Scampagnata! ~ Finding the Eternal in the Ephemeral ~

Italian Picnics in the Valley of Heart’s Delight

Once upon a time, an ocean of orchards heavy with apricots, peaches, cherries, and apples thrived in a place fittingly known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight. And over the years, many in the Italian immigrant community would come together periodically to feast and play in this valley’s orchards and farms. They’d make the journey 40 miles south from foggy San Francisco to connect over prosciutto and salami, cheeses and focaccia, fruit and wine. They’d also bring their competitive spirit and play bocce ball or compete in the salami toss; dance to, listen to or play live music; and on occasion enjoy the talents of an official but veritable diva who would grace the crowd with an aria or two amidst the cherry trees. Some of these picnics – scampagnate, in Italian – were organized by the Amici Club, a social club full of Genovese Italian businessmen and their families: immigrants from Genoa who had worked hard and eventually found success in the fabric of the City. One of these businessmen was my grandfather. What a vision of connection and delight amidst nature with family and friends over food, games, and music.

Fun & frolic in the orchard: my grandmother & aunt in top left corner

But since the only constant is change, the Valley of Heart’s Delight would eventually slip off the map in the 1960s, giving way to a name more reflective of its seismic transformation: Silicon Valley.

Fortunately, my father’s (and others’) stories have kept part of this legendary time and place alive, not to be fully snuffed out by The Technocracy. My father often recounted these golden days in the valley to us while in the car driving back up north to Menlo Park after a stay at my maternal grandparents’ home in Cambria, or from a trip to LA, or simply after dinners at my Teglia cousins’ house in San Jose. For my dad, a sighting of the megalithic NASA-owned, (currently Google-managed) Moffett Field airship hangar in Mountain View instantly transported him back to cherry trees, feasts, salami–and his own mother singing Puccini arias to the rapt crowd’s adoration (and his own embarrassment).

These all-day Amici Club scampagnate* were held in the lush land west of Moffett Field, just a few minutes beyond our coordinates on the 8-lane 101 freeway. My grandfather would take the wheel of their Essex and drive the family to this Edenic countryside, making an escape from foggy city to cloudless, calm country. After exiting one of the 2 lanes running south on US 101, they’d meander down a country road towards the Bay and find themselves among apricots, cherries, peaches, French prunes, apples, pears – and their community. (*From campagna, meaning “countryside” or “field” + s, a prefix indicating “off” or “out” —> thus “to go out into the countryside”)

Amici on a picnic — my father front row on the right, his sister standing just above him

A typical day of communal relaxation might include a few games of bocce ball, an attempt at the salami toss (where one aspired to hit a hanging salami, somewhat like a floating bowling pin), abundant food and drink and animated conversations. Strolls in the cherry orchard would conclude under a grove of trees canopying a dance floor framed by picnic tables, band blaring, dance floor full, flowing homemade wine. Then, at a certain point in the festivities, the music stopped, and the opera arias began. My father vividly remembers how the crowd implored my grandmother to sing and how her glorious voice “thrilled” them.

What a vision of dolce far niente. These transient experiences had become part of my father’s permanent identity – memories imprinted in his brain thanks to the powerful emotions brought on by spending quality time doing simple things with others. And while eventually these physical places vanished and the Valley of Heart’s Delight shifted from orchards to Oracle, peaches and pears to Hewlett-Packard, apricots to Adobe, apples to Apple, my father’s stories remain, enabling me to paint a picture of my memory of his memories.

While writing this, I remembered, too, the scampagnate in San Francisco’s Stern Grove that my mother used to organize for years with many of her and my father’s friends and their families. We’d pack up and drive about 30 miles north for the free summer concerts at the famed amphitheater tucked away in a eucalyptus grove, a magic sunken circle of nature amidst the city streets. We descended into the grove on foot and connected over beautiful music and an abundant feast sometimes featuring an elaborate cima alla genovese and served up in a stunning setting – china, crystal glasses, flowers . . . the most elaborate picnic table in the grove. Another transient experience imprinting the eternal on our souls.

