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INSIDE: Bramasole’s Olive Oil 2 Adventures in Maremma 5 Cooking with Coppola’s Chef 5 Maremma’s Etruscan Treasures 8 Frances and husband, Ed Lisa Limer Palazzo Margherita Catching Up with dream of FRANCES ® MAYES ream of Italy readers need no D introduction to Frances Mayes, author of six books about Tuscany, including her most famous book, Under The Tuscan Sun, and her most recent book, The Tuscan Sun Cookbook, just Volume 11, Issue 4 www.dreamofitaly.com May 2012 published by Clarkson Potter. Mayes’s ITALY books have been translated into more than 40 languages, and she helped collaborate on the At Home in Tuscany Francis FordCoppola’s Collection furniture line at Drexel Love Letter to Basilicata Heritage. Mayes still spends four to six months a year at Bramasole, her home outside of eaving a hotel has never made experienced the blur between what Cortona, and she also travels to other L me cry… that is until I have to was then and what is now. I too can parts of Italy (last year she visited leave Palazzo Margherita. In more than relate to the powerful pull of Italy and Maratea in Basilicata) and elsewhere 30 visits to Italy, I’ve had the privilege her history. (this year she’s going to Budapest and of staying in some of country’s most Prague). Dream of Italy contributor celebrated hotels, like the Best known as the Academy Barrie Kerper (author of The Collected Hassler in Rome and Villa Award-winning director of Traveler series www.thecollected d’Este on Lake Como, but not the Godfather trilogy and traveler.com ) recently caught up with even departing such opulence Apocalypse Now, Coppola first Mayes at the conclusion of her spring has produced tears. came to Bernalda in 1962 “to book tour: see what had become like a cd My eyes well up as I say mythical place to me.” His Dream of Italy: In the introductory farewell to the new 9-room grandfather Agostino Coppola chapter, La Cucina, you write, “Food! hotel Francis Ford Coppola has opened left Bernalda bella, as he always called The obsession of every Tuscan.” It is so in his ancestral hometown in Basilicata. it, in 1904, never to return. From that obvious, in every one of your books, that While the luxury and beauty have first visit, when the director spoke little you have a great passion for cuisine in been sublime, I’m moved by Italian and knocked on doors to find general (no matter where you are in the something much deeper. I have his relatives, Coppola was regularly world) but specifically for the very local witnessed the result of one man’s drawn back to the place he calls “the food of Tuscany. Have you long been profound passion and soulful real Italy.” thinking of compiling a cookbook, or was connection to the past. I have it an idea that only recently percolated? continued on page 3 continued on page 2 600,000 people live in Basilicata. Frances Mayes continued from page 1 Frances Mayes: All my books have calendars since 1999, and his images that graces bottles of Bramasole olive oil. recipes, and it’s always been difficult to appear in Frances’s Shrines: Images of How did you decide to feature this select only a few to include from all the Italian Worship and Bringing Tuscany wonderful image on your bottles, and do great things we were cooking. At my Home: Sensuous Styles From the Heart you change the labels every year? house, hundreds of recipes were of Italy, a book that has been hugely scattered on notepads and stuck in inspiring to me, even in my own modest FM: I love the woman in motion, other cookbooks. I had the home). Are the majority of hastening to bring sustenance to the idea to gather them for the photos taken at mother of the Virgin Mary when she myself and for my family, Bramasole and Cortona, or was born. I imagine that the straw- and the idea of a real did he travel further afield covered bottle is olive oil, though it cookbook took hold. in Tuscany? probably is wine. I wanted a label that does not look static, and we will keep DOI: Some of the recipes in FM: Steven, Ed, and I this one for our oil. the book are classics, and work so well together. many have your unique stamp Steven comes every year DOI: You note that there are 410 olive on them. Are there any for the work we do for trees in your grove, and that though the recipes you weren’t able to our Chronicle Books yield varies each year, the average is a include in the book but that agenda, and he’s worked bottle a tree, which is rather incredible. you also very much like? with us on the books you (North American residents may place mentioned. We styled