"People are like coffee-pots."

...Or so I was told today by Elena, our Italian- cougar woman- mother of two- tour guide from Viareggio. Her explanation was, "People are like coffee-pots. You cant just pick one up the first time and expect to make good coffee," she explains to me as I show her how to use a percolator coffee pot in the kitchen of the little villa where I and the other "students" are staying.
"You have to get to the know the coffee pot in order for you and it to work well together. You know, they all have different quirks and need to be treated differently. Just like people. You have to get to know a person and all of his or her quirks and likes and dislikes before you can truly get along seamlessly with that person."
Either that is extremely profound or just freaking hilarious...either way, it's awesome.
Let me back up, though... First, our plane out of JFK to Pisa was delayed two hours because we had to go back to the gate for maintenance after there were some electrical failures in the back of the aircraft's cabin, and people were complaining of "smelling burning"...awesome. Electrical fire on an airplane!!! Not exactly something that makes one feel comfortable before flying across the Atlantic. To make a long story short, though, the situation was fixed and I somehow managed to get a few decent hours of sleep when I didn't have any big Italian women stumbling down the aisle bumping their oversized handbags into my shoulder.
So, anyway, I finally landed in Pisa and after a very stressful hour of waiting for my two bags, the very last bags apparently, to get off the plane and work their way around the luggage carousel, I was greeted by Elena as I walked through the doors out of the baggage area. Her initial reaction was (in broken English)" I would be pissed Ive had to wait three hours but I would have waited for you all day," (self-call) and so it began haha. She is hilarious and she LOVES me, haha. Apparently, to one fifth of the human population I look like Brendan Fraser, the actor of so many Oscar-worthy movies such as "George of the Jungle" (as Elena reminded me), Encino Man (truly awesome), and Bedazzled (sucked). For the other 4/5 of the human population, they think the first 1/5 must be smoking crack. I and most everyone close to me belongs in the 4/5 segment, but still, I'm amazed at how often I hear this.
Moving on....I'm very much looking forward to hearing more of her life lessons for me and it doesn't exactly hurt that hanging with her is somewhat of a much-needed confident boost (dont worry, I'm not into 50 year old married women with children).
Anyway, we wound through back roads north along the Tuscan coast for about 40 minutes traveling from the Pisa airport and then turned about 1 mile inland and up a giant hill (mountain) to the villa of Campo Romano where the cooking school is located. It is called Campo Romano because it was the location of an ancient Roman soldier camp as they worked their way up the Tuscan coast. Coincidentally, the town at the bottom of the hill is called Stiavo which apparently is some sort of local dialect of the word "slave" because while the Roman soldiers were up on the hill camping, their battalion of slaves got to hang out down at the bottom of the hill.
And it is BEAUTIFUL here at Campo Romano. You can find the pictures I'm taking here: http://picasaweb.google.com/harrison.d.sonntag
So far they consist almost primarily of the grounds I'm staying at including the amazing views and vegetation. It's a working olive oil farm, but also contains grapes, lemons, limes, fennel, tomatoes, basil and numerous other amazing items.
The real story, however, has been the people. Besides Elena, I've also run into the owner of the property, one of the single nicest human beings I've ever encountered in my life, a man who must be well into his eighties by the name of John Franco. I literally had an hour long one-on-one conversation in broken English/Italian/Spanish? with this guy sitting on a bench overlooking the grove of olive trees covering the hillside with the distant marble peaks of Carrara in the background, the exact same marble mountains from Michelangelo personally inspected and chose the marble for each of his masterpieces.
Among the many things Mr. Franco taught me today is that the cows wont be very good eating this year. The reason is that the area is undergoing a drought right now, and, you see, when there's a drought, the olives wont get as big and fat and juicy and full of nutritious fats and vitamins. Apparently the cows of the area eat the fallen olives and it makes up a substantial portion of their diet. Unfortunately for the cows (and us), the cows are getting skinny wimpy olives so they are not as fat and healthy as most years. Thus...not as good beef.
I am being 100% honest when I tell you that listening to this guy talk about the land and the food was one of the greatest highlights of my life. It was simply beautiful, and I'll never forget it.
So, as for the actual "school" I'm at, I think it's going to work out very well. Better than I could have imagined, actually. I am one of 5 "students" to be taught bu 4 chefs!!! Additionally, and it's a long story I will tell over the next week, I really hit it off with the two main chefs of the place, one of which happens to be the boss of this whole Toscana Saporita school, the other happens to be an awesome guy named Anthony originally from West Paterson, NJ who apparently worked out at Carini's gym while I was there and whose Dad owns Capo's grill which I used to eat breakfast at all the time after I worked out. Oh, and also, he happened to go to Wayne Valley, the same high school I graduated from except he's 4 years older. That and he's cool as heck and REALLY knows Italian food.
So the combination of all of that, impressing the chefs with my food knowledge, making friends, etc, it looks like I'm going to be spending a lot more time in the kitchen with all of them then any other folks the've had here, and they have personally made it an obligation on their part to show me all of these great dishes I "have to have" in the restaurant. Right now I'm trying to work in an angle for them to let me help them with this "9 courses of seafood" dinner they are preparing for the wedding of the owner's brother. I have a feeling they'll have me working back there doing all the prep work they dont want to. Sounds good to me, though. We'll see what happens. I don't know yet because I just met them and "people are like coffee-pots", or something like that.


http://picasaweb.google.com/harrison.d.sonntag