market day, tuscany

claudio of podere campriano sells sheep's milk cheeses at the sovicille market

tuscany

the grand pyrenees dogs, podere campriano, 2013

Siena, 2013

Tuscany, February 2013

Daniele at the old abby, 2013

The cheese room, Podere Campriano, February 2013. It's unheated and in the winter I wore five layers and three layers of socks and still shivered the whole time, with my toes going so numb my feet felt like pegs. After lifting the curds out of the immense caldaia, we put them in forms and placed them under a tarp filled with steam, which was so hot it burned my eyes. In the cheese room not a second was wasted--we were either stirring, cutting, putting curds in forms, or rinsing, washing, and mopping at all times. Claudio made a lot of cheese, from fresh, custardy ravaggiolo to piquant pecorino stagionato, but by far his most popular sale at the market is his ricotta, which would all be gone in an hour or two.

Around Podere Campriano, Tuscany, 2013

Lambing season, Podere Campriano

February mornings, Podere Campriano

 Above: beautiful hot milk, the reward for getting up at dawn and undergoing two cold, hay-dusty hours of milking and feeding

There is a sign on the long dirt road to the property that warns hunters of the Podere's three dogs. "That's good, that way the hunters won't get near and accidentally shoot your dogs," I said to Claudio. "No," said Claudio, "It's so that the hunters don't get near, because if they do, our dogs will eat their dogs." And in fact there are corpses of deer and skeletons of sheep all over the property.

San Galgano, 2013

Podere Campriano, 2013