all our own advance orders for the 2012 Bramasole FM: Tuscan food is endless in variety, food, and photographed only in olive oil at www.thetuscansun.com). but I think we did gather the natural light at our two houses in Can you describe what you do to prepare May 2012 May essentials. What’s left out is the Tuscany. Nothing was sprayed or for an olive harvest and how you celebrate 2 immense variety of tastes that Italians gelled or oiled. We used no studio. We the fruits of your labor? enjoy on a daily basis but Americans ate everything we do not—lots of game, internal organs, photographed. I wanted to FM: We love the end knuckles, feet, tripe, even songbirds. show the food exactly as it is of the year ritual of They’re simply not available here. served to our friends. Steven the olive harvest. Even rabbit, which we included two had the vision and talent to When it nears, we are recipes for, is hard to find in the USA. match the food to the basic in the grove every It’s a staple in Italy, as is guinea hen. premises of the book: day, looking at just Subi Wilks,flickr.com www.dreamofitaly.com Italians eat everything! With gusto. improvisation, tradition, Bramasole how ripe the olives spontaneity, hospitality. are. Usually, friends and family DOI: Steven Rothfeld has taken the come over to help with the terrific color photographs in this book DOI: To put together a meal for a a harvest and to feast every day at (Rothfeld’s photographs have appeared in May or June lunch or dinner here in the lunch under the trees. Everyone the Under the Tuscan Sun engagement States, what recipes from the book might is harvesting and the atmosphere in you recommend? town is festive—everyone claiming their oil to be the best. Many feasts FM: Fried artichokes, risotto primavera, ensue! It’s our favorite time of year. a lovely presentation of risotto with And the end result is this greeny, peas, asparagus, carrots, finger-burner pungent, fresh, invigorating new oil. lamb chops, zucchini with lemon, and The real thing! strawberry semi-freddo, just as the berries arrive. As we state on The Tuscan Sun website, “when we say it is All photos reprinted from the book THE TUSCAN SUN COOKBOOK by DOI: Featured on page 16 is a photograph handpicked under the Tuscan sun, we Frances Mayes and Edward Mayes. Copyright © 2012 by Frances Mayes of one section of “The Birth of the Baptist” mean it. Each bottle comes with a and Edward Mayes. Photographs copyright © 2012 by Steven Rothfeld. fresco in the Cappella Tornabuoni (Santa certification band indicating Tuscan Published by Clarkson Potter, a division of Random House, Inc. Maria Novella, Florence) by Ghirlandaio continued on page 8 The Tuscan Sun Festival is Coppola’s Basilicata continued from page 1 It was his desire to share the authenticity trickling fountain and the competing Managing director Fabio Notarangelo he felt here that led Coppola to scents of so many blooming flowers. has invited me for lunch in the family transform Palazzo Margherita, built in kitchen (once the palazzo’s stables) 1892, into the most personal of the Rossella De Filippo, the director of just off the courtyard. Along with handful of hotels he owns through operations, greets me and takes me Rossella, we are joined by Mimmo Coppola Resorts. In doing so, he has through the grounds… Canario, the furniture maker who built perhaps fulfilled the fantasy of every a number of pieces at the palazzo, descendant of a poor immigrant from “This is where Sofia was local editor Carmen Italy’s Mezzogiorno to return to this married last August,” she Mancarello and the land and give something back. says, pointing to a pergola. mayor of Bernalda, She’s referring to Leo Chiruzzi, who While few people can afford a night at Coppola’s daughter, Sofia officiated at Sofia Palazzo Margherita, most can Coppola, an Academy- Coppola’s wedding appreciate the sentiment and drive Award-winning director here last summer. behind what might be considered one herself, who married of Coppola’s greatest works. French rock star Thomas Mars, with Chef Filomena Palazzo, a Bernalda whom she has two children. native and fellow chef Tomaso have Welcome to Bernalda whipped up a feast: bruschetta, Beside the garden is a newly installed Lampascioni onions from next door I’m lost and actually a little giddy to pool, complete with black tiles which Puglia, fresh orechiette pasta with a not know exactly where I’m going, for help to keep the water warm, as well continued on page 4 every turn leads to an unexpectedly as several cabanas.

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