This is a story. Some of it is true and some of it is not, some of the people are real and some are imaginary. It is a collection of summer facts and summer fiction. It’s just a story.
By Scott Hayward, Owner, Harvard General Store
I learned how to make pizzas from Gianni Farrinacci. My buddy Billy and I couldn’t wait to leave for Europe when school let out in the spring. We were planning to stay just for the summer when Billy discovered that he could finance a whole semester off buying war surplus leather goods in Germany and reselling them in England. He bought an old diesel Mercedes sedan for two hundred fifty dollars in Munich with “Madeline” carved crudely in its wooden steering wheel. It sounded like a sewing machine but it had a big back seat and an empty trunk and he could stuff it full of old black leather dusters and jodhpurs that he found stored in warehouses around Munich, drive it to Calais on Friday nights, cross the Channel and sell them all weekend at flea markets around London. I ended up spending the summer making pizzas in Panzano.
Billy and I met Gianni and his sister Angelina on the way to Amsterdam on one of our first trips to London. They were on holiday hitchhiking on the road from Munich that runs along the Rhine. They got in and sat in the back perched up on a mountain of leather. Gianni could speak a little English, Angelina spoke only Italian and Billy and I had a hard time understanding both of them. We talked ourselves breathless while terraced vineyards, church steeples and tour boats passed outside. The sunny air blew in the open windows, caught our words like dried leaves, blew them around the inside of the car and blew them back out again. I think they invited us to come see them in Panzano.
Gianni’s dad owned a small cafe in a little village just outside Rome on the road north to Florence and while his dad tended bar, made coffees and worked the cash register, Gianni and I made pizzas in the back room. It was hard to call it a kitchen. It had cracked, unpainted plaster walls, a few wooden tables covered in rising dough, a wall of open shelving for bowls and dry goods, bags of flour stacked on the floor, a four burner gas stove to make soups and sauces, a large porcelain sink and some unidentified animal parts and dried sausages hanging from the ceiling. A basket of vegetables and a few whole chickens were delivered every morning from the market. A tall rectangular window and a wood fired pizza oven poked out of the back wall. It had a brick deck and was big enough for two large pizzas.
It was hot and dry in Panzano. The cafe was on a narrow street that led up to a piazza, a church, and a museum of modern agriculture that got a little tourist action. From the street, a small doorway led to a cool, dark bar room with a cold tiled floor and a few tables and chairs that served as the dining room on rainy days. The large dining room was an outdoor stone patio shaded by vines. Besides tending the bar, Gianni’s dad made dough and sauce at night after the cafe closed, his mom waited on tables and did the books and Angelina’s long curls drifted through the scattered shadows of the dining room as she delivered pizzas to the customers.
Gianni started the olive wood fire in the morning from a stack of logs located outside the back door of the kitchen, I worked lunch and dinner and took smoke breaks outside near the trash cans behind the cafe. Gianni’s mom was often there before me, smoking filtered cigarettes from a pack she offered me stacked together with a lighter as I sat down. She was tall and beautiful, wore large hooped earrings and looked like an older, more tired version of Angelina. She sat on a low wall hidden from the patio elegantly hunched over her crossed legs, bracelets and wrists draped across her knees. She and I rarely spoke, not because she didn’t speak English, but because, I think, she already knew what we would say and didn’t think it was worth the effort. She would sit there quietly smoking, letting the cigarette burn down to her long fingers until she heard Gianni’s dad yell “Rosa! Cliente!”, then stand up, snub out her cigarette, adjust her skirt, straighten her posture and walk proudly back to the dining room. I knew an order wouldn’t be far behind so I took my cue and went back to the kitchen.
The cafe was always filled with local Italians and German tourists. The locals ordered very little food. They would sit for hours over an espresso or a stemless glass of anisette speaking earnestly with thick tongues and hand gestures that made me think of music rather than language. Rosa would stand above their tables, arms akimbo, and join in if she had time. The Germans were Germans, surprisingly happy and beautiful. They arrived on holiday in S Class Mercedes or on sleek motorcycles with black leather pants. The men dismounted at the curb American cowboy-style while the women’s straw-colored hair fell out of their black helmets as they waited to enter the cafe. More than likely they had just risked their lives driving down from Siena or up from Rome at ninety miles an hour.
