November 14th – 16th

At Panta Rei this week, something that Rachel commented to me was that she felt much more consious of how much water and energy she was using, yet it was easy to use less. Some of this is because the fixtures on the faucets are designed to use less water, and walls are thick, keeping in the radiant heat. But something that inversely it made me realize is that our system in the US is in fact designed to be as wasteful as possible. Ever running out of hot water is unacceptable. Or being unable to have a dishwasher in your home, or having limited light or heating. Not to mention gas, which we expect to always be available. And as a whole system, I feel as though we are trained to not think about how many resources we use, because we are taught this idea of bounty being the American Dream. These are the subtle cultural differences that Italy is able to deal with much more easily. They have nation wide memories of a history of poverty, of fascism. Like the generation that dealt with The Depression, this sense of scarcity becomes the norm, and makes the idea of limited resource a more tangible reality.

View from Buona
Terra's "Tall House"

When we visited Buona Terra and saw the whole olive oil process, I realized how immediate this connection to the earth was. They had no olive oil this year, and who knows about next year? How utterly terrifying the prospect of climate change must be to these small farmers. On a global scale, I am afraid. I am afraid for my children, and for the spread of disease and suffering. While I found the transition town workshop really fun, engaging, and a great bonding experience with my fellow classmates – it did not give me hope. If we really have five years, I have no faith in humanity. We go through cyclical destruction as a species over and over. And I have no doubt this will be the same. This will not stop me on a personal level from living the most just life I feel that I can. Doing my little bit to feel psychically in touch with the earth, rooted as a living being, aware of the effects of my actions. But I have no illusions about this changing the whole world. I am terrified for my children and I am not sure if I should even have them. I talked about this with my partner in the transition town workshop. Or rather, I talked and she listened. I wish I could say that it made me feel more hopeful - but really it didn't. Perhaps this works for people who are just being introduced to these subjects, they are more easily convinced that we are not slowly killing the earth. However, I grew up with that knowledge, and I'm not sure if it helped.

Goats, and our class

Something that did give me hope was visiting another local land project called Buona Terra. This is where the founder of Panta Rei, Dino, started out with his first wife about 30 years ago. When they split, he started Panta Rei, which is just down the road. They still work together and are on good terms. Buona Terra is different because it is a business versus a non-profit. This means they cannot have WOOFers or volunteers, the way Panta Rei can. Their focus is more on elementary school education. They have the whole place set up so kids can come stay for a couple days and learn how the farm works. They have tiny tools so kids can plant in the garden, milk the goats, harvest the olives. Depending on the season (of course) they do different activities. The farm is one reliant on the many animals they have, and supports about five people who live there all year round, as well as the classes when they come to visit. This includes a terraced vegetable garden (everything is on a hill) Olive groves, a herd of goats, sheep, a horse (just for the manure, and to carry fire wood), chickens, rabbits (for manure, and occasional food). This trip made me realize how traditionally on farms animals are mostly used for their bodies in ways besides killing them and eating them In fact, while they did eat their animals, it was only when the animal had to be killed - aka a chicken stops laying eggs, too many male rabbits are born. For pigs, which were raised for years and a couple were killed in a year, their preservation techniques could make one pig last a year. I knew this through my readings, but everything they say about experiential learning is true. Being able to poke at things and ask questions made it that much more real for me. And also to actually eat a traditional Italian diet, which does not have much meat in it at all. It really made me think of our obsession with getting enough protein in the United States. How much is really necessary? Much can be supplied by grains, dairy and legumes, but we talk about it as though our only protein source is animal flesh.

Walking through the olive grove at Buona Terra

The compost system, where kids are asked to "think about what
 the animal wants to eat" and dispose of it accordingly.

Overall I have found the hands on aspect much more rewarding than I ever expected. I have friends who have been involved in alternative land projects, I have visited over several days, seen their off the grid and survivalist lives. However, these were always more a matter of circumstance – I went because I wanted to see a friend, they were having an event, it would be fun. I have never taken a personal interest in these sorts of communities. As someone who grew up in the city, and had many sustainable ways of living ingrained in my life, I figured I was doing good enough. But to be honest, much of it seems like a way of ameliorating our consumerists lifestyles so that we believe we are not as bad as everybody else. But how much does recycling do if we do not buy within the seasons? How reliant am I on my immediate community? How much does it matter if we have a terrible winter and the winter vegetables die? Would I even notice?

November 10th - 13th

Arriving at Panta Rei had a completely different feel than arriving at Spannocchia. We needed a smaller bus to get up the steep winding path to Panta Rei. Unlike Spannocchia, which had hundreds of years of travel leading to it’s front steps.

View from the front hallway

It was also less immediately striking. No castle top, but a long light filled hallway, that led to a main common area looking into the kitchen. The wooden tables are arranged in a square, with shared benches to sit on. Upstairs are rooms upon rooms of cotton beds, layered upon eachother in bunks and sleeping lofts. Everything is made of wood, rope, willow or cotton. There are few outlets and the lights are not very bright, making it feel like a cucoon.


