Be steak, ah

Rory - Home-made Bistecca alla Fiorentina here at the house called Aia di Ama near Lecchi in Chianti. We went to the Coop store in Radda. Nothin co-op about it; just like walking into a Metro in Ottawa except everything is in Italian and there are three ages of  pecorino sheep's milk cheese to choose from, and at the meat counter there is a butcher's block with a giant slab of lumbar (loom-barrrrrr) sitting out waiting for the giant cleaver to come down and make super-thick 
T-bone steaks out of it. We ordered two and were instructed to stand back as the butcher went at it.
 Decided to cook the steak Acquacheta-style, al forno a legna, in a wood-burning oven. Just happen to have one outside at Aia di Ama. Found some firewood already chopped and partly dried. It looked like mostly pieces of almond tree. Built a fire in the oven with all the skill of a new boy scout, using the few scraps of paper to be found around the house. Put match to paper, watched a flame grow under the wood, prayed to Akela, blew like mad, tasted the smoke of almond bark and paper, watched the flame die. Curtis came back with shiny pieces of cardboard box, our last hope. Lit the cardboard, watched the shiny coating turn into dancing blue and green flames, and then watched them die. Curtis went off in a last ditch search for paper. Started losing courage for the Bisteccaal Forno a legna and started thinking of the electric broiler. Curtis reappeared with a look of victory and enough paper to light any fire. "Shhhhhhhh......don't say a word" as he ripped the first corner off a very good and very useful roadmap of Italy. We both new that this was an inspired risk and that the folly of burning such a valuable navigational tool would surely spark a very great fire, and it surely did. The fire burned bright and quelled in time to give hot and steady embers to the thick steaks, and we all enjoyed wood-smoked bistecca and everything else delicious that came out of this Tuscan kitchen. And Curtis had the last laugh because he still has something even better and more useful than a good roadmap of Italy, and that is a GPS that tells him exactly where and when to turn and does so in perfectly good English.