For the past 15 years I have been eating most of my lunches at a little bakery around the corner from my studio, Il Piccolo Forno, owned by Antonio and Carla Branduzzi. Antonio was a baker from Lucca who began offering simple but tasty salads, pasta, soup, foccacia, all cooked from scratch, A few days before Christmas I stopped in to order a dozen of Antonio's fabulous sfoigatelli, we chatted and agreed that I would pick them up the next day. That evening Antonio sufferred a heart attack and stroke, and nine days later he died. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette His funeral was attended by over a thousand people, from politicians to tv reporters, artists, house painters, executives and laborers, all the people whom Antonio had touched. The other day as I walked through the alley and the bitter wind stung my face, I thought, soon I will round the corner and walk into the warmth of Antonio's bakery. And then I remembered that it was closed, and he was gone.
