important it was to spit. The wines were too good to not swallow. The old and beautiful olive groves had been decimated earlier that year by hail and deep frosts, but were replanted and expected to recover. It had driven the price of Tuscan olive oil way up, and supplies down. In fact, I was using Greek and Spanish oils that year at the restaurant, with excellent results.

He grows Sangiovese grapes and makes his wines in the modern way, which assures they have a fresh, fruity (grapey) quality, and are drinkable when younger. Roberto is a handsome young man, not at all spoiled by his family background. He’s happy to be hard at work doing something to benefit the future of Italian wine-making.

Our walk through some of the vineyards on that fantastic warm spring afternoon brought me back hundreds of years to a time when Life was paced by the speed of things that grew, and man was the servant of GOD and Nature, and he accepted it. The cultivation of living things mattered. Work was measured by how many tasks were done before sundown. Seasons and weather changes dictated life's schedules. A vineyard on a lazy Tuscan afternoon can be a very transcending place. Contemplation on one day, and feverish work on another.

A man did what he could do and then he must leave it in the hands of nature, or of his God. It is an act of faith, and one which helps remind us how little control we really have over the speed a grape can ripen, or to control how much acidity or sugar a grape will develop before it becomes ready to become great wine. It was my lesson that we need to wait ‘till nature lets us know it’s ready, and to learn to listen carefully to it.

At that moment, far away, elegant tastings were taking place in fancy restaurants, and marketing campaigns, prices and shipping arrangements were being made, and bankers were nervously considering what to charge wine growers to finance next season’s harvest, but in the quiet and peace of that centuries-old Tuscan vineyard, all I sensed was peace.

A few ounces of Vodka can make me feel giddy of course, but there’s something that one can discover inside of a glass of fine French Burgundy or a great Chianti that far exceeds the alcohol therein. For me, wine is a bonding thing, and in a glass of Le Chambertin, I can taste the richness of the sun, the specialness of the soil, the rain that came too early or late, the chilly weather which may have slowed ripening. I tasted the work of the winegrower, and the struggle against nature that the vines had in order to extract the unique flavors from the soil and leave them, all through the process, years later, in the bottle.

I saw a gnarly twisted bit of twig on the ground, and picked it up to examine it. It looked as though it was some magic thing which might have belonged to a sorcerer. Roberto laughed explaining it was a bit of pruned vine. It had been sawed away from the vine to enable the plant to produce better fruit. It looked very old, and had many pruned protuberances. It was twisted, and might have appeared ugly, except to me. I loved the feel of it, the tales it might have been able to tell, the wines it might have given birth to. I placed it into my pocket, after writing the date on the cut portion of the bottom: "June 1986 -- Coltibuono" You’ll see it lying around my home somewhere, I don’t throw things like that away.

Late that afternoon, I returned to Tenuta di Ricavo, less stressed, and already feeling mellow about the place. Sure, the wines helped put me in the mood, but the staff, and the owners, the Lobranos, were downright lovable. They embraced me with a warmth and welcoming grace that I was unused to, having just arrived from France. I’m not a stuffy formal sort of a guy, I’m easy to get close to, and my restaurant experience allowed that part of my personality to develop. I love to meet new people, and I guess the formality of the high-class places I visited contrasted with my own. In my business it was important to meet a lot of strangers and let them feel comfortable with you. I know I got that part of me from my dad.

I was ready for a nap and then dinner, traditionally served early, too early for this American who loved to stay up all night. All I could think about was that pasta. The Ricavo dining room, restored from an old barn, was filled with tables perfectly spaced so each table was far enough away from the others. As a single traveler, I wished for closeness.

The news now is that the Ricavo dining room is now a restaurant, also open to the public, and the name they gave it, "Le Pecoro Nero". I can’t help but love that.

Dinner at Ricavo was not extravagant. Simple and austere, it was totally satisfying. It just was not the rich gourmand diet I had gotten used to at the Michelin stars. There was that pasta, again. They also baked bread. Tuscan bread. Real bread. Bread that would last a week. I was dreaming of that pasta, and how I could steal the recipe.