This layout really changed the feel of the space, it immediately made it feel like a community space. The window into the kitchen and always open kitchen door also changed the energy between diner and cook. Instead of a small window which we only delivered dirty dishes, there has been a relative freeness of wandering in and out of the kitchen – asking what others are making and helping out. This strengthens the feeling of community, while also creating more of a sense of chaos.

Our schedule for the week

Like at Spannocchia, I do not have personal control over when I eat. Though there is always tea and fruit and bits of bread. However, we are in the cooks - meaning the times when we eat are not so dependable. Also, instead of being served courses one at the time, sitting at the table, they are served buffet style. This rush to the food window as soon as food is announced is stressful and I think causes people to worry about getting enough food. I think it would be easier if we had someone serving the courses separately, like at Spannocchia. Of course, since we are now in more of a community setting, this would require a member of the community to take themselves out of the dining experience to serve everybody else. This tiny challenge exemplifies the difference in Spannocchia and Panta Rei. In Spannocchia there were kitchen staff which we rarely saw, and who served us, as guests, promptly and made sure everybody had enough to eat. In this situation, it is only us. We must just trust each other to have enough care and thoughtfulness to ensure that everybody is fed and happy.


I try to do my part by reminding myself that we are in a place of abundance. We are surrounded by food, all the time. I am surely not going to go hungry. But there is still a nagging feeling that perhaps I must hoard away some more for later, like some sort of squirrel. Overall, I do see people being kind and generous to eachother in this situation. As someone who did various projects in the kitchen, I was often offered food first as a thank you for this work. In return I tried to be conscientious of my portion sizes.

Sunset across the lake

In terms of what we have been focusing on, I have found the bread workshop to be the most exciting and engaging. I came to realize that the way I learned to make bread was pretty much only for commercial production. Though we did  learn artisanal breads and we had an active levain which we fed every day - we always used commercial yeast to plump up the bread, to get that elusive rise.

Of course when you are making food for the mass public you think of the standard - you try to fit into what they would like. And so even though I know all the twelve steps of bread making, and what happens with yeast and gluten development and how to troubleshoot a dough - I never make it at home. And that is because to achieve that commercial perfection became a little bit too intimidating.

Seeing Dafne play with the bread by hand (we never kneaded by hand), use farro flour (we never used a flour we did not know the exact protein content of), and explain the process in such a fun and light way really changed my mind about bread making. And then I realize, of course - I learned the way an expert makes bread. With many rules and traditions and a well defined outcome. But what Dafne showed us was how an artisan makes bread, and how people have made bread for centuries. It is a living thing which changes day to day, and the true skill is honing your senses enough to understand what to do with those changes.

November 6th - 7th

I am coming to appreciate the long, slow style of eating, as well as how spread out the meals are. Something that is really different about the meals here is the timing. Breakfast is at 8:30, while lunch is at 1pm and dinner not until 7:30. I have felt like I need a snack in between meals, but there is only fruit available. In the beginning of the week I had a hard time waiting until lunch and I hoarded away an apple from breakfast. It sat on my dresser the rest of the week. It made me think about the psychological and emotional aspect to hunger. I grew up not with an actual scarcity of food, but surrounded by others who had felt it. I think it got passed down genetically. One of those tiny genes of trauma they are discovering get turned off and on. My father was at one time an illegal immigrant in Canada who often ate out of trashcans as a necessity. His father in turn lived through the depression, one of seven in a poor mining family. He continued this practice throughout my childhood, even when dumpstered bagels were not a necessity. It then became a case of responsibility. We eat the food out of the dumpster because it is just as good as any other food and we are not wasteful! We are not blatant consumerists, we care about the world. This translates to eating habits – it is hard to leave a plate uncleaned, even when I am full. Because it is there and it should be eaten, because we are lucky to have it.


I think about this and hunger. When I am hungry, I feel a bit panicked. Is there food? Will it be enough? Combined with being a person in love with food, the taste, the history and sensuality of it, I rarely actually make it to being hungry – I am always happy to plan out the next possible opportunity to eat. The description in Counihan’s piece of how Florentine women spend the days talking about food, planning food (27) struck very close to home. It is a way of ordering your day.


This whole ritual has been taken out of my hands at Spannocchia. And to be honest I have found the experience somewhat anxiety producing. On a deep level, my anxiety about being hungry was a kind of distrust that somebody is really going to feed me. However, by the end of the week, I had built up a kind of faith, a relationship of trust in the kitchen. Part of this was just the practice – every day we did indeed have food, and had more than enough.


Another was the fact that the meals were in courses. This allayed some of my fear that I would eat too slowly and others would everything up – fostering that stuffing your mouth kind of dining. And third was the inherently social aspect to the meal. When we ate, perhaps the first bites were rushed, but then we fell into a conversation. And then after we digested the first course a little, the second course would come. We wouldn’t be so desperate, but we would be able to fully enjoy it.

I also saw what was referred to in our reading as the constant presence of bread. Since we were eating what would probably be considered a very fine meal by traditional Tuscan standards – every day – there were other constants which rounded out the meal. The constants of oil, salad, tea, bread and fruit. These were our condiments, as well as the markers of the beginning and end of a meal. Amazingly, I never once this week walked away from the table feeling uncomfortably stuffed. Though I enjoyed every single dish. After a certain amount of mindful, utter enjoyment, I was able to step away and know I had experienced that dish to it’s fullest – and I did not need to physically prove it to myself.


