Standardless
October 7th 2026
How comes that so many of the things we do at Il Rigo need to be understood to be fully appreciated?
Take tonight’s dinner, for example.
The starter was stuffed eggplant from the garden — not ours, because we have just ploughed the whole area — but from a neighbour. They were just like mine: lovely, tiny, a strange variety you don’t usually find at the market, with a slightly thicker skin because they don’t grow protected in a greenhouse. They feel the sun, the wind, the dry soil.
Then I made pasta e ceci, with chickpeas from Podere Pereto and homemade pasta. Such an iconic recipe from our poor tradition. Nothing spectacular per se, but with a few touches, such a flavorful experience!
For dessert, whipped ricotta cream with poached pears, crumble and thyme.
This year I have so many pears I don’t know what to do with them anymore. We grow three old varieties here, and all of them are meant to be eaten cooked. They are not the sweet, juicy Williams pears you find in a shop. They are older varieties, more resistant, more drought tolerant, producing smaller, harder fruit.
I had to boil them for forty minutes before poaching them in red wine. I made some tests, but peeling them and removing the cores was simply not worth it, so in the end I cut them in half and served them like that.
They were so pretty.
But again: standardless.
Different. Not mainstream. Perhaps not for everyone.
And sometimes I really wish we were a little more mainstream. Easier to understand, easier to appreciate.
Then I thought that perhaps we all feel like this sometimes.
Because somehow it seems completely out of my control to have this much personality (I say it with a little embarrassment, and a little smile in my face too).
It is not really a statement. It is just my excitement about making the best of whatever is available around me: in the garden, on the farm, at the market, from the people who grow things near us.
I am always very proud when positive feedback comes back from the dining room. But I think I am twice as proud when it comes for a humble dish. Something less obvious, less spectacular, less easy to love.
I mean, if you make tiramisù, you can reasonably expect a certain reaction.
But when you serve someone a tiny pear grown through one of the hottest seasons, without irrigation, in this heavy clay soil — a pear that had to survive before it could become dessert — and they love it?
That somehow means much more to me.
And I suppose that says it all.
Luisa
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Here you can find more “Thoughts from the Hills”—stories, reflections, and a glimpse of perspective from a Tuscan woman who once dreamed of going far away, and then found she couldn’t leave home.