I slept early that night, there being nothing to do there. I had no real knowledge of Italian, nor a map of gay bars in the region. A lesson I learned long ago: when there’s nothing to be done, then do nothing. I awoke to the sounds of cuckoos. The fragrant broom plants were in full bloom, and the air was perfumed. I hurried to breakfast after trying to wrestle with the antique excuse for a shower. Tables were set up outside, the sunny gardens, flower covered stone buildings, the red blood orange juice, the fresh baked buns, I was being seduced, and made welcome. It was clear that I hadn’t yet unwound, you see, there was no one in the kitchen who understood how to cook an egg, (soft scrambled, or omelet, I am passionate about not overcooking eggs) and I volunteered to "go in there and show them". Bad manners, that, but they were gracious about it.

I still had a few of those Cavaillon melons in the back seat of my car, and I wondered how it would be to have one with my breakfast. I was also beginning to feel lonely, and wanted for company. There was a lovely German couple who sat near me and after breakfast he’d go off somewhere with binoculars (bird, or flower watching) and leave his wife to sit and read. She seemed accessible, so I spoke with a few times. Next time at breakfast, I offered them one of my melons. They loved it, and I happily made some new friends. They were Peter and Katrin D. from Bonn. He proudly let me know that his company had made the cement for the base of the Statue of Liberty. I checked, and yes, there’s a big German corp. that bears his name and they do indeed make concrete. They had two sons, and were on vacation and on their way through Tuscany to Switzerland. She was happy to tolerate my fractured German, and loved to practice her English on me. Like me, she at times felt lonely, even though her husband was there. We discussed poetry, and I made no secret that I was gay, spoke about Bart, and she accepted it, and treated me like anybody else. That was unusual for a generally un-liberated Europe in those days. I liked that I could be myself with her.

One day Mr. Lobrano, our host-owner, pulled out some Bocci balls and invited everyone to play. There was a clay court out in back of the main building. In Provence, they call it ‘Boules’ but it’s played all over Europe. I fell in love with the game, and Peter said he wanted to own a set of the balls. Two days later, I decided that I needed to get up and get out and see some of the area, I was spending too much time at Ricavo, and not seeing the sights.

Well, actually I did get to Florence a few times, did a few museums, saw David (wow), bought some gifts for friends back home, and dodged motorbikes and college kids traveling through with backpacks. The Ponte Veccio was a tourist trap, I will have to return to see it again, but I was too content to remain in Chianti Classico. My first ‘biftek a la Fiorintina’ an enormous beef steak grilled on an open fire, was a dud, but the wine I had was perfect Tuscan Chianti Classico. The narrow high walled streets of ancient Florence, echoed footsteps of my ancestors there years before, as though time had stood still. Narrow winding roads, planted to the edges of the pavement, vines growing anywhere a vine can fit.

So I aimed myself at Sienna, Florence’s traditional enemy to the south. It’s a walled city, ancient but in great shape, and constantly restoring itself, as any historic treasure should be. I was expecting peasant antiquity, and instead found Gucci, Armani, Versace & company in all the shop windows. Total glam. Nothing there was cheap, but I bought a set of balls for Peter, and was thrilled to see the look on his face when I gave them to him. I also gave them a bottle of my favorite Ridge York Creek Napa Zin, and years later, a photo arrived of their home, and in the foreground, the balls, and the zin bottle. I was glad to see that it had been opened.

