Amici Miei- My Mentors
Dario Cecchini, master butcher in Panzano in Chianti.
There are some people that you meet that change your life forever.
Dario is one of these larger-than-life people.
The culinary world creates connections in strange and magical ways. My travels taught me that a passion for food and wine unites us. For me, it’s a way of connecting while traveling, going deeper into the culture through food. Asking questions about local specialties is a great icebreaker. We often get some of the best dining recommendations from a cab driver or newspaper vendors. Chatting with the locals in a foreign language isn’t always easy, but it is worthwhile. When I moved here, it was pre-internet. People bought guidebooks. It seems so long ago.
Building a community of fellow cooks, chefs, culinary artisans, food writers, cooking teachers, and winemakers was essential to establishing myself in Italy.
I first learned about Dario Cecchini from Faith Willinger’s book Eating in Italy, published in 1989. Faith wrote for Gourmet Magazine and lived in Italy for years when I met her. I was introduced to Faith by wine expert Burton Anderson.
There is an invisible string in life that connects us to the people
we are meant to meet.
I was helping Sally Adamson Taylor research her guidebook on wine tasting by bike in Chianti, and she invited me to a lunch interview with Burton. When he learned I had moved to Florence and wanted to teach cooking, he said you must meet Faith.
Little by little, I created my “Italian food family” by exploring Chianti and going deeper into the small towns. Most tourists stop in Greve in Chianti and head on the 222 towards Siena. You pass through Panzano and then can go by Castellina in Chianti and Radda in Chianti on your way to Siena. Both towns have more shops, restaurants, hotels, and reasons to stop. When you drive to Panzano, it’s unclear whether there is anything to see there. It doesn’t seem to have parking, and most people drive right past the tiny piazza on the main road.
Now, thanks to Dario's extra-large personality and his love for his hometown, Panzano in Chianti has become a destination.
To read more of my memoir, you can become a paid subscriber. You will also receive my ebook, Secrets From My Tuscan Kitchen, and access to the archives, which includes 12 city guides to the Markets of Italy that I created on the Thatch app which you can download to your phone.
Before Substack, I blogged. My website has tons of recipes and stories if you want to follow me there.
I also opened a Patreon page during COVID, and now the 200 recipes are in the archive with video lessons and downloadable PDFs. For a yearly fee you can have access to all the recipes.