Friday morning and the weather is gorgeous again. Do you dare call it predictable or boring when each day brings the same perfect conditions? To be truthful, we were told that rain is a little too sparse in the summer there in Tuscany, but we would suffer it a couple days more. This morning we had plans. The farmer's market that travels from village to village throughout the week was here in Colle di Val d'Elsa today and being fans of farmer's markets in general, this promised to be something extraordinary. We drove into Colle Basse, the lower part of the village and gambled on a maybe legal parking spot. This market was huge! It covered many blocks and vendors were hawking everything from foodstuffs to clothing and furniture. Aside from just absorbing everything we saw, we had a mission.
Our hostess at Montecastelli, Barbara, had suggested that we have a cooperative dinner in the courtyard in the villa. Stacey and I, Barbara, and two other guests at the villa would prepare one or two dishes and bring it all together tonight our last night at Montecastelli. It would be a very fitting end to what had been a really amazing and yet relaxing week. In my typical fashion, I had no idea what I was going to make until I saw it. We walked about through the streets marveling at all the vendors. The produce was abundant and fantastic. Produce at a farmer's market is always great. Well duh!! It is a farmer's market. Yet here in the Tuscan countryside it was ever so much more so.I realized that we were coming to the end of the spring season and one of my favorite spring vegetables or more precisely legumes, fava beans, were still around. I found a stall with some great favas and picked up a bagful. To really understand how big of a deal this was and how serious the vendors are picture this: Many of these guys had pulled up in vehicles that looked like massive Winnebagos which opened up from the side to become an instant storefront.
Some were grocery stores, some fresh seafood or meat markets, one was a rotisserie shop selling all sorts of roasted foods. It didn't matter that we had already eaten breakfast, this was a mandatory foodstop. I heard the call of the rotisserie truck and headed in that direction as if pulled by a tractor beam.At this point Stacey remarked that all week long for all the food we'd seen and eaten, there had been no sign of turkey. Did that seemingly American bird exist here in Italy?
As I approached the rotisserie truck I showed her that it did indeed. Tacchino, as it is called in Italian was there presented as a sandwich. An herb stuffed piece of turkey breast on a long piece of Italian bread, and wrapped like a mummy in panchetta, it had been roasted until it was perfectly crisp. There was no stopping me. I had to have that.I think the pictures pretty much tell the story there. If Rachael Ray had been right there to scream "Yummo!", it still wouldn't have done it justice. Stacey was abstaining from pork that day and she for her part had a roasted potato fritter or Italian latke if you will.
We continued on our search for what we would bring to dinner that night. We passed another Winnebago market, this one a seafood vendor and I spied fresh whole mackerel just big enough to make into an appetizer. I picked up a few of those and now I knew what to do to finish our contribution. I would make a large green salad with the fresh fava beans and grill the mackerel and serve it in a most Italian manner with agre y dolce or sweet and sour onions. The onions, sauteed until very sweet and caramelized and then splashed with balsamic vinegar, would be a perfect counterpoint to the rich, oily flesh of the mackerel. We headed back to the car, stopping briefly to pick up some flowers to decorate the table and a large piece of burrata, a fresh mozzarella type cheese that oozes a creamy center when cut into. Thankfully the car was still there and there wasn't a ticket on the windshield when we got to it. We drove back to the villa full of food and ideas.
Late that afternoon I started cooking. Onions were sliced thin and sauteed slowly in olive oil to caramelize their natural sugars. Fava beans were peeled, blanched, and peeled again. Fresh favas are a lot of work but for the short time they are available, it is really worth it. A large outdoor woodburning grill was lit. Barbara had purchased sausages, chicken, and fresh pork to grill. A feast was coming together, but it required wine. We opened one of the wines we'd purchased from Pietro in Colle Alta the day before. A rose from Acquagiusta, a Tuscan producer from the coastal Maremma region, was the opening gambit. A delicious wine, dry and full of strawberries and mineral flavors, it cooled and refreshed our palates. I later learned that although we have their red wine in the store, the rose' unfortunately never makes it to export. Once the meats were finished I grilled the mackerel. All things now ready, we moved to the table. There was a variety of grilled meats, the fish with their onion accompaniment, the green salad and fresh burrata. Newly acquainted people gathered like old friends around the table. I pulled out a special bottle that had been given to us by Marco Mantengoli of La Rasina when we left. His single vineyard Brunello, Il Di Vasco, named for his grandfather who had established the vineyard decades ago, was a fitting drink for this special occasion. I opened it with pleasure, knowing the wine would taste even better shared with our new found friends.
Tomorrow we would leave Montecastelli and fly to Rome for a day before returning home.
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