Cypress trees line the narrow road that runs along the foot of the "Monte Pulciano" on which hilltop the small but famous city of the same name (Montepulciano) is located. At the roadside you find the likewise famous church of the Madonna of San Biagio, which throughout the centuries served as a pilgrimage place to many believers. Nowadays the believers are rather profane, they come to eat the best steak in the world. What looks like a plain T-Bone steak is known all over Tuscany as "la Bistecca Fiorentina", which refers to its noble background in the city of the Medici rather than the origin of the meat itself that usually comes from an area 50 miles South of Florence called the Val di Chiana. The valley has given the special beef critters their name, "Razza Chianina". Even at first glance, the white Chianina beasts look exceptional, they are not only the oldest breed of cattle in Italy but also the largest in the world. With the pronounced shoulder blades and their almost haggardly looking body grazing the day away you can´t but get the impression of "sacred animals". Let´s slaughter the sacred cows! Christiana, while putting a magnificent 1.4 kilo steak on the grill, candidly admits that it is not her but the butcher, a certain Signore Maselli, we should praise, for it is the animal, its pasture and right aging that makes a perfect bistecca. Like a flat living sculpture, the shiny surface gleaming in different shades of earthy colors the bistecca is brought to the table and immediately cut into chunks of bloody beauty by Davide who then adds only a few drops of olive oil and some salt crystals. Ecco la Bistecca! Fire, meat, oil, salt, basta! In the beginning there was fire, the culinary illumination of mankind, which is still lighting the kitchens of the world today, but nowhere more beautifully than in the form of a Bistecca alla Fiorentina!