DIECI RAGAZZE PER ME - TEN GIRLS FOR ME

It is the title of a famous italian song of the end of the 60s, by Lucio Battisti.
I take it as "my title", although.....I have more than ten important girls in my life.

 

Lauren, from Clarlotte,  made possible the change in me. All started with the crazy idea of a crazy trip to a crazy feast. We met in the institute where I was working as teacher; Lauren came to take some cooking courses. It was not a good period for me: just separated from husband, short of money, old parents living in another town, a daughter at school. When Lauren came toward me to ask if I was available to go with her to the Crazy Feast in Gubbio, Umbria, everything in my mind was saying NO, YOU CAN’T. My mouth said YES. We went, we had fun. Mainly Lauren made me thinking – and feeling - that my life could be better, that I could be better: stop waiting, just move on. She made possible my first travel to USA and the beginning of a long chain of contacts and sincere friends. Suddenly my life took another path.

 

Sue, from San Francisco: i love to define her

my “midwife”. Sitting at a table of a restaurant in Florence, with beautiful dishes and a glass of good wine in front of us, we were talking about our inner desires. I said that mine was so impossible that I even could not see clearly, since it was so hidden at the bottom of my stomach, covered by tons of negative thoughts. Sue acted as a midwife would, encouraging the pregnant woman, calming me, pushing slowly on the stomach of the mind and finally making me to deliver the dream I was afraid of and shy to express. The dream was on Giglio, the beautiful island in Tuscany where I was born. The idea was to fight the progressive abandon of it through the years with the building of an international school. She said: IT’S DO-ABLE!  Her “pushing”, added to change started by Lauren, made me beginning  to write the project and….. move on while I was still working in the institute. The photo on the covert of this book is a rock on Isola del Giglio: my willing explains why I chose it for a cooking book.

Sue has got also another big merit: she is the one who took the heavy task to correct my mistakes and edit  the book in a fluent English.

 

Veronica, from Atlanta, gave me - and still gives me - sincere friendship without making me feeling the "duty of friendship": in other words: she taught me the meaning of it. She gave me strenght through lightness. Her smile tells what I mean. I met her in the "difficult dark period" of my life, and she helped me with her extimation and her support. I have been her guest in her house and, once again, I appreciated how important is to have a "girlfriend" next to you.

 Kimberly, wise girl from Chicago: a compendium of sweetness and marketing in one person.

I thank her for the true relax in the swiiming pool of San Casciano, for the days at Badia at Coltibuono, for her calmness, for her giving her "diplomacy" aptitude in marketing GiglioCooking... for free!!! I hope you come back son, dear friend.

Vanessa, from Puerto Rico, the "Healer and Thoughts Reader", that is : the constant support of a "personal friend- doctor" and the warmth of the South. She helped me showing what she believed to be her weakness, without shame. I do not know how much, since the beginning, she understood how important her aptitude has been for me, how much she helped me to see inside myself and to become stronger. I love you for this , dear Va!

 

Isabella, from Milano, Italy: the "earthy spirituality". She says: "People believe that spirutality is something ..transcendental. But spirituality is Energy, something really phisical". She is the Artist, the one who combines the Earth and  God, the one who can handle with the same wise, care,capability and respect clay and food. She is the one who can teach something just with her open smile.

Eleonora, from Roma, Italy. The example of strenght. Our friendship started as teenagers. Most of the friends of time remember me as the bright laughing girl, always ready to dance. Her memory about me is of a lonely girl, sitting on a rock at the end of the dock, staring at the see with a paper and a pen in her hands. We do not see often, life brings people away. But, any time we see is like the time has not passed by, we talk like we stopped the conversation 5 minutes before. Sometime is not even necessary to talk, as real friends understand each other at the first glance. She is generous, helpful without pretending any help in change; she is intelligent and acculturated, a Biologist lover of Nature and comprehensive of human feelings.

 

Katherine, from Cazenovia, NY . She is one of those Angels sent to me just when I needed. We met at school and we became friends there, sharing passion for food. We felt that we could confide to each other and, still in front of food, our relation become deeper. She is an athlet and  a traveller. I thank  her for inviting me in Provence, France, giving me a "opening of fun" in a dark period. Mostly, I thank her for flying to Florence for the opening of the cooking school and... the cooking schooll was not ready yet!!! she was happy anyways to visit it in the cloud of dust during the work of brick layers, plumbers, electricians and to see that the Universe was helping me. I hope we would row a boat together one day!

 Viktorjia, from Chicago, the Positive Energy. Someone can learn something from her: the building, brick after brick, without presumption, just with humble and and stable work. She has been my student, as well. Besides Cuisine, she has studied with seriousness and reliabily  wines, traditions, regions gaining  slowly a deserved reputation in the food world. She is now an appreciated food writer and she keeps on sending me her positive energy.

Marta, from Isola del Giglio, my daughter: the Light-house of my life.

THANK TO EVERYONE, GIRLS. I KNOW FOR SURE THAT WITHOUT YOUR HELP, SUPPORT,  LOVE, I WOULD NOT BE WHERE I AM, WITH MY MATERIAL LIFE AND WITH MY SPIRIT.