Saturday 13^th August 2011

I haven’t had a moment: Peter Ainger, Virgil Grayson’s architectural historian (also of Michelangelo and Borromini), came up from Rome for two nights and produced two greatnesses from New York (oh, high, high in the museum world) with whom we lunched at Le Logge in Siena (soy sauce now in Italian cooking).  Tomorrow, we’re to be used at Volterra. Now  Sonny Hammond, of the Australian Poor Little Rich Gays, has gained, also from Rome: we’ve been picking over Princess Diana by the pool.

Not a minute to make that spinach omelette cake with tomato sauce (and does it also have a bechamel? I last made it in 1976 and the recipe book was in that villa at £40 a week with the water supply washed away) nor even to get the beans in soak for the Tuscan bean soup. But at least Angus Willis, international food stylist, has texted through the recipe.

It’s quite new for me, to be diarised abroad. I’m radiantly on the up escalator.

Peter Ainger knows everybody, including, it turns out, Beatrice and Flint Cantor and Seth Vaughan.

Tiny world when you’re at the top, as I always say.

And now I find there’s another floor.

Where to begin: so many aspects. Arjan Bose and I have been in the twin, so the extra guest has their own room. This is to practise for kitchen life, although of course, Arjan is only a pseudo-kitchen (see glossary). He shakes his head emphatically and for slightly too long and has a certain way of eagerly looking up (he’s quite small) which recalls a very young person. But, next thing, he’s saying, all doctor: ‘You need to get your calcium levels checked.’ Soon he’ll be a GP with a vast salary which will be very convenient for Robert Nevil and myself.

In our strict twins we discuss small domestic improvements: should the shower curtain be differently managed? Did anyone remember to water the basil plant? Arjan is often asleep during most of this.

In Siena on Thursday (we took it two days in a row) I attempted the proper manner of the kitchen-lover: this is the Palazzo Publico, it’s the 13^th century (hoping for the best). Not even sure if it is called Palazzo Pubblico, let alone how to spell it. But Arjan would linger in the less important rooms: ‘Who’s St Bernard?’ he asked.  No idea. ‘Who’s that with a baby on his shoulder?’ I say: ‘He’s holding a fish. It must be St Peter. That baby’s the Baby Jesus.’ (Well, I was fairly sure there). We buy a postcard of the fresco: it’s St Christopher. After lunch, I launched into an elaborate explanation of how porcini mushrooms are dug up by special pigs: ‘You’re thinking of truffles,’ he says.

But I’m not going to give up on kitchen life at the first hurdle.

In Siena we saw a restaurant where I lunched in the pouring rain with Anthony Mottram, now estranged, in 1976 and again in 1992 with Robert Nevil and Sebastian Archer.

So I trip down memory lane as well.

Not St Peter: Arjan Bose Made Naughty Remark about What Baby Jesus Might be Doing

You Could Unite with Your Kitchen Here: The Marriage Room in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena

Arjan Bose: Too Hot to Iron in the Laundry Shed: Iron in the Twin Instead

My Favourite Section of the Campo in Siena: These Shutters Have Been Shut for 35 Years

Rare View of Siena Cathedral: Get Rid of That Tree, Arjan Said

Le Logge Siena, Also Going Back Many Years in Poor Little Rich Gay Life

Modern Italian Cooking at Le Logge Siena: Stuffed Courgette Flower But Described as Tempura

Restaurant in Siena Where Lunched with Anthony Mottram in 76 and Robert Nevil and Sebastian Archer in 92: 'Memories, Water-colour Memories...' Can't Remember the Rest of It