“Bruno, hey. No heat. What do you think? What? yes, of course, I’ve tried turning it on.” He and I are leaning on the glass pastry counter, having coffee at Andrea’s Masolinos, in Panicale. His usual “sacco di cose da fare” list seems especially long today. He’s being roundly teased for his wardrobe and is taking time to model for his latest invention: a found piece of string just over his tummy holding the left and right of his suspenders together. High fashion on low budget.
“But, Bruno can you help me, can you take a peek at the silly caldaio?”
He holds up a finger says “technico,” pulls out his telefonino and using the same finger, starts punching numbers in to it. Walking out into the street for better reception, he is talking loudly into the phone saying “This American here in Panicale says he doesn’t have heat, can you come look at it? No, it doesn’t have to be today. Ho un chiave e entro come un uccello. (I have his keys, I can fly in and out like a bird.)”
And with me, at least temporarily out of his hair, Bruno’s off to his next adventure. Running off to left, toward the piazza, while I’m heading to the right, to the house.
A few paces apart, I turn and say to his back “Grazie per il cafe!” He doesn’t say anything or turn, or break his stride, but his silhouette raises one hand in mute acknowledgment. A few more steps, each going our separate ways, I hear him calling me. He’s still in the dark shade of Via Filatoio, but he’s almost at the piazza. The bright sun is there, behind him. He raises his arms up and down, parka flapping. He’s laughs and says
“VOLO!”
This is a new passion for him, tied in with their new German oven. It is in action during lunch and dinner every day and generally is slow cooking some thing over night, every night. But first thing in the morning Andrea whips up a couple dozen loaves of bread in it. Our first night in town, before we knew they were baking their own bread, I said “Andrea what is this fantastic bread with these little black things in it?” Turns out that was the right question. He was happy to talk about his new bread baking skills and tickled someone noticed. How could I not notice black truffles? Being warm gets the truffles all excited and they start throwing off waves of that truffle perfume every time you go to take another bite.