Thursday, 19 ottobre 2006
(Continued from Working at Spannocchia)
That afternoon brought a chilly drizzly rain. Sandino did a big load of laundry that morning, and since Spannocchia does not have a dryer, we ended up hanging damp clothes all over our room. These wouldn’t get dry until the morning we left.
Debby led an informal “drawing on the right side of the brain” in the small parlor where a few of us did contour drawings of a still life and each other. The rest of the group played chess, napped, and read in the large parlor near the fire. I found a beautiful slim cookbook with color pastel illustrations entitled A Table in Tuscany, by Leslie Forbes. It is out of print but I ordered it 
from a used dealer when I returned to the States, and I’m really glad I bought it.
Later that afternoon, we expected a rep to lead a wine tasting of Brunello wines, which are known to be very fine, and have a chance to buy them at a good price. However, there was a mix-up about the date and Charlie ended up leading the group in a tasting of wines he had bought. He did a great job, despite a little choking episode that gave us all a chuckle, because he has the imaginative verbal skills to pull it off. I have a very hard time matching words to tastes. To me, wine tastes sweet or dry, smooth or bitter, and like grapes. That’s about the extent of what I can come up with.
Dinner that night was superb, as usual, but perhaps even a little more towards a unique Spannocchian experience:
Primo: Zuppa di Porri (leek soup)
Secondo: Polenta con Cinghiale (Polenta with stewed wild boar)
Contorno: Broccoli
Insalata
Dolce: Zuppa Inglese (I don’t remember this one! Probably too stuffed from the cinghiale.)
This is the meal that Sandino keeps telling our friends about. Was it our favorite? I don’t know – every meal at Spannocchia was simply amazing.
To be continued…
slowly she turned 