Where Else on Earth?
I want to share a story about the magic of this place.
A few days ago my friends excitedly burst through my apartment door. “You can’t believe what just happened,“ they said as they shook raindrops from their hair. They placed a clear plastic container on the table.
They had been out for an afternoon walk when they were caught in an unexpected rainstorm. Unable to get all the way back to my apartment, they had ducked into a doorway under a little awning. Turned out that the awning was over the door to Dario Cecchini’s kitchen. On that day, as every other day when I have walked past and peeked through the big glass window, a team of cooks, each wearing a red shirt with Dario’s “Carne Diem” motto on the back and large white aprons covering the front, were hard at work, cooking and baking the treats that feed Dario’s restaurant guests. (Dario is the famed butcher of Panzano who operates three restaurants, a food truck, a butcher shop and a shop selling Dario merchandise)
"Carne diem" every day in Dario's kitchen on Via Chiantigana
Despite the rain, the large glass kitchen door was slightly ajar. Simonetta, the head chef, saw my friends and threw open the door and invited them inside out of the rain. She warmly welcomed them and introduced her staff, treating them like long lost friends. From the everpresent Moka pot on her stove she poured them each a cup of coffee, fussing about whether they wanted milk or sugar. Before they knew what was happening, each had a slice of freshly baked olive oil cake in their hands. “Ah, that’s the delicious aroma we caught standing outside the door!”
While they sipped coffee and nibbled on cake, Simonetta, in her limited English, shared her cooking resume. Sharon, an accomplished baker herself, was impressed by Simonetta’s stint with Nancy Silverton, a famous Los Angeles chef and baker, as well as her experiences in New York and Las Vegas among others.
By the second cup of caffe, the rain had stopped. Simonetta cut several more slices of still warm cake and filled a plastic container for them to take home.
Simonetta, in her black shirt, oversees Dario's kitchen.
They bid farewell, feeling they had made a new friend. “Where else in the world does this kind of thing happen?” they marveled.
When Sharon and Bruce stopped by the next day with a prettily wrapped plant to thank Simonetta for her kindness, she was overcome by her own gratiude for their thoughtfulness. Isn’t this the way the world should work, each of us always looking for a way to “pay it forward?” What’s stopping us from starting right now?