The Italian Ciambella
In Italy, there is a well-known sweet called the ciambella. There are many ways to make it. Some are baked in the oven. Some are fried in hot oil. Some are covered with sugar. Some carry the bright fragrance of lemon.
But the most classic ciambella is always round, with a hole in the center. Many people think that hole is only there to help the dough cook evenly. At Fantastic Garden, however, that little empty space carries a tender and slightly sad story.
The chef of Fantastic Garden is named Gaetano. He loves making desserts with lemons from the garden. Every morning, he chooses a fresh lemon and gently grates only the yellow part of the peel. He never cuts too deeply, because the white part underneath is bitter.
Gaetano often says, “Life already has enough bitterness. We do not need to put it into dessert.”
One day, the owner's youngest daughter, YIsa, walked into the kitchen. She saw Gaetano mixing flour, eggs, milk, sugar and lemon zest. Then she watched him stretch the dough into a long strip, join the two ends, and make a circle.
YIsa asked, “Why does a ciambella have to have a hole in the middle? If we put dough there too, wouldn't there be more to eat?”
Gaetano smiled, but he did not answer immediately. He lowered the ciambella into hot oil. At first, the dough sank to the bottom. A few seconds later, it slowly rose. The golden ring turned gently in the oil, like a small moon reflected in the pool of Fantastic Garden.
Then Gaetano said, “A long time ago, before this place was called Fantastic Garden, two young people lived here. The boy was named Marco. The girl was named Lucia.”
Marco cared for the villa's garden. Lucia baked bread in the kitchen. They did not have much money, but they loved each other deeply. Every evening after work, they sat beneath a lemon tree and shared a piece of bread.
Marco used to say that once they had saved enough, they would hold their wedding in the villa garden. There would be flowers, music and many sweets. Then the war came. Young men were called to arms, and Marco had to leave the villa to become a soldier.
The day before he left, Lucia wanted to prepare something for him to eat on the road. There was very little left in the house: a little flour, one egg, some sugar and a few lemons freshly picked from the garden.
Lucia mixed everything together and began to knead. At first she meant to make a small loaf of bread. But as she worked the dough, she remembered that Marco had promised her a wedding ring. He had not yet had the time or money to buy it. The war had arrived first.
So Lucia stretched the dough into a long strip and joined the ends together. She made it into a ring, fried it in hot oil, and covered it with sugar. When Marco saw it, he asked, “Why did you leave a hole in the center?”
Lucia slipped the ciambella onto her finger and said, “Because we do not have our ring yet. Take this with you, and imagine it is the ring we did not have time to buy.”
Then she pointed to the hole in the middle and added, “This space is not empty. It is the place I will keep for you. As long as it stays empty, it means I am still waiting for you to come home.”
The next morning, Marco left the villa carrying Lucia's ciambella. The war was cruel. Many men around him never returned. Whenever Marco was afraid, he thought of that round ciambella and of Lucia's words: “The place in the center is the place I left for your return.”
Years later, the war finally ended. Marco survived, but he had been badly wounded in a bombing and had lost part of his memory. He could no longer remember clearly where his home was. He could not fully remember Lucia's face. He remembered only a lemon tree, and a girl somewhere waiting for him.
Marco wandered through Italy for many years. He went to Rome and Milan. He worked in bakeries, kitchens and pastry shops. He tasted many sweets. Yet he always felt that he had forgotten something important.
Many years passed. Marco became a gray-haired man. One day, he arrived near Florence. Heavy rain was falling. He walked for a long time until he saw, in the distance, a villa surrounded by trees. He did not know why, but he felt he had to enter.
The place had changed. The buildings had been restored. The garden had become more beautiful. Evening lights shimmered on the surface of the pool. Only the old lemon tree was still there.
When Marco entered the kitchen, Lucia had just finished frying a ciambella. It was golden, covered with sugar, and scented with freshly grated lemon zest. Marco smelled it and stood still.
Lucia had waited for him for many years. She too had grown old. They looked at each other for a long moment, but at first neither could fully recognize the other.
Lucia picked up the ciambella and handed it to Marco. He took it. His finger passed through the hole in the center. At that instant, everything returned to him: the villa, the lemon tree, the war, and the girl who had asked him to come back.
With tears in his eyes, Marco asked Lucia, “Have you truly kept this place for me all these years?” Lucia began to cry and answered, “Every day I made a ciambella. I was afraid that one day you would come back and no longer find the door home.”
Later, Marco and Lucia finally celebrated the wedding they had postponed for a lifetime. It was not a luxurious wedding. There were no expensive rings and not many guests. Lucia simply made many round ciambelle, each with a hole in the center.
From that day on, whenever someone in the villa married, reunited with family, or waited for a person to return from far away, the kitchen prepared a lemon ciambella.
So when you come to Fantastic Garden and taste the lemon ciambella made by Gaetano, do not remember only its sweetness. Look also at the small space in the center. True love is not keeping someone beside you forever. It is leaving them a place to return to, even after many years and a very long road.
Jiayong
July 19, 2026
Fantastic Garden, Florence