So maybe the Valley of Hearts Delight does still exist. It lives on each time we nurture the sweet things in life with those we love, each time we grab a friend or family, pack a pungent camembert, a crusty baguette, and a bowl of sweet cherries to share with them somewhere in nature – or even simply under a tree.

The Dolce Soul of Basil

The other day, I had an especially strong need for some peace after an “interesting” day and knew right where to go: the garden. The basil pots, to be precise. And so I plucked and snipped the leaves and stems, immersing myself fully into a feast for the senses: the vibrant smell, the radiant shades of green, the delicate beauty of the central leaves unfurling from those below, like a fountain.

Even the nibbled (albeit discarded) leaves were somewhat appealing: a reminder of the abundance of life within the garden. And all the while, I was anticipating its miraculous metamorphosis into pesto – and the fulfillment that comes with an act as primal and pure as planting and cultivating one’s own food, even if that food is a few leaves or sprigs.

And oh what a plant it is. Basil (a.k.a. ocimum basilicum) is a colorful character in the herb family. Known as the “king of herbs” – from the ancient Greek word basilikon (kingly/royal) – it has an illustrious history. From embalmer of the dead in ancient Egypt, to a traditional sign of engagement in Romania, it is also associated with the basilisk dragon. In Italy, basil signifies love, yet in ancient Greece and Rome – and for the Victorians – basil meant hate. Nicholas Culpeper explains in The English Physitian (1652) that, were a person to take even one whiff of basil, scorpions would grow in their brain. Perhaps most memorable is basil’s reputation as a poison – one that would prompt “’venomous beasts’ to appear in horse-dung, and would not grow near rue – apparently a danger sign” (Oxford Plants 400).

Arguably the most artistic and vivid vision of basil belongs to Boccaccio, whose tale in the Decameron (1353), “Lisabetta and the Pot of Basil,” features the herb as a vessel of passionate love. Boccaccio weaves together love and hatred, as Lisabetta’s malicious brothers murder her beloved, leaving Lisabetta only one thing to do: unearth her lover’s body, secretly plant his head in the bottom of a pot of basil, and water it with her tears. Boccaccio inspired John Keats to write the narrative poem “Isabella, or the Pot of Basil” (1818), which, in turn, inspired John Everett Millais (1849), William Holman Hunt (1868), and John William Waterhouse (1907), among others, to paint their own versions of the story. While the gruesome nature of the crime may have sparked such replication, I’d like to believe it was basil’s intoxicating nature that served as the muse.

Isabella and the Pot of Basil, W. H. Hunt (San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum)

Basil even signifies a sense of home: legend has it that Genovese sailors, yearning for and returning to their home port, could smell basil growing in window boxes from miles away. I wonder if its aroma will remind my own children of home someday – of those days in our first house, blow-up baby pool and slip n’ slide in the backyard on a sweltering summer day, and those two packed wine-barrels overflowing with basil, its intense scent steaming off the hose-doused leaves.

Fruits of the basil harvest: Joy in a bouquet of basil (2016)

Ok, time to snap back to the present! If you are not currently growing any basil, get yourself to your favorite nursery, Trader Joe’s, or even a home improvement store (less romantic than a nursery, but it does the trick). You might not have enough to make pesto yet, but there’s always a caprese salad – or simply add one pungent leaf to a sandwich ~ or use a sprig to garnish your next Negroni!

And if you already grow it, immerse yourself. When you pick a bouquet for your next batch of pesto (pesto post coming soon, btw), first plunge your head into the glorious greenery, close your eyes, inhale deeply, and let yourself waft in a restorative, aromatic bath of basil.

Grissini: The Sticks that Launched A Thousand Stagecoaches

Some are tall, thin and graceful; others possess an awkward beauty with charming imperfections. Their allure is undeniable, their appeal universal to those who know them. People like my father are drawn to their big crunch, mild flavor, and towering elegance. Sometimes relegated to tight neat, uniform bundles, their varying heights and widths and crooked bodies also mean they could be bunched askew in some wild bouquet.

