Ferenc Mate and his painter wife Candace arrived from New York in the late 1980s, knowing almost no Italian and with only four weeks to find themselves a new home. After many mishaps, they finally conclude the deal for their perfect house, an ancient farmhouse in the Tuscan hills, by drawing on the hood of a rusty tractor. Mate brings the real Tuscany to life, the neighbours, the countryside, country-life, the family farm down the road who virtually adopt them and teach them the Tuscan traditions of grape-picking, wine-making, mushroom hunting, woodcutting, the holidays and, of course, the almost never-ending, mouth-watering feasts.