Today's excerpt form Diary of a Tuscan Chef is a story that tells of the sacrifices the Casella family made in order to keep their restaurant running. In particular was Cesare's ever changing sleeping situation that was altered by the amount of business that Vipore drew in. Read this anecdote to see how the Casella family's love for food reigned supreme in their household!
Alla Conquista del Letto
In Search of a Bed
When Mama and Papa bought Vipore, it was an old inn, with three rooms and a restaurant upstairs, and a bar downstairs. Since we wanted more space for the restaurant, we converted the stanzina della televisione, “the small room with the TV” into an extra dining room. Six to fourteen could fit in the stanzina to eat, but if it was more than ten, we had to move the TV into my room, the stanza del fuoco, “the fire room,” which was exactly above the kitchen, toasty and warm in winter and burning hot in summer. But when Nonna Cesarina came to live with us, everything got moved around. Papa gave Cesarina the stanza del fuoco; I got a Murphy bed and was moved into the stanzina della televisione.
Unfortunately, the stanzina della telvisione always got booked up, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. It was small and intimate and everyone loved it for private parties. For me, that meant not being able to go to sleep until the people finished eating. I rarely lasted that long, and insteadI would crawl into the space under the refrigerator where there were sacks of bread I could use as a pillow. In the summer, I liked the copanna, the shed where we made tordelli and stored the big vats of wine. It was cool, and there was Billy, our dog, as a pillow. I used other places, which meant that after everyone had gone, Mama and Papa had to search high and low to find me to put me to bed.
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