Old chicken makes the best broth

In this exquisite medieval town in Italy, my apartment backs onto the school. Music is a big part of the school's life, indeed of the life of Anghiari itself, and I’m often charmed by the sweet sounds, the voices, that emanate from the building behind me. But not right now.

It’s a beginner music lesson I hear, and parents the world over will know what that means – the recorder. Worse still, they’re playing ‘Hello Dolly’. Like a squeaky dirge, in staccato. I can hear the teacher’s deep voice: "Uno due (pause), uno due tre quattro", and off they go again.

I have to laugh. Truth is, I’m still a little charmed, but blue skies today have offered a rare occasion – I’m preparing lunch to have outside in the sun on my little balcony for the first time in two weeks.

It’s so nice when Dolly goes back where she belongs... Next up, a lively choir sings in Italian, with gusto. Much better.

I’ve made a frittata using the last two cooked carciofi of seven fresh ones (for five euros, about $A8) I bought at last week’s market. It took a couple of attempts before I was satisfied with my cooking of this seasonal vegetable – I’ve only ever tried it once at home, simply because the raw product wasn’t up to much. Here I have learned to be more ruthless in taking off the outer leaves and peeling back the stems. (There's no hairy 'choke'.) After that it’s a matter of soaking them in water mixed with lemon juice for a few hours, stuffing them with herbs and garlic and boiling them gently in water and wine or vinegar until tender. Ecco!

I like to say that Australian stomachs speak fluent Italian. It gets a few laughs here, but I do believe it's true. Certainly our country’s culinary maturity owes much to the Italians who settled there from the post-war years on, transforming us from a tea-drinking nation to a coffee-drinking one, and much more beyond.

Here’s a new truth I have learned: Gallina vecchia fa buon brodo. In other words, old chicken makes good broth.

Last night I ate the best chicken of my life, no exaggeration. More remarkably, I cooked it myself. Just gently poached, as I do at home, and served on rice with vegetables and an Asian dressing. Delectable. And tender. Again, it was about the quality of the raw material.

And it was actually a gallina – an old bird – too, which I didn’t know at the time. I simply asked the macellaio (butcher) for a whole chicken per fare la zuppa (for making soup).

Uncooked, its skin was more gialla (yellow) than rosa (pink).

This was the first time I have cooked a chicken with its head on. And a foot. And, yes, the brodo was delicious.

The farmers are doing it tough here at the moment, and everyone seems concerned. Far too much rain and far too little sunshine have altered the correct order of things; the soil has been too wet to risk planting without enough sun to make the vegetables grow. Apparently the opposite problem in March delayed the prugnoli mushroom season. Next month perhaps we will have the porcini.

More rain is expected tomorrow and into next week but today the sky is Aussie blue, as clear and cool as cleaned glass.

Friends from Australia are arriving soon. I can hardly wait to show them around. Thanks to my weekly attendance at the library’s ‘tandem’ conversation sessions, which is also a great way to make friends, a very gracious gentleman has offered to give us a tour of the highlights of his hometown, Sansepolcro, about 20 minutes away.

The municipal museum there holds three masterpieces by local hero Piero della Francesca (15th C) as well as something I’ve especially come to love, a terracotta by Andrea della Robbia (same period – see pic with previous blog, ‘Reasons to be cheerful’).

Sansepolcro’s cathedral is also a treat, as is the Aboca Museum which extensively covers the relationship between humans and healing plants throughout history (it smells good too).

No doubt my guests and I will also do some walks in the countryside. I've already done a few with my Bondi friend Ann, packing a light lunch and driving (all thanks to Ann as I’m here without a car) to the start of walks of varying duration. We have joyfully inhaled lungfuls of crisp mountain air, seen fresh streams babbling beneath our paths, plus juniper and thyme growing wildly, the footprints of wild boars, plenty of oaks and pines and flowering acacia (my neighbour Giorgio tells me he takes the flowers home to fry for dinner). If you have never sat on a bed of thyme to eat a picnic of bread, pecorino and tomato followed by fresh walnuts, nespole (loquats) and ginger tea in the countryside, it’s an experience, and a fragrance, I heartily recommend.

Some things just taste better here, among them strawberries, tomatoes, walnuts, broad beans and chicken, for sure. (Of course, we can rejoice in the fact that in Australia we are fairly spoilt for fresh produce and choice these days.)

Before I go: Thank you to everyone who was concerned about my daughter Coco’s welfare recently (if you missed it, see ‘Reasons to be cheerful’). She has been off work since the incident, seems to have no lasting physical impairment and gets better every day.

Let me share a recent dream with you which obviously showed my anguish at not being able to be there to comfort Coco in her time of need. Here’s the scene: A nondescript loungeroom. People I can’t identify are handing a baby around from person to person for a cuddle. I am livid with frustration because no one will give her to me. Like a child, I complain to my father. "They won’t let me hold her!” That’s it.

Love is all there is.

Till next time, wishing you peace and love. Thanks for sticking around.

Top, from left: The gallina; a lovely integrale (wholewheat) loaf we call 'panda' (no idea what it has to do with the World Wildlife Fund, but I'm onto it); market shopping unpacked.

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Above, from left: Tortino al cioccolato and vin santo at my local, the Cantina del Granduca; a countryside tribute to a wild-boar hunter; the school that looks down to my balcony.