The occasional group of older Americans, in chunky white tennis shoes, khaki shorts and colorful short sleeve shirts would arrive in rented minivans or small tour buses. Inside the cafe everyone could hear them enter and for a moment all conversation would stop until it was clear who was making all the commotion. Gianni’s dad would always approach them deferentially, speaking in low broken English. They had a way of looking past him as if they were expecting a tall American to meet them and take them to their table. Rosa would take over at this point and, in Italian, as if they understood, command them to follow her, indifferent to their obedience. They had met their match.
The cafe didn’t have a name, just a brown door. If you asked anyone where the cafe was, locals would say, in Italian of course, “It’s down there,” pointing in the direction of the cafe, “A brown door, you can’t miss it.” In Italian it's much longer, but it sounds better. When I first arrived in Panzano I asked the same question and got the same answer. It was even harder for me because I didn’t understand Italian. I must have wandered around the town not knowing where to go for hours until nearly in tears I saw Angelina on the street and was rescued. I’d taken a train to Rome and hitchhiked so all I had was a backpack. I was sunburned, sweaty and starving. She took me to the cafe where I was met by a suspicious Rosa, but welcomed nonetheless. and ushered into the bar room where they proceeded to fill me up with as much food as I could possibly stand; a wonderful bean soup with lots of vegetables, cold chicken thighs that I ate with my fingers, a cool glass of acqua frizzante and a crusty loaf of bread that had just been fired in the oven.
The Farrinaccis lived in an apartment on the second floor of the cafe, and I had a room that overlooked the street in the attic above. I could share their bath but preferred to use the toilet in the cafe. My garret was sparsely furnished with a bed, a small rug, a night stand, a fringed lamp, an ashtray and a dusty dresser. The ceiling followed the line of the rafters and made the room feel larger than it was. There were two dormers, one on either side of the room, covered with metal shutters that when closed, kept out the heat in the afternoon and when open, allowed a breeze and voices from the street to enter at night. It was cozy and comfortable and I was happy there. From one dormer I could see the church and its tower in the piazza at the top of the hill and from the other I could look out over a sweep of vineyards to the valley below with its dust-covered olive trees.
It was almost a week before I realized Angelina had a younger brother. It was a warm night just after the cafe had closed, I was in my room reading. I could barely hear Rosa having a hushed conversation with a neighbor in the street below when I heard another, very young voice call, “Mama!, Mama! Vieni a rimboccarmi.” Then a very insistent, whine, “Mamaah!”
“Si, Stefanino, salgo subito,” Rosa called up to him. Then after a short pause, “Promesso,” and by the sound of it he knew that soon she would be up to tuck him in. She had promised. The next morning Stefanino was playing on the floor of the patio with a toy truck and scattered building blocks when I came down for lunch. He had been to his grandparents’ house for a few days and was now back and had the run of things. He was always under foot which probably explains the trip to grandma’s house. Upon seeing me he dropped the truck and ran to Rosa, hid behind her legs to suck his thumb and observe me shyly. Rosa explained I was helping Gianni and lived in the attic. I thought she could have added a little more detail, but that was enough for Stefanino and he went back to his truck.
Sundays were reserved for God and family. I slept late. The cafe was closed and the town was empty waiting for mass to begin at noon. Lying in bed in the morning, I could hear the silence of the whole building reverberating like a deep well and sense the stillness in the cafe below. Then, as if just remembering something important, I lifted my head. The muscles in my ears searching for a sound in the silence. The birds were gone. Even the sparrows that normally perched on my window sills were sleeping late or else invading the patio now that it was empty. Soon came the muffled stirrings of the Farinaccis from the second floor. It would have been rude for me to disturb them, so I dressed, picked up my book, stole down the stairs to the empty cafe, quietly opened the front door, stepped out on the deserted street into the cool air and walked up to the piazza. In the quiet of the morning, I could walk in the center of the street. My shoes crunched on the grit that covered the cobblestones and echoed off the walls of the houses.
