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valley and began to assess what just happened. I had been invited to find something else, my services no longer required. Yes, despite the polite words she had used, I had been fired, and not from a glitzy restaurant with a demanding clientele, but from a job without pay. I had no idea why, other than that in some way I failed to measure up. I didn’t know what to do. I thought for a minute about trying to repair the situation with Nathalie, but she had left me no such opening, her demeanor communicating that she had made her decision and it was final. I had been let go, told to find some other place, not just to work but to sleep as well.
    I had to make a decision. Going home after having been stamped a total loser by a world-recognized food authority likely meant leaving cooking forever. And I wasn’t able to explain Nathalie’s judgment of me, even to myself. The problem was I still didn’t quite know what I had done wrong.
             
    As much out of
embarrassment as courage, I wanted another chance in Europe. But in order to stay, I needed a connection—someone who could open a door for me to another position. As if guided by a kindly saint who had taken pity on me, I remembered that my mother had mentioned during a call home that one of her colleagues had a sister, Faith Heller Willinger, who was a food writer living in Tuscany. Just in case I considered going to Italy, my mother had passed on her address. The next day I sent off a letter.
    Faith was close to the Italian restaurant business and had become a respected expert in food and wine. Although I didn’t know it at the time, my letter arrived while she was busy reading galleys of her soon-to-be-published guide to Italian regional cuisine,
Eating in Italy.
Yet she took the time to speak to me by phone. I told her about my embarrassing experiences with Alice and Nathalie. She took the time to buck me up, to restore a little of my lost confidence. But the help she offered me was not limited to confidence building.
    She suggested that I meet her in Florence and maybe she could help arrange an itinerary of internships in some of the best Italian restaurants, providing that my priority was to learn, not to make money. I assured her this was so, that I had come to Europe to broaden my skills and see Mediterranean cooking at the source.
    During our first meeting in Florence, she began to educate me. “You must realize when we talk about
la cucina italiana
”—Italian cuisine—“it’s about cookery from twenty different regions rather than a single, national cuisine.”
    She went on to explain that Italy has been united as a republic only since the mid-nineteenth century, almost a century after the United States became a nation, and every region still held on to its own specialties and traditions.
    “During the twentieth century,” she added, “in the largest cities, this interesting palette of distinct regions has been a little blurred by modern transportation and a new generation of young chefs who strive for innovation.”
    I had originally left the states to experience Provence and the south of France. Being in Italy was completely unexpected. I was excited by the prospect of a new challenge, but at the same time my failure to meet the last challenge had left me vulnerable. Faith must have read this on my face.
    “Okay,” she said, shifting gears. “Have you ever cooked with white truffles? Know how traditional balsamic vinegar is truly made? Made pesto in a mortar and pestle? Have you ever heard of the regions of Friuli or Liguria, the dairy belt of the Po valley, or know that Chianti is a place and not just a wine?”
    While she spoke, I realized how little I knew about Italian cuisine and that I had accepted as fact many of the worst clichés about the Italian menu.
    “Tomatoes came from the New World, not Naples.
Peperoni
are bell peppers, not the sliced salami disks on a pizza. Bologna is a city, and the deli meat you know is really a