A weekend in the countryside: Castelfiorentino

Last weekend I was invited to my friend Adria's casa (home) in Castelfiorentino, which is a village between Empoli and Siena. They have a farm with many crops and animals. Upon my arrival at the train station I was greeted by Adria and her mother and driven to her grandparents' villa on the property for lunch. The menu included crostini (meat sauce on toast), spaghetti con cinghiale (spaghetti with wild boar sauce), homemade salsiccia (sausage), carciofi fritti (fried artichokes), insalata (fresh salad from the garden), birra (beer) and vino (wine).

After the meal we met the farm cats, Armando, Ofelia and Ciccio-Bastardo (their half brother with a name I'm embarrassed to translate) and then rested for a while before visiting Adria's father in his workshop where he makes furniture and art from olive wood to sell in San Gimignano. He brought out a Pinocchio set, a table made of branches and a miniature bicycle with functioning gears and wheels. His current project is constructing a White House sculpture from wood and he asked for my approval on his design. He's never been to America, but found reference photos of the White House online. I didn't say I've never been there myself, which I suppose I should have mentioned!

Now it was time to visit the animals. We hopped in the car with Alice (ah-lee-shay), the intelligent year-old goat, and drove to the barn where we found six dogs, three piglets (two pink, one black), many baby goats (all sisters of Alice), and a horse which the owner was proud to mention was American. However he also wanted to let me know that these special goats were unique to Italy, and I wouldn't find this particular type of goat in the states. Alice is brilliant. She shakes hands and will headbutt your palm if you ask her to. She also likes to go for drives and she watches TV with the family in the evenings.







For dinner we had pizza and those little stuffed, deep fried olives I love so much. Followed by fresh carciofi (artichokes) from the garden, fragole (strawberries) and something that look liked a pizza crust stuffed with Nutella and topped with powdered sugar.

Adria is part of the new hard rock generation in Italy. In the evening we drove to Prato to listen to music. We dolled ourselves up for the occasion.


We woke up around noon, and were immediately greeted with lunch. This time we had crostini funghi (mushrooms on toast), lasagna verdure con carciofi (vegetable lasagna with artichokes), something made with potatoes and deep-fried. Also ribs and hot dogs from the grill. We took the train back to Florence after lunch. I've been invited to return to the farm again while I'm here in Italy and I look forward to my next visit.