Ciao da Firenze! We're having a wonderful trip,checking every last detail so our Time of Your Life Tours will be just that. I'll have lots to write about when I return, but in the meantime, here's a charming piece from Martha, my friend in Tuscany. I'll be having dinner with her and the dashing Piero tomorrow, what a treat!
Martha writes:
I used to work at a home for developmentally disabled men, mostly Down's Syndrome. A really great group of guys who gave unconditional love every day. The facility was run by an order of priests that came from Rome for the special purpose of helping the disabled. The order was The Servants of Charity started by Don Guanella.
On the Feast of St. Joseph and on Columbus Day we wouldn't have classes for the guys in the afternoon, so there would be a terrific lunch for the staff and the guys. (We always called them the "guys".) And in the afternoon there would be a basketball game between the guys and the staff.
There would be sliced prosciutto and melon, cheeses, baked chicken, small pan fried fish, green beans with garlic and olive oil, I can't remember what else. But what would stick in my mind was always the salad. These big stainless steel bowls of lettuce, some sliced carrot and cucumber, maybe a few radishes. How could something so simple be so good, so pure, so delicious?
The kitchen staff was Italian. I mean can't-speak-English Italian. They were cousins and aunts of the rest of the staff or friends of friends from Rome. I heard that they used to have goats in the backyard that showed up as dinner for the priests every so often. This was a little bit of southern Italy in the middle of a Philadelphia suburb.
Now these gals in the kitchen probably weren't dressing the salad with imported extra-virgin olive oil. Most likely they were using Mazola. No matter. It was a clean, fresh, remarkably unadulterated taste, the tomatoes sparkling and the greens glistening. So uncomplicated! Yet I thought there must be something more to it. I asked one of my Italian colleagues, "How do you get this amazing flavor?" The answer was simple-" Oil and vinegar.”
Fast forward twelve years. I'm standing in a checkout line at a market near the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence and I hear two young American students behind me. They are perplexed because they cannot find the salad dressing aisle. "Did you find it? I looked but I couldn't find anything. Did you see anything?" I couldn't help myself so I turned around and quietly said, "There isn't any salad dressing aisle. In Italy salads are dressed with oil and vinegar."
I thought to myself of the multitude of choices in our supermarkets. Honey mustard, poppy seed, bacon ranch, Caesar, raspberry vinaigrette, low fat, reduced fat, low sodium. So many choices, it's worse than buying pantyhose.
And then I found the real deal when I moved to Italy where the greens are supreme and the star of 
the show. My dashing one had taken me to lunch in San Marino my first summer here. Among other thing, I ordered an insalata verde for two. It was served undressed, but the condiments were provided. Piero raised himself from the chair as if to beckon a lover. He took a serving spoon and sprinkled a fair amount of salt into the bowl of the spoon. He asked, "How salty do you like it, amore mio?" Then he squeezed the juice of half a lemon, tenderly and thoughtfully into the salt, and he swooshed the lemon juice and salt with the back of a fork until it was somewhat dissolved. He poured that over the greens, tossed them lovingly, and then added the olive oil and tossed again, lovingly, of course.
And that's the way to do it.
Grazie, Martha!!
d the fruit, which is not only delicious, but also extremely high in antioxidants and other nutrients, is found in markets and fruit stores all over. 
