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“Rome and New York were impressive, but they knew they were. They had the beauty of a vain woman who had squeezed herself into her favourite dress after hours of careful self worship. There was a raw, feral beauty about this landscape that was totally unselfconscious but no less real...There was no pomp or vainty here; this was an innocent, natural beauty, the best kind, like a woman first thing in the morning, lit up by the sun streaming through a window, who doesn't quite believe it when you tell her how beautiful she is.”
― Leonardo Donofrio, Old Country

“In America, one must be something, but in Italy one can simply be.”
― Pietros Maneos, The Italian Pleasures of Gabriele Paterkallos

“We had never before been to Italy in May, and it is truly the most wonderful month. The Lucchese countryside is a riot of colour and scent. Every road, even the busy autostrada, is lined with brilliant red poppies, making the most mundane street look picturesque. The olive trees dotting the hills are covered with silvery green and the pale cream of new buds, while the grass is tall and soft, every patch threaded with wildflowers.”
― Louise Badger, Todo in Tuscany: The Dog at the Villa

“If you deconstruct Italy, you will in the end see a grapevine, a tomato and a small boy hammering a shard of marble.”
― Pietros Maneos

“This golden field covered in stars above - the empty night and the feeling of love.”
― Laura Chouette

“The Tuscan countryside whizzed by in a kaleidoscopic whirl of shapes and colors. Green grass and trees melded with blue sky, purple and yellow wildflowers, peachy-orange villas, brown-and-gray farmhouses, and the occasional red-and-white Autogrill, Italy's (delicious) answer to fast food.”
― Jenny Nelson, Georgia's Kitchen

“They look so relaxed, so happily engaged in the present moment, these four women drinking cappuccinos and savoring the creamy cannolis.”
― Sophia Bar-Lev, Pasta, Poppy Fields & Pearls

“He's already tan, and leaning on the rail in his yellow linen shirt, with the pure glory of Venice racing behind him, I think he looks like someone I'd like to run off with, if I already hadn't.”
― Frances Mayes, Bella Tuscany

“Each morning the light came through the slats of the shutters in ripples, and as it washed towards the inhabitants of the Casa Luna it smoothed away memories of the past, It was for this that they had endured long hours in the grey English winter or freezing American climes, for this that they had worked and planned and worked extra hours/ The horrible feelings of stress, tension, anger and frustration that coursed through their veins every day almost unnoticed began to fade.”
― Amanda Craig, A Vicious Circle

“Unlike Japan, Italy's cuisine has long centered on meat dishes.
In their home province of Tuscany, duck, rabbit, and even boar would be served in the right season.
I suspect that is how they learned how to butcher and dress a duck.
The breast meat was glazed with a mixture of soy sauce, Japanese mustard, black pepper and honey to give it a strong, spicy fragrance...
the perfect complement to the sauce.
Duck and salsa verde.
They found and enhanced the Japanese essence of both...
... to create an impressive and thoroughly Japanese dish!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 3

“Pilgrims

Tuscan reds and ochre hues
Olive greens and skies of blue
Sunlit valleys full of charm
Secluded homestead and hilltop farm

Over hills skim birds in flight
Aromas whet the appetite
Autumn rustle fills the air
Revealing grace of trees laid bare

Pathways meander through the vale
Inviting travelers its height to scale
Sunset rewards as evening ends
And pilgrims to the night descend”
― Collette O'Mahony, The Soul in Words: A collection of Poetry & Verse

“The sun still beats down warmly over the Sienese countryside in September, and the stubble left by harvest covers the fields with a sort of animal fur. It is one of the most beautiful countrysides in the world: God has drawn the curve of its hills with an exquisite freedom, and has given it a rich and varied vegetation among which the cypresses stand out like lords. Man has worked this earth to advantage and has spread his dwellings over it; but from the most princely villa to the humbles cottage they all have a similar grace and harmony with their ochre walls and curved tiles. The road is never monotonous; it winds and rises, only to descend into another valley between terraced fields and age-old olive groves. Both God and man have shown their genius at Siena.”
― Maurice Druon, La flor de lis y el león

“Melancholy skies
and empty fields of gold
grey clouds
and emeralds days
our love in pieces
captured only by poems (of mine).”
― Laura Chouette

“Julie went to her hotel room window to check that the Campo, the central square of Siena, Italy, was still out there.”
― Candida Martinelli, Extra Virgin Pressing Murder

“â€� dreamy Tuscan landscape whose peculiar spell is to make you think that it’s yours forever. That you’re here to stay. That time actually stopped the moment you left the highway and drove down a pine-flanked road that steals your breath each time you spot the house whose sole purpose on earth, it seems, is to compress in the space of seven days the miracle of a lifetime.”
― André Aciman, Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere

“It is the house of my dreams. My Tuscan dream! [Every Italophile's dream]”
― Kate Fitzroy, Dreams of Tuscany

“Loyalty was their way of life.”
― Sophia Bar-Lev, Pizza & Promises

“E chi negherà che noi toscani sappiamo entrar con gli occhi della mente in fondo alle cose, e guardar dentro? Che siamo come quegli insetti che prendono il polline dai fiori maschi e lo portano ai fiori femmine? Che noi portiamo l'intelligenza, come un polline, alle pietre, e ne facciamo nascere chiese e palazzi, torri maschi e piazze femmine? Chi negherà che l'intelligenza in Toscana ci sta di casa, e che anche gli scemi, che in casa d'altri son soltanto scemi, da noi sono intelligenti?”
― Curzio Malaparte, Maledetti toscani

