Happy Birthday To Me

27 is the age that most Italian women marry, as was pointed out to me at class yesterday. For a perfect start to my birthday, we had a wine tasting at 9 am, which actually included a fantastic Calabrian red called Balbium. The lecture was given by Ian D'Agata, director if the wine academy in Rome, and he actually told me he just did a BBC interview on the growing role of microbreweries in Italy, which was some nice research related news. After a quick salad with my produce from the market yesterday (I butchered the poor vegetables with a plastic butter knife), we had two more lectures on the political history of Italy, which should be made into a series of mini-dramas.
La Giostra for dinner with some wonderful new friends, and we celebrated a birthday as anyone should - with more burrata, five kinds of pasta - including one decadently topped with the biggest mound of shaved white truffles I have ever seen- steak with balsamico, grilled bronzini, fried artichokes, a huge sacher torte for dessert, and maybe a little too much wine.
Wednesday was foiled by a thunderstorm, so our planned post birthday picnic was out of the question, but the weather cleared up and we headed out of town to have dinner on an urban Tuscan farm - this family opened their home to us and cooked us a fantastic meal with their house smoked meats, frittata, zucchini and thyme from their garden, "meatloaf", and stewed chicken with olives, and some delicious al dente pasta with fresh tomatoes and oil. The son did most of the cooking, encouraging us to "drink up" (through translation), for they had 60 more bottles from the local producer in the cellar. His mother and sister were beyond hospitable, letting us roam over their small and ever shrinking farm that is continuously being slurped up by the city as they keep building hotels, movie theaters and mini malls. What had been their property and family tradition for over 700 years, starting as sharecroppers is ending with them scraping away at a living selling their produce at the Sant Ambrosio Market. These are not rich people, and calling their farm rustic would be a gross exaggeration. But they are sweet and full of kisses and smiles, and literally gave us all they had, running out to get gluten free products for Jackie, emptying their cupboard of produce, opening a bottle of 2001 vin santo. Hearing it was my birthday, the sister ran into the house to wrap me up a pair of earrings, heavy silver with small purple stones. Not only did they insist on having us all over, they were ecstatic to do so, and enjoyed every minute of it, even though they understood only a few words of English. It's so refreshing to see people with so little, and realize that these are things that do not matter to them. Offering money would have been a slap in their face, which our Professor said she had learned in past experiences - this is the highlight of their year. They get to show off, and rightfully so. The food was amazing. What they value is sharing their culture and seeing our huge smiles - what an amazing lesson learned.