Torre del Tartufo, Part 2, Day 2

After indiscriminately drinking too much wine and sampling too many liqueurs, I was happy to fall into my bed last night. Sadly, I woke up at 3am to Kelly Clarkson singing that her life would suck without me -- my US cell phone somehow turned itself on, and not only did it think it was 7am, but it also thinks it's October 13. I didn't realize how dependent it is on access to a cell network to know what day it is.

I managed to fall back asleep, make it to breakfast, and start reading Jennifer Weiner's new novel. It's really good, of course, and her novels always have an undercurrent of melancholy that I find strangely soothing. I bailed out of after-dinner liqueurs a little early to try to finish it.

My Flip ran out of battery, and I opened it up to discover that it runs on rechargeable batteries. I have no recollection of where the charging cable is. Franco agreed to buy me some batteries at the market, which is extremely generous since I will mostly be filming him! I think we're doing pasta tomorrow, and if we are, I want to make sure I film him talking about the "Fight Club" rule for pasta machines.

For lunch today, we had salad, pasta bolognese, and panna cotta with chocolate sauce. We didn't make much progress on the panna cotta because we were all so full. Dinner was pecorino flan with a creamed leek sauce, eggplant spaghetti, chicken stuffed with pecorino and truffle paste on buttered green beans, and tiramisu.

We had some newcomers join us today; they're doing the 3-day course, and so will only stay until Thursday. They are Mindi (short for Mohinder), his sister-in-law Madthu, her friend Abu (who is India's top designer and a favorite of English celebrities) (ETA that Madthu is married to Abu's business partner, Sandeep, who is Mindi's brother, but we never established whether Abu and Sandeep are also life partners, which added a soupcon of excitement), and Abu's assistant, Lubna. They seem very nice, but they are also clearly all extremely wealthy and out of their element. I wonder what their perception of Torre del Tartufo is. I love it here, but it's not luxurious like the Ritz-Carlton, and Franco definitely puts us to work during the cooking class. It will be very interesting to see reactions.

I killed 6 bugs with my bare hands today, and one with my shoe. I've been leaving the ladybugs alone, but there are some larger, sinister-looking red beetles that I have been dispatching with large wads of toilet paper. I also hit something long and scary with my shoe against the wall. And I brought down some gray, triangular, flying something that sounded like a buzzsaw. I truly thought maybe the gardener was cutting wood for the hot tub, and then I realized I am not that lucky. I steeled myself, then attacked. First I sprayed it with some hairspray, and when it fell to my bed (well-played, scary bug), I got it with a larger-than-normal wad of toilet paper. I'm not sure how they've all gotten in here, but for some reason, I'm not as stressed about it as I think I would be at home.

Nothing deep tonight. Am still so happy to be here and relaxing. I have been ignoring e-mail except to delete some of the automated stuff I get from the WSJ, and it's been so great not to have jet lag.

The liqueurs make my wrists hurt, so I'm going to finish the Jennifer Weiner and drink some acqua frizzante. Amo Italia.