Contents

1. Share Your Tuscan Dreams

2. An Autumn Recipe: Roasted Red Peppers

3. Book Review: Travelers' Tales Tuscany

4. A Film: Under The Tuscany Sun

SHARE YOUR TUSCAN DREAMS

Why do you travel, or dream of traveling, to Tuscany? While preparing an upcoming newsletter, the question of why we chose a certain destination became some what of an obsession for me. What is it about a place that calls to us, draws us almost like a magnet, and becomes the focus for the planning of a trip, or, for that matter, several trips?

What is it about Tuscany that you love? If you have yet to visit us, and are in the planning stages of a trip here, what inspired you to chose Tuscany? We would love to hear your answers, and will, with your permission, publish them in an upcoming newsletter. Please write to us at TuscanLifeEdit@netscape.net telling us why you love to visit Tuscany, or why you long to do so.

If there are specific places, experiences, films or books that enhanced your desire to visit here, we are anxious to read about them, and to share them with our other readers. Be sure to include a line to us, giving us permission to publish your words in an upcoming newsletter. I want to call it "The Tuscany Our Readers Love." I think it will be enormous fun to read what others love about Tuscany; I enjoy sharing my particular Tuscan passions, and I am anxious to hear about yours. Write to us today!

A RECIPE: ROASTED RED PEPPERS

Perhaps you have visited Tuscany in the late summer or early autumn, and maybe you have even had the chance to see a garden overflowing with ripe vegetables, begging to picked and treated simply but elegantly with our best olive oil. We have an abundance of sweet red peppers this year, and one of the ways we like to use them is in Roasted Red Peppers.We hope that you enjoy this method that we have developed to make the rather messy process of preparing roasted peppers a bit easier.

• 6 large, firm and fleshy sweet red peppers
• 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• Fresh basil, oregano, rosemary, chopped
• Sea Salt
• Lemon juice or Balsamic vinegar

Place the peppers on a charcoal, gas or electric grill, over medium high heat. Watching them carefully, try to singe as much of the skin of the pepper as possible. I like to see a lot of black areas, but it is important not to overcook the outsides, or there won't be any juice or even enough meat to make this worthwhile.

As each pepper becomes blackened, remove to a bowl or casserole with a fitted lid, large enough to hold all six peppers. Keep the lid on the grilled peppers at all times, because it is the steam that collects under the lid that helps to loosen the skin from the vegetables.

After all the peppers are in the covered container, let them cool until they are easy to touch. This usually takes about an hour. I have tried to rush this process, but since skinning the peppers requires so much handling, it is best to let them cool completely.

Now, here is where my own method may help you. If you have removed the skin from roasted peppers before, you know that this can be a filthy job, and one that takes a lot of time.

Place a wire mesh strainer over a medium sized bowl. With the bowl of roasted peppers beside the fresh bowl, carefully lift one pepper over the strainer. Holding the stem of the pepper, peel downward over the strainer, letting the peeled skin fall into the strainer, and catching any juices in the bowl below.

As each pepper is peeled, and while still holding it over the strainer, use a small paring knife to remove the top, taking all the seeds along with the "hat" of the pepper. Place the pepper on a cutting board and slice it into whatever size pieces you prefer.

When all the peppers are peeled, you should have an inch or so of juices in the bottom of the bowl. If there are juices in the original steaming bowl, you can now strain them into the clean juices.

I have tried several methods for skinning the blackened peppers and capturing their delicious juices, but this one seems to be the best.

At this point, I add the peppers, and whatever dressings I chose. This year, it is thinly sliced garlic, sea salt, and freshly chopped basil, oregano and rosemary from the garden. Add a little acid, such as a good squirt of fresh lemon juice, or a teaspoon of aceto balsamico . I then pour on a very generous amount of good Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Marinate the peppers overnight, and then enjoy. These are delicious.

BOOK REVIEW: TRAVELERS' TALES TUSCANY

In the years before the publication of Frances Mayes' book, Under the Tuscan Sun , the literary work that probably inspired the most dreams of Tuscany was
E. M. Forster's A Room With View . I know that this book, and the subsequent, wonderful, film by Merchant/Ivory, made me long to visit Florence. In fact, I carried a copy of A Room With A View with me on first journey to Firenze, and read the story of Lucy Honeychurch, and the way that Tuscany brought her to life, each night in my hotel room.

It is no wonder then, that several of the authors whose works fill the pages of Travelers' Tales, Tuscany , refer to Forster. Perhaps you are familiar with the ravelers Tales series, wherein nonfiction book excerpts and original essays, all on the subject of the destination or theme of the particular edition, form a compendium of writers' experiences at certain destinations. Inspired by Forster, Mayes, love of all things Italian and Tuscan, or perhaps simply the need to transfer experience and impression to the page, the writers whose works are collected in Travelers' Tales, Tuscany regale us with their specific memories of our region.