One morning Peter suggested that we head to Radda in Chianti, the next growing region to the East, for a lunch at a small restaurant they had heard about. It was run by a woman who was famous for bilking her customers, and it was a given that you would be gypped or that she would try to. Radda is a tiny not-even-a-town with a total of four buildings tucked into the side of the road. Lunch was at best curious, there was no menu, or she told us they had nothing much but would do their best to get us satisfied. Peter wanted wine. I wanted to have Tuscan beans. I knew it was the season for the fresh not-dried ones, and when they are cooked and dressed with extra-virgin olive oil, they are a rare wonderful seasonal treat. The wine arrived with no label and the bottle had been opened. You get it? We had grilled lamb and antipasti, and escarole cooked in garlic and oil. My beans were excellent, we were told that her mother, an ancient hag who sat at the front of the place and who was shelling beans as we arrived, had prepared them herself. Tuscan bread was offered, and it was tyhe perfect sponge for the olive oil that had been generously poured over the beans. It’s an easy bread to love forever. It’s made without salt as a traditional protest against the tax on salt going back to the middle ages. A Tiramisu was offered. By then I had been tasting so many of that desert I was bored with it, and yet, no two were alike. The check arrived, and as expected, it was telephone numbers. Peter dealt with the owner in his best Italian, I was being treated, so I didn’t pay much attention to how they settled the check. We all agreed, on the way back to Ricavo, that yes, we’d been taken, and the proprietress’ performance was well worth the price of admission.

One day I was wandering around the estate and saw one old gentleman was filling an old dome of a very old stone oven with bunches of twigs, made of dried broom, which was flowering in the area then.. The oven was dome shaped. He looked frail, but he was performing work that looked as though it would tire a younger person. When he had literally packed the oven with the dried twigs, he lit them, and allowed the fire to burn for a while. Then he brushed the embers over to one side of the oven and slid in a quantity of loaves, which had been sitting, covered with a cloth, rising on a rack nearby. I learned Mr. Minetti had been at Ricavo since he was a boy, and that his wife worked in the laundry.

That afternoon, I went to the desk and asked Anna, the most friendly of the receptionists, the one who loved practicing her English with me, how I could learn how to make the wonderful pasta they made. I told her I’d pay gladly for the honor. Anna was the one, who each day I would timidly ask if I could possibly extend my stay another day, and every day she would smilingly inform me that she had anticipated my request and my room was being held for me. She was handsome, alert, with well-groomed brown hair which rested on her shoulders, and always a smile. By then it had been two weeks for a visit that was supposed to last only two days!

The next morning Anna greeted me cheerily, "I've saved your room for you again" and told me in whispered tones that the wife of the gardener- bread baker, was an expert pasta maker. She was willing to share her knowledge with me. Because she worked in the laundry she was not permitted in the kitchen, but if I met them all in the kitchen at 2pm that day, midday break, when the kitchen staff was sure to be absent, I would have my pasta lesson.

The kitchen was much larger than I had expected, and there were many low tables, solid looking, with thick, elephantine legs. The walls were tiled in cream-yellow, the color of semolina. Smaller black and white tiles made a design around the perimeter. There were several windows at each end of the large room, and an old stove, or several banked at one side. Everything was spotless, and no food was in evidence, save for a basket of eggs and a bowl of flour at the center of one of the tables. The table was unusual. There were other flat tables and tables with marble tops for pastry. This one was wooden, but had a kind of three-sided frame arising from it to contain the flour for the pasta.

The lady, Mrs. Minetti, was 88 years old, and had learned to make pasta as a young girl of 8. She spoke no English, but Anna translated for me as best she could. There were a few other ladies who acted as lookers-on, I guess it was quite an event. My tutor walked over to close all the windows before starting, to be sure the breezes didn’t dry the dough. I’m sure it was to assure secrecy, too. She was short, very short, and had ages of layered wrinkles on her dark, weathered skin. Despite her stature, she had that strong Tuscan demeanor one admires in the people of the region. I saw her ancestors. She smiled at me in a conspiratorial way. I loved her immediately.

