An Unplanned Year

(If this wind stops)

We saw a porcupine today! Apparently Italy is the only European country that has a porcupine! Hopefully we might now see one that is not roadkill…

We chose Siena as a stopover on our way to our Tuscan residential cooking program that starts tomorrow. From a distance it was stunning; a brownish, reddish city on a hill. Sadly, I seem to have booked us into something like student housing, where every single person smokes. Not sure how this will go.

Being out in the wind and the cold was preferable to being in that hovel, so we went walking into Siena. (Are you the same as me and now have this rif  (@ 2:27) in your head, with the word Vienna replaced with Siena? No? Oh. Ok. Nevermind.)

So anyway, we headed up a hill and through a gate in the city wall.

Then up another STEEP cobbled street

where we found this little water feature under a road.

We then just wandered through the streets of Siena (🎵 Ohh, Siena…🎵), it really is a beautiful old city with narrow cobbled streets and tall red brick buildings. It was so cold that we went to have a bite to eat. Sadly we couldn’t find anywhere that served Chianti, liver AND fava beans so we made do with just Chianti and liver.

From there we walked towards the Siena Duomo (cathedral). It certainly stands out on the skyline!

We then figured we would just do a bit of a pub crawl, seeking refuge from the cold winds in various pubs and bistros. Along the way we tried some local biscuits, Cavallucci, Panforte and Pecorino cheese with jam & honey-don’t knock it till you try it, it was amazing!

We walked around the Piazza del Campo, where every summer, a horse race, the Palio, is held as a competiton, over 4 days, between the various contradas (areas) of Siena. (The event was included in the 007 film  Quantum of Solace!)

There is an incredibly tall tower over the palace on the Piazza, it’s actually Italy’s 2nd tallest tower: 102m!

This morning we headed towards Cortona. We only realised last night that we were a short distance from where Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed. (Love that movie.) So we drove to check out the house used in the movie and the real Bramasole in the book.

Cortona, as Siena (🎵) was, is perched on a hilltop and surrounded by a high city wall.

Tuscany is just gorgeous, every hilltop has a dreamy villa. Can only imagine how beautiful it is when the sun is shining. Hopefully tomorrow.

We then headed past Arezzo to a specific villa on a hill, Torre del Tartufo, where we are staying for the next 3 nights for a residential cooking program. The courses are usually for up to 12 people, but we’re the only ones here, so have the place to ourselves and private cooking classes!!

We’re looking forward to this so much! After a delicious lunch, the first part of our cooking class was to go truffle hunting with Kira the Lagotto Romagnolo, truffle hunting dog.

She found some. And also ate some before they could be rescued from her mouth! This dog breed has the most amazing eyeballs-almost human-like instead of regular dog eyeballs.

We then went to the kitchen and started to cook. For 4 hours!! Dinner is in an hour, we will eat what we have prepared. We also prepared a Tuscan Ragu, pizza dough and pizza sauce for tomorrow.

Dinner was delicious!

• Onion tarts with green sauce and pecorino fondue
• Potato gnocchi with a butternut pumpkin sauce
• Stuffed beef involtini with fennel
• Carrot cake with vanilla gelato, orange sauce and chocolate garnish

We were so full by the end of the meal!

On our second day we had an excursion. First up we went to Villa la Ripa, a 500 year old vineyard. We had a tour of part the house and learned some of the history of it-there was a Roman villa on this site 2000 years ago, where they also made Sangiovese wine!

The villa has it’s own chapel that has been used for family weddings and christenings. When the current owners bought it, the chapel was painted white. They washed the walls and discovered the frescos. (Apparently the same in all the upstairs rooms). They believe that as the building was to be commandeered by the Germans in WW2 the then owners painted all the walls white to protect them and the property from damage.

The current owners bought it in 1992 and have restored it and restarted the winery.

We then moved to the old cellars to have some tastings. A delicious rosé style Spumante, a white wine, a 100% sangiovese, a 75% sangiovese/25% syrah and our favourite, a 50% sangiovese/50% cabernet sauvignon that is named “Psyco” (The owner is a Neurologist and Psychiatrist; one of their other wines is called “Neuro”!)

We also sampled their olive oil, also called “Psyco”, that won gold in an international olive oil competiton last month!

We did procure some wine that may not last long. (They inadvertently overcharged us, so after our day out we stopped back at the villa and the owner (the neurologist/psychiatrist) gave us an extra 3 bottles! Winning!)

From there we were driven into Arezzo for lunch, smoked goose breast, wild boar ragu, beef cheeks, creme brulee and mille-feuille, washed down with a bottle of Psyco. We saw it on the wine list and it was so good, we just had to have it again! Local restaurant supporting a local vineyard.

The movie “Life is beautiful” was filmed here. If you haven’t seen it, grab a box of tissues (because it is sad, Kevin) and watch it.

We then walked to the town’s 16th century military fortress, Medici Fortress and wandered around the ramparts. It was abandoned in the 18th century, blown up by the French at some point and afforded us a great view of the surrounding hills that were suddenly dazzling under the Tuscan sun that has been missing for a few days.

Tonight is pizza night using the pizza dough that we made yesterday. Whilst we were kneading our dough for 10 minutes yesterday, the host chef was displeased, probably closer to disgusted when we explained the wide assortment of pizza toppings available in Australia!! “That’s not pizza!!”. Our kids who are fans of meat-lovers and BBQ chicken will be disappointed to hear that!

We put ourselves to bed with a fire raging in the bedroom fireplace.

On our third day at the villa we woke to blue skies, no wind and a beaming sun. So even though it was only 13 degrees, it felt much warmer. Warm enough to sit by the pool and get into the hot tub. Someone had left an art kit here (limited set of pencil colours) so I grabbed that and tried to do a drawing of the villa. (Somehow my hands and fingers to the first knuckle got sunburnt!!l

The actual view of the villa I was drawing.

We enjoyed the hot tub, had lunch outside, actually wearing summery clothing! We could get very used to this.

Then it was time for our next cooking session.

Today we made an eggplant pie, silverbeet and ricotta ravioli, stuffed artichokes, pork loin and tirimasu (or tea-rimasu for Kevin), foccacia and stromboli.

Another amazing dinner, we ate outside under heaters so the photos really didn’t do the food any justice, so they haven’t been included!

We’re so sad to be leaving tomorrow. This place is just amazing.