Some of these essays and excerpts (I won't mention specific authors) are little more than slightly more erudite interpretations of what those of us who know and love Tuscany have already read, time and time again. But others cast our beloved Toscano in the light of very personal experience, and impart to us a new and unexpected look at the land we love.

In particular, William Zinsser's heartfelt story of a night spent in Siena, the night that peace was declared in the war against Germany, is especially captivating. In Siena Revisited , as Zinsser describes the scene in the Campo , where citizens of Siena poured in from all directions to celebrate with cries of "Viva la pace," we are transported and given a glimpse of history. We are privileged to witness the way it touched one man on his journey through life. This is not guidebook Tuscany, but the very individual, and somewhat amazing, memories of a traveler whose experiences are outside the world of hotels, shops and restaurants that we are too familiar with.

I was also taken with Pomp and Intrigue at the Palio , Manfredi Piccolomini's insider tale of a visit to Siena's Palio, as the guest of a wealthy and aristocratic Sienese. The Palio and Siena are in fact the focus of a few of the essays in this book, but the view, the history, and the insider's understanding of the event were unexpectedly entertaining. If you have read too many guidebook descriptions of the Palio as tourists experience it, read the essays here to find out what it means to the people of Siena. The fascinating details of the history of the Contrada, and the tantalizing explanations of corruption at the world famous event make Travelers' Tales, Tuscany worth reading.

I recommend Travelers' Tales, Tuscany here because I hope that, like me, you are interested in reading more about the enthralling subject of Tuscany, but also because there are stories and details included in the book that will help you to know this intricate land in a way that tourist writing seldom allows.

Traveler's Takes, Tuscany is edited by James O'Reilly and Tara Austen Weaver. It was published in 2002 by Travelers' Tales, San Francisco, USA.

UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN; THE FILM

I will let you know something about me that I never thought would make it into the pages of the Tuscan Life Newsletter , simply because it has nothing to do with Tuscany. It is this: I rarely go to a movie theater to see a Hollywood made film. I much prefer independent and foreign films, and usually don't have the time or inclination to see the latest Hollywood movies in addition to the others that are on my list of "must sees".

Consequently, I was sure that my husband would be shocked when I asked him to accompany me to an opening night showing of Under The Tuscan Sun , the film adaptation of Frances Mayes' book. But much to my surprise, he was prepared for my request, knowing as he does that anything about Tuscany intrigues me, and is always potential material for the newsletter.

Prepared not to like the movie, giving in to my own prejudices toward Hollywood movies and book adaptations, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself well entertained by this film. Even if its star, Diane Lane, weren't so appealing, the gorgeous scenery alone would have been enough to hold my attention. The movie was filmed on location in Tuscany, and the scenery is certainly a worthy co-star for the likable Diane Lane. Lane is so likable, in fact, that I found myself comparing her character to the "real" Mayes, as Mayes herself reveals what she does of her personality in the original book. To my mind, the fictional Frances Mayes is much preferable.

The woman Lane portrays is sometimes lonely, sad, even desperate; she shows herself to be completely human and really rather captivating. Even though we know that Frances's fling with an impossibly handsome young man from romantic Positano is doomed, we are in there pulling for her as she experiences an adult epiphany of sorts. Lane portrays Frances Mayes as vulnerable (a characteristic I found distinctly lacking in the portrait of Mayes as she describes her experiences as a villa owner in her book) and plucky, with a sense of humor and a few rather serious short comings. I liked the character very much.

Strict conservatives may balk at the somewhat liberal lifestyles of Frances's friends in the film, but the characters all seem to have enough charm to carry the viewer past any lapses in moral behavior that might be diverting. These are people living in Italy, and there is a fullness and enjoyment, a joy and a paradoxical sadness to all they do, that is entrancing.

Frances Mayes' book is only very loosely used as an inspiration for the story told in this film. The locales are the same, and some of the peripheral characters that the real Mayes describes as integral to the purchase and remodeling of her house are featured in the film with the same names and jobs, but very little else resembles the book. And that is fine with me. I enjoyed reading Under The Tuscan Sun , and its sequel, Bella Tuscany , but I felt no affinity for the people that the author wrote about. The characters in the film, though fictional, are much more human than their literary counterparts. They serve a purpose other than as tools for the acquisition and establishment of a house.They are people transformed and shaped by living modern lives in an ancient place.

And Tuscany looks gorgeous. I recommend this film