One evening Kris and I dined in a lovely hill town called Lucignano, and one of our greatest delights about traveling in Italy is wandering and finding some small village or some city off the maps of tourists. Maybe our lack of Italian keeps us from communicating much with those in such places, but the authenticity of the place more than makes up for it. Lucignano was one such place. Here am I ruminating over a menu — looking over the hills of Tuscany toward Cortona — and I had ravioli with truffle while Kris had risotto with porcini.

When done, we took a gentle stroll in the village and happened upon a movie shoot. From what I can tell, the movie will be titled Certified Copy, and will star French actress (Chocolat) Juliette Binoche, seen sitting here to the right. It was fun to sit there — in the cool of that evening — watching the movie folks running around. We watched them tape a man banging a few times against a copper pot.