The piazza was empty. There was a small tabaccheria up around the back of the church, with only a beaded curtain for a door and a small round metal table and two chairs outside. Inside, a thin middle aged woman sat behind the counter slouched on a stool reading the latest edition of “L'Unità”. She sat with one elbow resting on the counter and her forearm stretching high above her head where, past her bracelets and rings, at the very tip of her fingers, a lighted cigarette sat smoking. The tabaccheria was small, about the size of a camping trailer. It had a zinc bar, an espresso machine, a tall cooler of soft drinks like Orangina, some gelato behind a glass case and lots of liqueurs and cigarettes. At the end of the bar were a couple of old guys having their morning shot. After nodding to them, I ordered an espresso and a sugary something covered in frosting and sat staring at “L‘Unità” upside down. The tabloid was all pictures of large crowds and headlines, fascisti did this and fasciste did that. The communists were always angry. I went outside to the little table to read my book.
Just before noon the bells went off. Nothing melodic, just a lot of beautiful clanging that could be heard throughout the valley, calling the faithful to worship. Pigeons and little finches took flight from pecking at the piazza. It was time for me to leave before the crowds arrived. As I walked back down the hill to the cafe the streets began to fill, first a trickle then a wave moving upwards toward the church and the sound of the bells. Soon the piazza became a sea of people. I passed through them, brushing the sides of the street, heading down the hill past the stragglers to the brown door.
The Farrinaccis didn’t go to church but Rosa’s mom and dad did and would be coming over afterwards for Sunday supper. I was invited, too, but until then I was on my own. I was always invited as was Rosa’s younger brother Stefano, his wife Maria and their little baby, “Piccola Rosa”. Dinner was always at three and always in their apartment, not in the cafe, and it was always a bit chaotic. Gathered on or around the table were glasses and plates, mothers and fathers, bowls of fish soup and loaves of bread, Nonna’s Ziti, sons and daughters, prosecco and prosciutto, aunts and uncles, chicken cacciatore, wine, roast pork and potatoes. Rosa and Angelina did the cooking. I sat with my hands in my lap. Gianni’s dad uncorked the prosecco and Nonno always brought ice cream or cannolis from the local bakery and the Sunday edition of “La Repubblica”. There was grappa. It was exhausting.
The cafe was closed on Mondays, too, but the family made use of the time by preparing for the rest of the week. Everyone rose early and after a quick espresso pitched in, washing dishes, sweeping floors, making dough, slicing sausages, grating cheese, chopping wood, washing linens and stocking wines. We bumped into each other as we rounded corners, swerved to avoid building blocks, took orders from Gianni’s dad and laughed as we did so. Then, having worked all day, we gathered together for a spare supper of soup, cheese, bread, and water on the empty patio as the light faded and shadows lengthened across the floor. After supper and before the light was gone Gianni, Angelina and I would walk down the hill into the olive groves and kick a ball or sit and talk in broken languages until the dark would send us home again to begin another week. Monday was my favorite day.
I sent letters to Billy in care of the American Express office in Munich and London. I thought we should coordinate for the return flight. I got no reply. He wasn’t checking his mail. It was time to go. I couldn’t stay. As I was leaving to get on the bus for Rome in the piazza, I was met by an American couple who appeared overjoyed to find a compatriot. “Do you speak English?” they said and not waiting for an answer, “Where is a cafe?” I answered in Italian and pointed down the street, “E laggiù. Una porta marrone.” and then after a pause, “Non può perderlo.”
In the decades that followed I often thought of Gianni, Angelina and the kindness of their family. Billy, I never saw again. He did not return to school in the fall, as I did, with a heart full of memories and the distant sound of Italian being spoken in the street below.
At the General Store our pizzas are made by your sons and daughters. They work together to make something they can be proud of. In some cases they may not be old enough to drive a car but they know when a crust needs 30 seconds more or a quarter turn to the left to avoid a hot spot in the oven. They know how to repair a torn dough and they know how to show respect for the food, their fellow workers and the demands of the customer. They’ve learned to communicate with an efficiency that would probably surprise their parents and teachers. They work with focus, concentration and a desire to make the best product in the marketplace.
At the Harvard General Store we not only make great pizzas; we’ve built a family of great employees and we’ve had a great time doing it.
We’d love you to taste a slice.