They grace the tables of Italian restaurants from coast to coast – and yes, I’m talking about grissini. That’s breadsticks in English. And they are certainly more than just a stick of bread. I’m not talking about the soft, squat, squishy versions. I mean the hard, tall, thin, crunchy originals developed in 17th century northern Italy.

My father has been an ardent fan of the breadstick for a while, taking joy in the Cookie-Monsteresque chomp-fest replete with crumbs flying in all directions. Sometimes he likes to punctuate sentences with a brief wave of a grissino; other times he just likes to munch in silence, focusing on the whole experience, from flavor, to crispy crunch, to sound. He remembers eating them frequently when growing up; his mother would buy them at an Italian bakery or the corner grocery store (where the sticks still came from that Italian bakery) in San Francisco’s Marina district, with its highly concentrated Italian immigrant population. The grissini were never the star of the meal, but they were an important player on the table several nights a week.

After visits with his sister years later, she would routinely send my father off with a tall, awkwardly beautiful bundle from Lucca Deli. And now friends and family supply him with his breadstick fix when they can.

Turns out my father is not only in good company in his love of grissini, but that they have a royal history as well. One story has it that they were created in the late 17th century in the northern Italian city of Torino by the court baker Antonio Brunero as a remedy for future King Vittorio Amedeo of Savoy’s digestive problems. Unable to digest even breadcrumbs without “issues,” the thin and crunchy sticks of bread went down without a hitch. Grissini became quite popular throughout Italy due to their high digestibility compared to regular bread. It also helped that they would stay fresh for weeks.

Perhaps more remarkable is that grissini were also the Sticks That Launched a Thousand Stagecoach Trips: apparently Napoleon had his own obsession for breadsticks — so much so that he founded a stagecoach service in the 19th century between Torino and Paris primarily devoted to the delivery of his beloved grissini!

(Wait – is that a grissino in his hand?)

What a contradiction in form and flavor: that dramatic baton, long and thin, sometimes jagged and bumpy, both elegant and rugged at once, with a massive crunch to be heard rooms away. Yet what a mild flavor (those original plain ones, at least) belies their imposing figure. Now cooks routinely jazz them up with seeds, herbs, cheeses, or wrap them in prosciutto. They seem to have ascended in rank as a necessity on the Italian antipasti platter.

But for my father, plain is always best. I whipped up some simple grissini the other day using a version of Carol Field’s recipe for Grissini Torinesi (below) and then relayed the sticks to my father during our recent visit a few days later. They were just as tasty — and even better, according to him — with their more substantial crunch brought on by age. Definitely Napoleon-worthy in his book.

Recipe based on Grissini Torinesi from Carol Field’s book The Italian Baker

INGREDIENTS:

1 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 tablespoon malt syrup (if you don’t have any, the breadsticks come out fine)

1 1/4 cups warm water

2 tablespoons olive oil + more for brushing the dough

3 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt + more for sprinkling

1/2 cup semolina flour for sprinkling

INSTRUCTIONS:

Stir yeast and malt into warm water in the bowl of a stand mixer (may be done by hand too — read on!). Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Mix in 2 tablespoons oil with paddle attachment. Add flour and salt and mix until dough comes together. Change to dough hook and knead at low speed about 3 minutes. Finish kneading briefly by hand on a lightly floured surface. N.B.: you can mix dough by hand and knead by hand until dough is smooth, soft, velvety and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes.

Pat the dough with your hands into a 14- x 4-inch rectangle on a well-floured surface. Lightly brush top with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Sprinkle dough with semolina flour before cutting and stretching (although it’s not a big problem if you don’t have semolina flour…). Cut dough crosswise into 4 equal sections, then cut each section into 8 strips about the width of a finger. The dough is so elastic that you can simply pick up each piece and stretch it between your hands to fit the length of a baking sheet. Place the breadsticks on lightly oiled baking sheets or on a sheet of parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 400°. Just before baking, spray the breadsticks lightly with water. Sprinkle with kosher salt if desired. Bake the breadsticks until light brown and crisp, 20 to 25 minutes.