With this emotional aspect to hunger, eating and food, I’ve been thinking about the word gola which Counihan explains as “a desire or longing for food”. Trying to explain it in English seems rather fraught. While it seems to directly translate to the word “gluttony” it does not have the same moral judgment. In the context that the word gola is used, it does not seem to mean something inherently shameful, though it is sensual and indulgent. It as though we should not be overindulgent in order to continuously have the enjoyment of food. Enjoy just enough so you can enjoy more later. I have observed in our own group of Americans that food does not seem to be thought of as an enjoyable daily ritual. Clearly, we all think about food. We think about the political meaning, the history, the ingredients and where they come from. We talk about whether it will make us fat. We talk about the social aspect, in an anthropological sense. But we don’t talk much about personal joy. We don’t address it as a bodily experience. Of course, if we talked too much about the body, we might start thinking about sex, or emotions which are irrational; we might attempt to break down the barrier between mind and body.

November 3rd – 4th

A window in the library

The first day we came into a several course lunch of a cabbage salad, followed by pasta in a broccoli sauce and fennel granitee with pecorino as our contorno. I thought perhaps this was just a special welcoming lunch, with the way everything was set up - wine and bread and olive oil and individually labeled cloth napkins. But I have come to realize that this is just the norm, and not even as detailed as it could be. For dinner that night we had three courses: Crema di Ceci, Leek Sformato, Roasted Pork with apple sauce and again, cabbage salad. We even had dessert which was a lovely chocolate and cream sponge roll. Every meal is finished with tea and fruit, something I have found to be a really pleasant way to end the meal.

Everything we ate was produced on the farm, and both dinner and lunch had several courses. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the carb heavy diet. It was mostly those who are very worried about gaining weight. But at the same time, people complain about being too full. I think people are overeating because they because there wasn't an (obvious) protein source, and they were afraid they wouldn't be full. It really made me think of our obsession with getting enough protein in the United States. How much is really necessary? Much can be supplied by grains, dairy and legumes, but we talk about it as though our only protein source is animal flesh.

Meanwhile, we read Counihan’s work about the eating habits of Tuscan peasants. Under the mezzadria system, they were essentially bound to the land and expected to work every day of their lives. Yet according to the memories which Counihan collects, they survived mostly on bread. No doubt, they were not as healthy as we are. But there is such a difference of class, medical technologies and access to care that is impossible to compare the health of the average American to a Tuscan under the mezzadria system. Nonetheless, they did taxing physical labor every day, and survived mostly on carbohydrates. Despite having one meal made entirely of pasta, beans and potatoes (and the requisite salad and bread), I was not dissatisfied nor was I hungry later. This is something I would never make for myself, despite being a really cheap and filling dish, because I see it as too imbalanced according to American standards. It has made me think specifically about carbohydrates, which are becoming the new demonized foot category, like fat was twenty years ago. Yet, like fat, it seems as though it really depends on the source of the carbohydrate, the production, the additives, and how it is cooked.

The Olive Grove at Spannocchia

Something that has surprised me is how dull many of the dishes appear - they have no flash of color, they often looked overcooked. Yet they are all flavorful and with perfect texture. The meals were perfectly salted, and in contrast to the unsalted Tuscan bread, which tasted almost sweet.

The lower garden, where we worked

We worked in the garden, I helped pick beans for dinner. While it was not actually taxing work (we were mostly sitting down, chatting while we did it), but I still felt a sense of satisfaction from having done something for dinner. It made me think about how cooking is one step of connection I am very familiar with - but production I am not. Cooking is often just about connecting to human tastes and desires. I know I want a zucchini that looks a certain way, but I have no idea how that is achieved. Wine connoisseurs know what years were good for certain wines - based on the rain fall, when the grapes were picked, how much sun they received. Yet as cooks, we don’t think the same way for produce. But what if we talked about homemade canned tomatoes the same way? Like stocked up on the 2011 pasata because there was so much sun that summer? It reminded me of Farm For the Future, wherein the narrator explains how one biodynamic farm does not think of itself as a farm, but a garden. What of instead of chefs, we thought of ourselves as conduits? Direct connections between people and food, which is a part of the earth?

The scary thing about thinking of ourselves as food connectors, instead of just food fabricators/added value producers - is that we must be so much more aware, so much more connected that we are. It's opening a Pandora's Box. All of these awful things rush out. We are suddenly aware that despite it's healthy properties, we can't just eat any salmon, nor can we eat it year round. We become aware that yes meat is good, but not all meat. Sometimes it feels as though you have to choose between healthy and local and cheap. It becomes overwhelming, a bit hopeless.

But of course, like in Pandora's Box, hope is at the bottom. I see that in Spannocchia. They bypass the typical American conundrum "what is the true best way?" by simply doing what they have always done. One could definitely talk about the unsustainable parts of burning food for heat, or living in an ancient villa - but it is reassuring to see a system so sure of itself.

A corner of the secret garden