On Discovering a New City
Travels in Italy, travels at home, books, essays, poems and more ....
One of the greatest pleasures of traveling with a former flight attendant who never lost her travel bug—as a shark must swim to breathe, Ann must travel—is that you tend to find yourself in places you never knew you even wanted to go to. Georgia, for instance, on the Russian border; a little seaside town in Portugal, Nazaré, eating something you never knew existed (gooseneck barnacles); Spello, Italy.
Every 18 months, Ann convenes a writers’ conference in a 13th century farm villa in Tuscany, from which we just returned. She likes to arrive in Italy a few days early to adjust and enjoy travel before the work begins. We’ve typically stayed in Florence for its beauty and convenience to the farm, but this year she couldn’t find rooms for under $1,200. Hot, tourist-mobbed Florence. No, thank you.
But where then? Every city seems thronged. We spent a night in Rome, where you cannot walk a straight line down any street because there are so many people. Also, we were warned about rampant pickpocketing by
.Ann thought, “My kids have never been to Assisi, that would be good for them.” But then, her Spidey travel sense being so deeply refined, she put her finger on the nearby town of Spello, in Umbria, smack in the middle of Italy. After a little googling, she contacted Hotel Cacciatore and booked two rooms.
Oh. My. God. This is a find so wonderful I considered not writing about it, for fear of drawing attention to this jewel of a tiny town. Besides the four of us, there were perhaps nine other tourists in the entire town. The main square, with it’s statue of St. Francis of Assisi, rarely had more than a dozen locals chatting easily on benches.
The smooth stone streets, gorgeous doorways, artful cornices, the church bells that rang on the hour, the salumi shops, the extraordinary local wines. Here was an experience of what the real Italy is without bands of people marching behind a flag of this or that country’s guide.
And here is the kind of thing that happens when you travel with Ann to a city you’ve never been. I stayed in to work our first morning there while Ann and her kids, Sam and Annabelle, roamed the tiny town. By midday, they wanted a rest and a restorative glass of cold wine. They passed a restaurant whose patio was half full and they sat. Lured by the plate of giant summer truffles just sitting out on a table, Ann figured this was promising. She let the server choose the wine.
“Would you like a bite to eat?” they were asked. “I guess, why not. How about, I don’t know, a Caprese salad and some salumi.” All were without expectations. She texted me to join them. Soon I was with them, on a patio, a 75 degree day below an umbrella.
It was as if the real world faded away into a dream world. Quickly we were given another white to try, we were talking with the owners, being given tastes of their favorite wines. “You must have some pasta,” our server said. And red wine with it. We were now in others’ hands. We gave ourselves over to them absolutely.
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It was the best Caprese salad, ever. A dark white wine, followed by red and the pasta above. In order to drink more of the astonishing wine, we’d have to have more food. Beef carpaccio? Si!
MORE trufffles. I’d never had carpaccio with truffles let alone so much of them.
The name of the restaurant and wine store is Enoteca Properzio. Our server was Irene, daughter of the owner, Roberto Angelini, a master somm and delightful man.
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Oh, they knew exactly what they were doing, these restaurateurs. We departed with a half a case of wine in addition to the lunch, but, O!, the joy of the unexpected.
The meal ended with an aged grappa and the best nocino, walnut liquour, we’ve ever tasted. We’d planned to go to Assisi the next day—but we knew paradise when we were in it and we weren’t leaving the gorgeous town of Spello.
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In response to requests from paid subscribers, I’ll be sending out a list and map of places to go, restaurants to eat at, and so on for where we’ve traveled: Georgia, Italy, and Newport. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Not only does it support my work, it gives you access to all archives and recipes therein, more recipes to come (favorite summertime recipes soon!), and chats. Maybe a zoom? A meetup in NYC? Suggestions welcome. At the very least, for you who pay to subscribe, I’m here for you—questions about recipes, food, cooking, I’m here. Easily reachable by email, michael at ruhlman dot com. I left blogging a while ago when it went all SEO. I loved the community there. Now it happens to be here. And I thank you.
Spannocchia …
In 2007, Ann got a call from Bon Appetit. “We’d like to send you to a farm in Italy called Spannocchia for a week to write about it. Any interest?”
