farmer 'belle verdure' with his mushrooms and meticulous garden in Praiano

…or ‘beautiful vegetables’ is the apt nick-name of the local Praiano personaggio, or character, who grows his own food in perfectly composed and tended gardens, enclosed by beautifully laid retaining walls which he built with rocks from his modest piece of land, where he also bakes bread and pizza in his own wood burning oven, makes his own wine from his own grapes, makes his own olive oil from his own trees, grows his own mushrooms, raises his own chickens, catches his own fish, cans his own fruit, and all with the great stylish panache of a real artist with a very particular aesthetic that confidently mixes the casual and trashy (styrofoam fish coolers re-purposed as garden planters and walls) with the fastidious and precious (you should see his woodpile following the sinewy curve of the land, where logs are carefully stacked and organized by size, shape, and color)  – so today we climbed a few hundred steps up the hill of Praiano to go pay a visit to this man, an exceptionally creative do-it-all character in a town full of such types (where people have always done it all, existing within the confines of difficult terrain where nothing comes in or out without great difficulty), who friends had heard of and whose handiwork they had always admired, but never met, and the time that we spent touring his place, hearing about his work, asking about his life, and learning about his ways makes me realize why I live in Italy right now.