A Few Fantastic Food Folk

The Val d’Orcia, the southernmost part of Tuscany, seems forgotten by time. If there is a more beautiful place to be at this time of year, I have not found it. I’ve just returned from a magical mountain retreat called Monteverdi - a medieval stone village that has been lovingly restored into a luxurious hotel. It’s hard to imagine a more peaceful place.

This is a land of almost unimaginable beauty, a place that makes you feel you have been transported into a fifteenth century painting. As you walk along the cobbled streets of quiet walled towns church bells suddenly explode around you. The air smells like chestnuts and truffles and from every open window the scent of baking bread and simmering sauce rushes out to greet you.

But the real magic of this place is not the wonderful food or the endlessly delicious wines. It is not the enchanting landscape either. It is the passion of people who understand that a good life is about so much more than money: it is about your family, your friends - and your work.

Over the past week I’ve met a number of people who give me hope for the future. Let me introduce you to a few of them.

This is Giancarlo Piu, the most passionate cheesemaker you will ever meet. Spend a few hours with him and his sheep at Caseificio Piu and you will never taste cheese in quite the same way.

“Inhale!” he commands as he leads you through the farm. “Can you smell the trees?”

Of course you can.

“Listen!” he says, “can you hear the wind blowing through the grass?” He insists you pet his sheep to feel their soft wool, then pay attention to the way the straw feels against your feet as you go scrunching through the barn.

He takes you through the cheese-making process, cooking the whey into the most wonderful ricotta. This, he insists, is not cheese. It may look like cheese and taste like cheese, but cheese is made from the milk’s fat, and ricotta is made from the whey. By the time you eat it, you really won’t care; it’s all so delicious.

Here are four ages of ricotta; I loved them all, but the one at the top left, the one we made and ate within the hour, was an incredibly sweet revelation.

We devoured cheese for hours -