How many seconds did she take to consider? Or perhaps the question is how many milliseconds did it take for her to say Yes? The place turned out to be so fine, in fact, that she returned the year after the piece was published. And it was on one of these subsequent trips that she thought, “I could start a writers’ conference here.”
And so she did, The Spannocchia Writers’ Workshop. The first was in 2012, and it has taken place every 18 months since (with a Covid time out). I’ve been coming since 2016.
There are workshops every morning, and the faculty also offers full manuscript consultations. Work is interspersed with half day trips to Siena, and this year, to the medieval town of San Gimignano. And the pig tour, where we see a breed of pig that had been on the brink of extinction, the Cinte Sinese, the belted pig of Siena.
What a pleasure it is to hang out with writers like Stewart O’Nan, Luis Urrea, and Laura Lippman, and John Dufresne. And in a setting so gorgeous we staged a Tuscan Wedding there during the last conference.
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Dates are for the next conference are set for November 8-15, 2025—an exquisite time of year (the perfect season to pay another visit to Dario the world famous butcher). Click the workshop link above if you’re interested in more info.
Follow-up Thoughts on Cookbooks …
Last month, I asked chefs not what their favorite cookbooks were, but rather which cookbook meant the most to them. I’m still thinking about it and will write soon!
What we’re drinking …
We arrived in Providence from Italy at 10 pm, a week ago Friday, after a 22-hour travel (Spannocchia to Florence airport, to Lisbon, to Boston and to PVD by Uber). Ann had 15 hours before she was due in Newport, RI, to officially open the June residency of the Newport MFA, and, working on little sleep and lots of jet lag, she gave a craft talk and reading from her new novel.
I taught a cross-genre class each morning (food and travel), but the rest of my time was my own, in what turned out to be absolutely exquisite weather. And when I am in Newport, there is but one cocktail I order. Who can guess?
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Of course, the Dark ‘n’ Stormy, the sailor’s cocktail, is a heady mix of dark rum or rums, a Moscow Mule made with rum rather than vodka. Goslings rum is the preference here. And I never say no to a floater of Myers rum on top, especially when I’m with the sailors in Key West, where drinking too much is never enough. (Highball glasses are preferred here, but most of the Dark and Stormy’s I’ve had came in red Solo cups, acceptable depending on the occasion.)
The Dark ‘n’ Stormy
2 parts rum : 1/4 part lime juice : 2 to 4 parts ginger beer (from The Book of Cocktail Ratios)
2 ounces Goslings rum
2 to 4 ounces ginger beer (depending on your circumstances)
1/2 ounce lime juice
Splash Meyers rum (optional)
Lime wedge
Put the rum and lime juice in a highball glass. Fill the glass with ice. Add the ginger beer followed by a splash of Meyers rum. Squeeze the lime over the drink and drop the lime in the glass.
What we’re watching …
Not a lot when we’re traveling, but for airplane movies. Here’s Ann on her choices:
Bad choices on a plane led me to these two movies. Not awful, but would only recommend if you, like me, are stuck in the middle seat of a plane for eight hours. This is Where I Leave You, a romcom with a stellar cast (Adam Driver, Jason Bateman, Jane Fonda, Tina Fey, Corey Stoll, Rose Byrne, Timothy Oliphant, Connie Britton, Dax Shepard, and more!) that almost comes off.
All of Us Strangers, with Fleabag’s sexy priest, Andrew Scott (who was brilliant in Ripley), about a man’s struggle to come to terms with the death of his parents when he was a child.
I actually watched This Is Where I Leave You because we were 5 hours into the flight and I wanted something light. Family drama: a dysfunctional but loving family returns home to sit shiva for the dead dad. A diverting rom com, but so predictable that when the plane touched down in Boston and the movie cut off 15 mins before the end, I was fine because it was obvious what was to happen. I recommend, under certain circs (airplane), but only just.
I also re-watched Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. No film has gotten the book right, but its over the top song-and-dance numbers capture the giddy, gaudy world FSF wrote about. I appreciated it more the second time around.