Little Italy in the Orto: The Italian Kitchen Garden Transplanted to America

We stayed out of Umberto’s way – i.e. his vegetable garden – and he stayed away from our toys and swing set. It was a mutual understanding. We may have been mere preschoolers spending our afternoons at his home in the daycare his wife ran, but we knew never to pluck a strawberry or snap a zucchini vine for use as a jumprope. It wasn’t clear what Umberto did when he wasn’t covered in dirt (or if he even spoke English), but we did know that this man lived for his garden and the food it produced. The zucchini, lettuce, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes were his babies to tend to, just as his wife Angie tended lovingly to us.

Umberto and Angie had immigrated from northern Italy years earlier and had brought the established tradition of the orto — the Italian kitchen garden — with them to their new home, like many of the Italians who arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had done before them. Although growing one’s own vegetable garden has become more common today, the orto has long been a standard part of Italian life – for reasons both gustatory and economic. Besides certainly serving as a haven from everyday worries, the Italian kitchen garden had a more concrete purpose for Umberto and his countrymen: it provided the simple ingredients for those fresh, vibrant recipes and flavors synonymous with Italian food. By creating an orto in America, Umberto ensured he and his wife could continue to eat as they had when still in Italy.

But their garden was about more than satisfying their palates; it was a way for them to feel more at home in America. To grow their own food and then taste those familiar flavors and meals helped them reconstruct the sense of home they had left behind.

When Italian immigrants poured into the US in the late 19th and early 20 centuries, they found themselves engulfed in an alien landscape, language, and world of flavors. Eating Italian eventually would become possible, as immigrants opened Italian restaurants and planted ortos, and as Italian markets became thriving centers of the city, where those vegetables not grown in one’s orto could be purchased.

Some Italians took the orto a large step further and used their farming talents (many Italian immigrants had been farmers before they made their leap to the New World and brought seeds across the Atlantic) to become thriving participants in California’s agricultural industry. The state’s mediterranean climate was just right for growing the Italian-farmed crops, which they would then sell in the larger produce markets. According to Deanna Paoli Gumina in her The Italians of San Francisco, the Italians are credited with introducing San Franciscans to zucchini, broccoli, eggplant, Italian beans, bell peppers, parsley, garlic, rosemary, fennel, marjoram, oregano, and sweet basil. With the Transcontinental Railroad transporting Californian produce across the country, the introduction of at least some of these vegetables and herbs must have included the populations of other cities as well. (Stay tuned for much more on this in a later post!)

My father remembers his Italian mother tending to the family orto growing up in the 30s and 40s. He recalls a plentiful yield of zucchini, lettuce, beans, and tomatoes, as the garden thrived under the care of her green thumb. And years later, Grandpa Frank would spoil us with the treasures from his own prolific orto: he would bring armfuls of lettuce, beans, baby carrots, zucchini, parsley and Swiss chard nearly every time he saw us. He spent much time tending to his garden, while possibly also tending to the memory of his childhood orto. I wish I could ask him now if he planted and picked according to the moon’s cycle, as so many Italians still do.

My family has a little orto of our own, connecting us to Italy, our relatives, and our ancestors. I see Grandpa Frank in the red-veined, dark green leaves of the Swiss chard my eldest son proudly planted in the winter. I imagine my grandmother Nina tending to her family’s garden when I see our zucchini and tomatoes inching their way to fruition. And I imagine her excitement at the prospect of transforming that ripe zucchini into a torta. I am reminded of my father’s fig tree when I see ours, and I can taste my mother’s pesto when I pass by our 16 basil plants preparing themselves for my sons to pluck their leaves and help me whip them into pesto all summer long for their appreciative father. Even baby loves to get in on the action by licking the spatula.

There is nothing like growing your own food to transport and connect – connect to the earth, yes, but also to a land and lifestyle across an ocean; to connect to people with you, far from you, or those long gone — even those you never knew. And growing your own orto — even if it is just a pot of basil or one small parsley plant — can give you the sense that you are linked with all of the above, as well as the Italian immigrant lifestyle of growing and eating the foods of their homeland. They replanted their own Little Italy in America, in order to restore and retain the vibrant and familiar flavors of both food and home that they had left behind.