She smiled again as she lifted a handful of the flour, gesturing for me to feel it between my fingers. It was coarse. This was semolina. It’s made from the hard heart of the wheat kernel. She dumped a bowlful of it in the center of the table, and with two hands she formed a mound of the flour, and then a crater in the center - she called this the ‘volcano’. A pinch of salt went in, and she broke in four or five eggs, as well. She showed me the eggs, obviously proud of them. She broke each egg, holding it lovingly with two hands, and with deliberate movements, indicating just how many and just what to pay attention to. Her formula was the same as it had been for so many years – roughly one hundred grams of flour to one egg. We fancy American cooks love to crack eggs with one hand, yet she’d doubtless cracked hundreds of thousands of them, and still took the pains to do each one slowly and methodically.

From her perch behind me, Anna told me that she and her husband were raised on the estate. The yolks were very yellow, and high, the sign of freshness. I expected her to add a few drops of local green olive oil, but she didn’t. I asked why.
"The pasta won’t absorb the sauce as well with the oil. But a lot of people do it anyway". she added. Then she began to gingerly stir the flour into eggs first with a fork, then with her hands. Because of the way she coated her hands with flour each time she mixed, her hands remained dry - it surprised me. She used light, quick, sure movements and her hands began to move in a blur. Cupping the flour to maintain the wall of the volcano, dusting the fingers with flour, mixing in the eggs, and so on. The mixing became kneading and again with sure, sharp, repetitive movements. Before I knew it there was a ball of dough, and she was showing it to me to allow me to feel its texture, it was silky, had a sheen, it was soft, yet it was pliable. It sprang back when pulled. "Like a baby’s bottom" they like to say. A wet hand lightly passed over the ball, and immediately it was set into an oiled bowl, and set on the table with the bowl inverted over the dough. Was that all?? I was amazed. I saw no secret, no special hidden moves, only the sure hands of an old lady who had done this a million times before and who was amused that I was curious.

Twenty minutes later the dough was uncovered, and again it was given to me to inspect. It had a lustrous sheen, and smelled of eggs. I said I felt I could eat it now, without cooking it. She laughed, and said, "no". This time it stayed where it was pulled, without shrinking back, and she placed it on the table and with the heel of her hands, the same heel that had done the kneading, she formed it into a disk, and rolled it out with a long narrow wooden rolling pin. The pin was unusual to me, as I was used to heavy, fat pins. She showed me that I could see the wood table top through the dough, and that was how I knew it was thin enough. She boldly slapped it, flipped and turned it as though she knew it would never tear, or break, and it unfailingly obeyed. The dough was rolled up, sliced into noodles, and unrolled against the back of the long knife. Noodles were hung on wooden rods, Into the now boiling water it would have gone, and when it rose to the surface, plus half a minute, it would have been cooked perfectly. But the lesson was over. We had to clear out of the kitchen, or risk being caught. I offered her some money, a sort of gift in exchange for the gift she had given me, and she refused at first, but I assured her that I’d remember this moment forever. Anna said to not spoil her. Silly child. Thirty-five thousand Lire, the equivalent of under twenty Dollars, was just not enough for the joy I’ve gotten from that moment.

Back to here and now, I’ve checked the trap. Clever little bastards, they did get my bait after all. At least I know they’re down there, and that they’re hungry. Now I’m learning that I need to be quicker, and can’t just leave my bait alone. The primal me has just learned that bait is scarce and is not to be wasted. It’s an investment in dinner. It must pay dividends. Keeping that in mind would make me a better trapper.

I learned something else from Mrs. Minnetti. There was no magic at all in that pasta, she knew it then and I know it now. She understood there was nothing to hide, no secret to divulge. Now I know what she was laughing about, and why she showed me the things the way she did. Arguing with me would have been pointless, and one day sooner or later I’d come to understand that there were no words to say, no special moves. You either love what you do, or you don’t. We’re the servants of the nature of the things we cook with. It’s paying attention and LISTENING to what the ingredients tell us that makes the magic. It’s when we imagine something hidden goes on that creates the illusion. Some say it’s magic, and I believe that it’s true. But magic has no power unless you believe in it.

One thing more. Katrin and Peter tell me the Lobranos opened their dining room as a new restaurant, called it the Pecoro Nero. That's Italian for, you guessed it, 'The Black Sheep'
To be continued.