I asked Laura Lippman for her viewing thoughts while at Spannocchia. She is, of course, the former Baltimore Sun reporter turned best-selling crime novelist. And the TV series, The Girl in the Lake, based on Laura’s novel of the same name, is about to air on Apple TV staring Natalie Portman.
I have found very little new to watch, Lippman wrote by email. Georgia Rae [her 14-y.o. daughter] and I do have an older show that's a big comfort watch for us, Superstore.
[I’ll watch it just based on that whacky trailer set to Impossible Dream!]
And we rewatched Paddington 2 while here. I sincerely believe that is a top 10 film. My late friend Terry Teachout, who was the Wall Street Journal theater critic, was widowered early in the pandemic, although his wife's death was related to a rare condition for which she finally had to have a lung transplant, which she didn't survive. Terry improbably fell in love with a woman via Twitter and she got him to watch it when it was still too dangerous for them to meet face-to-face, and he loved it, too. When he died, quite unexpectedly, in January 2022, I wrote the girlfriend I had never met to thank her for that, among other things. So I always think of the very erudite Terry, once a protege of William F. Buckley, whenever I watch Paddington 2.
Ann, too, LOVED Paddington 2. I’ll have to watch.
If you don’t know Terry Teachout, know this: he was beloved, “a vanishing breed of cultural mavens: omnivorous, humane, worldly without being pretentious,” according to his NYTimes obit. Have a look at his biography of Louis Armstrong, Pops.
What We’re Reading …
I finished Giovanni’s Room resting against a brick wall in Tuscany. So claustrophobic, so depressing, so brilliant. At the Florence airport, having nothing to read, I downloaded Luis Alberto Urrea’s The House of Broken Angels. I’d just spent the week with him and his wife Cindy, and I wanted a big multi-voiced, sprawling comedy-tragedy, this one about a Mexican family reuniting for the funeral of the matriarch. It’s fantastic, brilliant.
If you don’t know this formidable novelist you must. He is wild and exuberant, deeply humane, a great companion and storyteller. And here’s something I’ve never seen before. When Luis gives a reading from his book, he doesn’t use the book. He recites it, performs it. Brilliant. I think I have a video of it somewhere—will look and post in next NL.
He’s now on tour promoting the paperback of his recent novel, Goodnight, Irene, based on his mother’s work as a Donut Dollie for the troops of WWII. All his work, highly recommended
Our Promiscuous Reader,
adds her endorsements this week:My Murder by Katie Williams is 100% delightful. The book jacket describes it best: Lou is a happily married mother of an adorable toddler. She’s also the victim of a local serial killer. Recently brought back to life and returned to her grieving family by a government project, she is grateful for this second chance. But as the new Lou re-adapts to her old routines, and as she bonds with other female victims, she realizes that disturbing questions remain about what exactly preceded her death and how much she can really trust those around her.
I have said here before how much I love the reader, Imogen Church, of Ruth Ware’s novels. One Perfect Couple didn’t enchant me the way her other books did, but listening to Church read it is a pretty delightful way to make your way across the Atlantic.
The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne is one of the juiciest memoirs I’ve read in a really long time. As if it isn’t enough that Elizabeth Montgomery was his babysitter, we get to peek into so many famous lives that I’m actually dizzy from it. Love listening to this book!
And I will throw in one last rec, Ann’s novel, The Stolen Child, maybe one of her best ever, according to her committed readers.
And at Ann’s urging, I’m listening to the outstanding memoir Knife, by Salman Rushdie about the attack that damaged multiple organs, his face, and took his eye, but not his life, on the serene summer stage of Chautauqua. I’ve shared that stage with Dan Barber and also with Ann Patchett, and what a pleasure that unique space is. Perhaps it was the only place, a place of retreat, of religion and temperance and natural beauty, where such a stupid act of violence could nearly kill one of our finest writers. Rushdie’s book, Knife, is a treasure. Beauifully written. The audio is read by Rushdie. Highly recommend.
And Hooray! The galleys of a new book are in. Anyone familiar with GILMORE GIRLS? Ann has collected a volume of essays of writers weighing in on the importance of this timeless show. I have contributed an essay called “Digger and Me.” Ann defends Logan, Annabelle defends Rory, Joanna Rakoff considers her own mother reflected in Emily Gilmore. It’s a great little volume out this fall for any and all GG fans! Life’s Short, Talk Fast—GG fans, preorder now!