Try spinning those ingredients from your own orto into one of these Italian recipes (or just run to the store already and pretend you grew them):

ZUCCHINI TORTA ~ (adapted from my grandmother’s recipe):

Sauté 1 small onion and 2 cloves of garlic in 3 tablespoons olive oil. Set aside until cool.

In a bowl, mix 1/4 cup parsley, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup grated parmesan, 1/2 tsp herbes de provence, 1/2 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, 4 large grated zucchini, and the cooled garlic and onions.

Pour into a greased pan (I use 11 3/4 x 7 1/2, but something around that size will do. 8 x 8 will require more cooking time).

Bake for 45 minutes, or until firm to the touch and lightly browned on top.

Zucchini Torta

PESTO ~ (inspired by a more elaborate recipe, without a couple of ingredients I don’t usually have lying around the house ~ but it still tastes amazing!)

Put in a blender or cuisinart (or if you are into being truly authentic, crush it all with your mortar and pestle) and whir together:

4 cups(-ish) basil leaves

2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup parsley (but if you don’t have any on hand, can be omitted)

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup grated parmesan

~Enough pesto for a pound of pasta~

P.S. / FYI – To grow your own veggies with a truly “authentic” Italian flavor, you can order up some seeds from the source at Seeds from Italy (www.growitalian.com).

Torrone’s Box

“Go ahead,” he said with a thick Italian accent and a smile. “Take it!”

I looked first at the small box he was waving in his hand, and then up at my mother, searching for her disapproval. Somewhat to my chagrin, she nodded with enthusiasm to indicate that yes, I could take candy from a stranger — even this stranger with dark bushy eyebrows wearing a bloodied butcher’s apron. At least he was still behind the counter.

I put my palm out, and there he placed the dainty, pretty box — such an unbutcheresque item to be handing out to small children. Then I looked more closely, and it started to make more sense: the name Ferrante Gonzaga was emblazoned above and below the portrait of a bearded man (who, at the time, I had thought was the butcher himself; turns out, Gonzaga was a mercenary captain during the Renaissance). The flip side portrayed a statue of a triumphant Gonzaga gripping a spear while standing over his nemesis, Envy. Strange box. Little swirls, flourishes, and embellishments in red, blue, and black, as well as the flavor — vaniglia written on the top flap, “vanilla,” on the bottom — contrasted with the military vibe of the pictures. La Florentine Almond Nougat Candy, it said on one side; I would henceforth know it as torrone.

I paused as I had a Pandora moment: voices in my head said, “Don’t open it!” I half expected envy, crime, hate and disease to fly out in so doing. But hope springs eternal, so I unfastened the flap and, well, hoped for the best.

I pulled out a little rectangle, neatly wrapped in soft, bendy foil, which contained an off-white, bland-looking smaller rectangle with nuts. I looked at my mom and wanted to give it back — but in the end, took a bite. And rather than the evils of the world springing forth, the box released a blissful dance for the senses in the form of torrone: sweet honey, crunchy nuts, chewy nougat, a whiff and the flavor of comforting vanilla. It was a delicious treat — even if the box was a little ominous — and a treat that my brother and I would look forward to each time we returned to La Romanina delicatessen in Menlo Park and found Tony behind the counter. He always made sure we left with our little box (as well as a slice of head cheese, but that’s another story for another day).

Many years between young adulthood and young motherhood passed before I would eat torrone again. When I open one today, new things fly out of the box: those joyous memories of trips to La Romanina and the Italian sandwich dinners that would result from such trips; visits to Lucca Deli on Chestnut Street in San Francisco’s Marina district, which was a few blocks away from my father’s childhood home. All it takes is a quick search on the internet to find people gushing with stories and memories linking toronne to holidays and family celebrations of long ago with Italian relatives. This little box has a power that transports.

