![]() ![]() ![]() We came home with a glass bottle of freshly pressed, super-virgin, organic oil to keep by the stove. The truckload of olives was dumped onto a conveyer belt that took them into the washer and sorter, and then a long, intricate journey of pressing and turning that finally, two hours later, ended with streams of fresh golden oil pouring from a spout to fill eight or nine enormous, stoppered vats. When it was time, we went with Fabio, the villa’s caretaker, to the Cooperativa Agricola. The air was smoky from the burning branches. Nets lay under the olive trees, and men on ladders picked olives all day to fill them. On our first morning in Tuscany, we stood out on the bedroom terrace at dawn, listening to roosters yelling all over the valley while the sky over the wooded hills turned neon pink and orange. We lived for three months in the stone house where Brendan’s aunt and mother had lived as schoolgirls, a renovated 16th-century convent up in the Florentine hills, an hour’s walk from the city. After about six months together, in October 2009, Brendan and I left New York and ran off to Italy for the winter. ![]()
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