Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence

15. Florentine Hospitality

The doctor’s home is in one of Firenze’s ancient stone buildings, fortified by iron gates, a twenty-foot carved wooden door (with brass knockers that resemble hands), and doorbells that require that one be buzzed in. The doctor and his son and daughter lead me through these various barriers into their bright and spacious apartment. Though dinner is not yet on the table, the family’s beautiful china, silver, and crystal are out, laid on an elaborate lace tablecloth. The Ianellos’ living room is furnished with white leather couches and chairs, a soft white carpet, mahogany tables, and tall brass lamps. Ruth, the doctor’s wife, welcomes me warmly and introduces me to some of the guests. There’s a young Jewish sculptor from New York, a lawyer and her husband, a pair of traveling college girls, and a friend of Ruth’s named Sara Pushkin, who is busy bringing things to the table. The sculptor (who wears a beret) confesses that he must get the 11 P.M. train back to Carrara, where he lives and carves marble, and at once the party is thrown into an uproar. The hostess reports that dinner will surely not be done by 11, even though the train station is only one block away. (This news is a comfort to me in case I have to take the bus home from there.) The young man, embarrassed, says he will call a friend and see if he can stay the night in Florence. We all wait in awk56 15 Florentine Hospitality ward silence while he uses the phone in the living room. His disappointed response means he can’t get the accommodation for which he hoped. Now Ruth and the doctor confer in Italian—where will the boy sleep? He is a stranger to them, apparently, so it seems they are not willing to offer one of their white couches for the night. The doctor suggests a local hotel that he says is relatively inexpensive; Rachel at the same time thinks of a friend she can call who might put the visitor up for the night. The doctor gets on the phone again, and Rachel brings in a cell phone from somewhere in the house. Everyone is dialing and calling. The dinner guests are paralyzed by this small emergency—we cannot socialize until the crisis has passed. We all wait and stare around the room. On the walls of the dining room and living room are many framed pictures and paintings, most of them having to do with Jewish life and ritual in some way. The college girls and I go and stand before them, studying them as if in a museum. But finally the doctor has apparently had success in calling a hotel that is nearby and has a room for the night—“Can you afford 80,000 lire?” he asks the young man. “Sure, that’s okay,” he says, but he looks a little pale to me. “Fine,” the doctor says. “Why don’t we all sit down now and have our dinner?” As it turns out, the doctor is head of gynecology at the hospital in Prato, and the young woman lawyer in her thirties is going to have a baby. The conversation centers upon theories of childbirth as Ruth and Sara bring in the first course: chicken soup with pasta stars in each bowl. The bread is passed around. We each tear off a piece from the soft challah (so different from the coarse Italian bread) and listen as the doctor says the blessing over bread, which prayer I actually recognize. Then comes the second course of cold poached salmon. The enormous fish, head and all, reclines regally on a beautiful oval platter. When it has been passed around and is transformed into head, tail, and skeleton, a steaming platter of boiled chicken is placed before us, and, finally, a baked dish of eggplant, tomatoes, and pine nuts. Rachel Botticelli Blue Skies 57 reminds her mother to tell us the name of the dish. Ruth says, smiling, “It’s called ‘And the Priest Fainted.’ The story goes that this is a Turkish dish. When it was served to the priest, he found it so delicious that he passed out.” We taste it, the wonderful blend of melanzane and pomodori —all concur that we too are close to fainting. After our wine glasses are refilled, the pregnant...