Diary Excerpt

Today's excerpt is a fun anecdote about Chef Casella as a teenager in Italy. More summer fun recipes to come in the next few days!

"As I always imagined it, normal teenagers, or at least other Italian teenagers, passed their summer nights at the movies or in the disco. But in the country, for me and my friends, the height of summer fun was stealing fruits and vegetables from the local farmers. Conditions were ideal--the nights were long and there was no school in the morning--at least that was our reasoning.

I remember the night we did onions. There were about ten of us. During the day, each of us had gone around checking different farmers’ crops to see how their onions were progressing. That night, we met at Vipore with our reports: who had the best, the biggest, the readiest, the most plentiful onions. I made spicy spaghetti and a salad of tuna, beans, tomato, and onions, and over dinner, we discussed strategy.

Usually our favorite targets for vegetables were Beppe del Lombardo, Leo del Micheli, and Sisto Colombini, because they cultivated the best of everything. But the idea was that no one farmer should suffer too much, and that we’d never drive anyone so crazy he’d stop growing a certain crop. That night, we set our goal at somewhere between forty and fifty onions.

As we talked, we knew our main obstacle would be lightning. In the dark, it would be difficult to tell the difference between onion and garlic stalks, and if we weren’t careful, we’d end up with baskets of garlic. Also, the closer the garden was to the house, the more likely it was we’d be heard by the farmers and caught, which is why we decided to split up into teams.

That night, three squads went out, while I stayed at Vipore to work. Each team left at a different time, but all three came back with great onions, all the same size and color, really perfect. I thought, how odd that everyone in Pieve Santo Stefano is growing their onions the same way. But when my friends started talking, it turned out that the reason the onions all looked the same was that all three teams had raided the same farmer: Sisto. I felt so bad that the next day I went into Lucca, bought some young onions, and without letting myself be seen, left a basketful on Sisto’s doorstep.

That night, Sisto showed up at Vipore. 'Ragazzi,' he said, 'Boys, I already planted the onions once. What do you want, that I plant them again so you can rob me again? Se volete mangiare le cipolle, ve le piantate da voi.'

'If you want to eat onions, plant them yourselves."