“Dirò che, nel concetto dei toscani, chi non è un uomo libero è un uomo grullo.”
― Curzio Malaparte, Maledetti toscani

“Au XVIe siècle, en Italie, entre Rome et les collines dorées de Toscane, un nouveau monde est en train de naître, grâce à de grandes familles de souverains flamboyants. Ils savent s’entourer de vaillants militaires, d’artistes et d’écrivains de renom, mais aussi de femmes extravagantes et talentueuses. Pour leur rendre grâce, on invente un nouveau qualificatif les distinguant des vulgaires prostituées, ce seront des « courtisanes », cortigianae , des femmes ayant des manières les rendant dignes de figurer à la cour.”
― Marc Lemonier, La petite histoire des courtisanes: Elles ont touché le pouvoir. Mais qui sont-elles vraiment ?

“Hot peppers are to Calabria what Sangiovese is to Tuscany.”
― Pietros Maneos

“Do you think you could turn the pig?"
Neil stared at her blankly. "The pig?"
"On the spit. The porchetta." Zia Annetta pointed to the back of the kitchen, where there was a large, open wood oven featuring a stuck pig at the center.
I grinned at Neil. "Welcome to Tuscany.”
― Hillary Manton Lodge, Reservations for Two

“Hues of pale green, on delicate olive branches
the soft rustling of somberness along the fields of gold that lay themselves to gentle rest
after another long summer.
I have nothing to bury under them
except my own heart -that is my soul's greatest regret, once my lines begin to fill in autumn,
under the velvet gloom of shortening days.
The admiration of the Florentine sun
had doomed my words
to become eventually a remembrance
once September falls in October's pale hands.
I shall have nothing to grieve for
once the winter arrives, coming over the distant hills and laying bare the orchards along his way.
I doomed them to become ruins by overthinking, hoping - at least once too often - for change;
So, let it be then.
I will mourn my mere passion for life in the presence of death -
though my art may be eternal.”
― Laura Chouette

“I am completely stunned by the beauty of it.
The villa, which will be our home for the next ten days, is nestled on the side of a hill, down a short gravel drive flanked by poplars, grapefruit trees, apricot trees, and a huge cherry tree, already showing plump black fruit. We stand for a moment taking it in, the sounds of a warm breeze rustling the leaves, the chirp of crickets, the cooing of a pair of turtledoves.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“Sicily--- Oranges, pistachios, and/or aubergine. Sicilian food a product of immense, diverse history. Have sardines! Try the orange cake. You'll find it all over, but there used to be a good one in Taormina.

I shake my head in amazement. Somehow, it feels like Dad had been quietly guiding me.

Tuscany--- Wild boar is good but tomatoes are better. Nothing else! Please say something with Chiara's tomatoes. I want to help her. Farm is a century old and sells some obscure varieties. Tomato salads, tomato bread soup, panzanella.

And here too, Leo and I had organically found the path my father laid out for us. The notes on Liguria are less specific, but when I read his scrawled handwriting, I smile to myself.

Liguria--- Was thinking about beans, but basil a good opinion.

Oh boy, I cannot wait to show that note to Leo. Basil a good option!
Leo.
I sit and write with an open heart, not shying away from treacly memories of cut oranges shared in the sea. Pushing my cynicism to the side and allowing the love I have for food, for Italy, for my father, to run from my heart down my veins to my fingers and onto the page.”
― Lizzy Dent, Just One Taste

“CHIANTI
The yellow sun lays low upon the fields that are covered in dry grass.
Soft is the rain that falls in the distance yet does not dare to come near the places where summer lives and dies.
The haze is the aftermath of the kiss summer shared with the land so gracefully.
And now, I may kiss your wine-stained lips within September's pale delight.”
― Laura Chouette

“SAN GIMIGNANO
The towers align the hills like crowns of heavy stones;
Empty are the dreams of the ones that built them long ago.
The thirst for power still stands frozen in its tracks - the only witnesses of it stand high against the silver sky.
The distance gets smaller, and the towers become higher.
So many have fallen,
laying their family's name to rest, in gentle forgetfulness.”
― Laura Chouette

“A POET'S HOMAGE TO FLORENCE
What heart dares to look upon a city so golden and is not moved to write a single line?
Whose soul can bear such beauty
and not praise it with all its words?
May there be poets without a page left, artists with no colour to give a memory of you; and even lovers who refuse to burn?
My love, your likeness is like marble that makes the altar of paradise.”
― Laura Chouette

“MARBLE GRAVES
The silver moon stands silent between two cypresses - its light leaning against the walls of the old palazzo that lays in ruin.
Hidden behind olive groves lays the tomb of forgotten men and unsung heroes.
Their souls found peace
within the Allgrove's of singing cicadas and rustling long grass.
The marble is heavy
and their graves cool and dark - deep is their sleep eternal their demise.
The moon is slowly covered by a shroud of clouds, cypresses now lay in darkness - silence.”
― Laura Chouette

“SIENA
I wander down the steps along the walls of bricks and high houses -
down to the waters that lay deep.
Streaming down from the hill on which the old city was built with a tower standing high, that reaches up
not far from the grave that these waters lay in.
Alabaster is the hand that reaches in it and cold is the heart that touches the pale divine.
Beating fast after climbing back to the light and narrow streets - I found now what it seeks.
Descending down, down to the hidden stream - oh Siena, my goddess without a pomegranate seed.”
― Laura Chouette