Like everything else, torrone can be purchased online. But I feel so fortunate to have found them in abundance in an Italian food and wine shop in Dallas – and fortunate to have found the shop in general. Jimmy’s is a true microcosm of a Little Italy. Product after glorious product pack the shelves: pastas, risotto, house made (and celebrated) sausage and meatballs, wine, pickled and marinated vegetables, San Marzano tomatoes, coffee, Baci chocolates, La Florentine and Ferrara torrone, and countless other Italian products. To be surrounded solely by such products is food for the soul and adds an Italian flavor to the shopping experience. The authentic ingredients allow you to concoct splendidly simple Italian dishes, while delicious pre-made filled pastas, sausages, meatballs, and desserts can transport you to your own Little Italy the moment you return home.

In addition, Jimmy’s provides me – and numerous others! – with a space in which we can nostalgically return to time spent with Italian relatives, as we are surrounded by the products of those times, the flavors of our childhood. What joy to find such a place in a town with no Little Italy to call its own.

Now my children are having their own childhood experience with Torrone: they love finding the 18-count La Florentine box in Jimmy’s tucked on the dark shelf near the register; they love choosing which flavor (lemon, orange, or vanilla) they will have that day; but most of all, they love tasting the pure sweet deliciousness. How exciting that one of these days, they will taste the memories too.

Che gioia!

The Joy of Making Pasta

We walked into the DeLucca’s house and proceeded straight to the kitchen – past the dim entryway, past the crackling fire in the living room, past the dining room table awaiting us. Right into the belly of the festivities, into a belly full of snakes – hanger after hanger of snakes dangling, waving in the breeze, preparing for their fate in our own bellies.

Yes, we were in a room full of homemade pasta: beautiful angel hair, the first I would ever eat. And it was everywhere in our friends’ kitchen: suspended from cabinet handles and drawers, draped over the backs of chairs, dangling from light fixtures. What a joyous, unruly sight! Such festive chaos. Mrs. DeLucca was churning out ever more (much like Strega Nonna’s magic pasta pot going haywire), while her children tamed the noodle-snakes on hangers around the room. They would eventually fill three large platters with celestial capellini con pesto that melted in our mouths.

Che gioia a little memory like that brings. The whole process occurring in that Italian-American kitchen was a source of joy for the creators and observers alike, and it is a source of glee each time I try to recreate it with my sons (who conveniently love snakes AND pasta).

But, sadly, making pasta these days has been generally relegated to ripping open a bag or box, dumping it in boiling water, and jamming the ends down into submission. An act of violence, I say – and there’s certainly no gioia in that.

Although it is wonderful that packaged pasta allows the most rushed of us to make a good meal in a flash, there IS decidedly more gioia in making it the way Aunt Irene did: squishing together a raw egg and flour with the hands,

feeling the ooze between the fingers,

and then watching the transformation of goop to dough.

Che gioia in rolling it out on a floured bread board and then churning it through the pasta maker –

like caterpillar to butterfly.

And what joy in finding whatever you have to suspend the pasta from,

and then finding yourself amidst dancing pasta. Then there’s that final moment you gingerly place the noodles in a bath of rolling water as you watch your creation gracefully immerse itself – no forced submersion necessary.

There is such joy in this present act of creation, in the process of transforming simple ingredients into simple edible masterpieces.

Yes, it takes a little more time than plopping the contents of a bag into water. But participating in such an act of creation actually can slow time down, as you savor each joyous moment of watching the metamorphosis unfold before your eyes and in your hands. It helps you connect more to the present, your food, and the people around you.

CHE GIOIA!

Simple Pasta Recipe (serves 2)

2 cups of flour
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
3-4 tablespoons of water and/or olive oil as necessary

Put flour and salt on a board or in a bowl and make a well in the middle.

Crack eggs into the well and gently beat the egg in its flour “bowl.”

Knead the dough with your finger tips until a more substantial dough forms, adding 3 to 4 tablespoons of water if necessary (may use olive oil in place of some water as well). Continue kneading – but this time with the palms of your hands – for 4 minutes. Add flour to board to prevent sticking, if necessary.

Wrap in plastic and set aside 20 minutes.

Feed through pasta machine or roll out and cut noodles to desired size with a knife.

Hang, cook (time depends on noodle size), and…buon appetito!

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Dolce Far Niente

Embracing the Italian Spirit and the Art of Attention to Cultivate a Meaningful Life

Italian cuisine