Links we have LOVED …
Loved, all caps, because I’ve had the honor to teach at the Salve Regina low-residency MFA (low rez in that students do most of their work with a mentor from afar, and return here to Newport for two intensive in-person sessions).
Here are the three essays I taught and they are mandatory reading.
I hadn’t planned on teaching this essay, but looking for examples of the Objective Correlative, TS Eliot’s dictum to use objects to stand in for emotion, I was reminded of one of my all time favorite essays, “Once More To the Lake,” by EB White, in his book, One Man’s Meat. Here’s a link to the pdf (but if his link is sketchy, google the name of the essay and you’ll have it, short, 5 pages.). Aside from the diamond prose, the pleasure is in his braiding life and death, youth and age, permanence and impermanence, against the backdrop of exquisite Maine.
I taught a cross genre class of food and travel writing and chose David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster because it is a travel piece, anchored by food. But it is so much more. Utimately an exegesis on whether it’s ethical to kill a lobster and eat it. I asked Ruth Reichl, who published it in Gourmet, if that whole ethics business was asked for or was it DFW. DFW, she replied, adding, “It scared the shit out of me.” Read about it in her excellent memoir Save Me the Plums.
I read three of my favorite poems. As an intro to White’s essay, I read My Son My Executioner by Donald Hall. For the food angle of the class I read the classic This Is To Say, William Carlos Williams (the plum poem), and Charles Simic’s poem, “Crazy About Her Shrimp,” which I also read aloud at Ann’s and my wedding in Abingdon Square, watching my beloved mom lower her head and shake it. They say it’s hard to write about happiness, white ink on white paper. This poem is about happiness, about joy.
And finally we did a long two-day read of Ann’s masterful essay Tomato Pie (here’s a link to the recipe in my blog post on it; the essay follows the recipe), a braided essay that combines a dish and how to make it (tomato pie), the writer Laurie Colwin, travel to Scarborough Beach, her family, and Ann’s entire adult trajectory, all in an effort to understand how to absorb the tragedies we all necessarily will and must bear
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CNN asked me to weigh in on what the H5N1 virus means to home cooks.
Traveling to Spain? Check out the birthplace of paella.
Here is one of the few vodka cocktails I will actually endorse, the lemon drop. (Food & Wine).
Sometimes a headline is all you need. A new start after 60: I was worried about empty-nest syndrome – so I began rescuing injured hedgehogs.
And finally …
I hear The Bear is back in town. My agent said I had to watch the first ep because it gives Carmy’s backstory and includes working with Daniel Boulud. Well, I must. Here’s the star, Jeremy White, on Stephen Colbert, describing how older, seemingly out of shape chefs crushed him on an exercise circuit.
And that’s all folks! Again, paid subscribers, I’ll send out an email with travel details for Georgia, Italy, and Newport early next week! Everyone, see you back here in two weeks. Don’t hesitate for one moment to heart this or leave a comment. It’s all about community.
Cheers one and all!
—Michael
Love this post. Here are two really weird things involving it. I was reading Laura Lippman's comments about what she'd been watching lately, and she mentioned her late friend Terry Teachout. I'm not familiar with him, and I made a mental note to read up about him. Then I put my laptop down and moved a small pile of library books to see what I would like to read next. The top one was The Dud Avocado which I borrowed after someone online recommended it. Was it you two? I read it a million years ago and remember liking it so I thought I'd try it again. On the cover, below the title, were the words: Introduction by Terry Teachout. So crazy. I couldn't believe it.
The other weird thing is that I recently came across a Substack called The Oldster by Sari Botton. Yesterday I read a great piece by Laura Lippman called I Don't Know Why #2: "I don’t want to cook anymore, and I don’t know why." It says exactly what I've been feeling lately, (except for the last part about her sister). I've been an enthusiastic cook since I was a kid, but, at 72, I have very little interest in it. So I guess maybe Laura Lippman is my spirit animal?
I must thank Claudia Young for proofing the electronic version of this! Hoping they're all fixed now!