The garden of the Vinci Bartolomo family had always been my favorite.

On the walk back from school I preferred it to any other. Part of that was the endless willingness of the gardener to rush and gather a few fresh peaches, a bunch of grapes – whatever was just ideally ripe – and present it to me as if the estate were my own.

Ever since then I have always slowed down when passing a lush-looking estate, the expectation of having my hands filled with a sample of the new harvest lives on.