18 (1999) years ago, we were ragged and happy, making our way from Venice to Rome.

We had $4000 (for three weeks) in the pocket and hysterical, free love all around us.

A train, then some kind of two-car carriage to Cecina; the platform was all curvy in the sun mirages, and poppies, wild leek, and we were starving…

We reached Fatoria ******* by taxi (horribly expensive, 30 000 liras) at the very time when lunch has ended really long time ago and dinner was not even about to start.

«Giovanni, is there any grub left?»

“Si, si! Prego! Cinque minuti!”

So we sit there, fucking stoned by those hills, day-dreaming. We count the number of times the cuckoo croaks. We look at each other. We try to make something out of poppies. Wreaths, as it seems to us.

We are craving for some grub, increasingly unbearably.

They bring it. A wooden tray, salami chunks, ricotta, honey, pecorino, bread, and a clay jug.

I gulp greedily right from the jug, and the it all comes back as a fountain: fuck, it’s wine!

“Giovanni?!”

“But you’ve asked for a drink, but not for a wash (c).”

That’s how my Tuscany began.

And in the evening we went to a castle on a mountain. To a city where the promenade street is above clouds. I’ll certainly write about this city later. One can start an entire blog about the city, not just a few paragraphs. VOLTERRRRRRA!

We were introduced to the owner (I have no memory for names) and so… we’ve been coming there for almost 20 years already.

I’m always looking forward for such a night.

I’m not sure what should I say about the food: to tell you how my colleague, a tough guy from Vladivostok…  shed a tear, having pierced a mozzarella ball with a fork and tasted it, like, really pathetically mewled:

“What the hell is thissssssssssssss?”

Or how my bf swallowed pieces of florentines without chewing them from greed, and we realized he was suffocating only when he became blue spotty; or how another seasoned friend of mine, while consuming a ricotta and spinach pie, was quietly rejecting/rejecting incoming calls from a very important chamber?

Pasta, pheasants, porcini, ultimate tomatoes, florentines, lentils soup, wild boar ragout, wild pigeons, oh to hell with that!

Everything’s so REAL, it makes you wanna bite into the tabletop.