A perfect troublemaker shaking up Turin's sluggish economy

Chiara tells of the nails missing from her aunts' fingers in this way, with the sharp elementarity of Beppe Fenoglio's words in 'I ventitré giorni della città di Alba': 'They went down the hill, many weeping and many blaspheming, shaking their heads as they looked at the city that trembled like a creature down there'. He then brings two great classics of Piedmontese cuisine. The first is the Russian salad. The second is vitello tonnato. She does not put bread on the table, only dry crackers. A few days ago, Chiara, riding a 1929 Frera 175, competed in the Rome-Pescara, the race that Gabriele D'Annunzio and the Futurists animated in the 1920s. Before the summer he did the Moto Giro d'Italia, two thousand kilometres in ten stages, starting and returning in Bologna: 'I had a Norton Model 18 500. The same model used in 1951 by Ernesto Che Guevara on his trip to South America later recounted in the book 'Latinoamericana. The Motorcycle Diaries''.

Chiara goes to the kitchen to fill the jug with water again. I cannot resist the temptation to get some more of the tuna sauce she has made: it is really very good. Chiara moves in the shadowy zone of things apparent and profound, hidden and visible, crucial and gratuitous, the intersections of which are also one of the collector's rebuses, which precisely try to tidy up the chaos of the world. She wears an Elisabetta Franchi jacket and a shirt with a giant print of Pollon Combinaguai printed on it, the messy and funny daughter of Zeus, the cartoon adored by primary and secondary school children in the 1970s and 1980s.

She turned 50 in March. She lived with her boyfriend and husband Federico Grom the trajectory of Grom ice cream, the business founded from scratch with Guido Martinetti in Turin in 2002 and sold in 2015 to Unilever. Today Chiara and Federico have a small family holding and various interests: in real estate, in wine with the Mura Mura farm ('in the capital, Federico and I have half of the capital, the other half belongs to Guido Martinetti, who was born an oenologist. There are thirty hectares. Eight of vineyards in Costigliole d'Asti and three in Sorano, in Serralunga d'Alba, the land of Barolo') and again - as those who speak well say - in the ice cream business with Lec, the fibre- and protein-rich ice cream launched by Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc (owner of 25 per cent of the company), by Nicolas Todt (same share), by Martinetti (also a quarter owner) and by Chiara and her husband Federico, together shareholders with the remaining 25 per cent. In addition, she is advisor of the company corsi.it, which deals with online training.

In a city like Turin - but also in a country like Italy - which knows few first-generation entrepreneurs, Chiara and her husband - on the small but significant scale consistent with their history - have done something special. Founding, developing, selling, cashing in, reinvesting the proceeds, re-founding, managing. Without the rapacious somnolence of the rentiers often masquerading - with small or large fortunes, it doesn't matter - behind the anglicising and respectable corporate formula of holding and investment companies.

Chiara continually operates a deviation from the reality she loves, making herself uncatchable by it. Also for this reason - in the randomness of the choices of a lunch prepared at home - on the first course she suddenly diverges from Piedmontese tradition: agnolotti, yes, but not filled with meat or vegetables, but with a delicious, much more Lombard and Emilian pumpkin dough: 'On top, however, I put a grating of hazelnuts,' she says.

Chiara has a diploma in accountancy and a degree in modern literature with a thesis in theoretical philosophy with Gianni Vattimo, on the differences and similarities between Shintoism and Buddhism. During university, she worked at the Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, in an office on Via Nizza where - from five in the afternoon to midnight - in the pre-digital era all the cheques flowed in from the branches, which had to be registered and 'reconciled', as they used to say back then, with the bank's procedures and accounts. So, she joined the insurance company Sai, where she first worked in the balance department and then moved to the head office. "It was a very masculine environment, very macho. Today, after the years have also built up a language with which to summarise the kind of experiences that can happen to women, you would say it was a toxic environment. I struggled a lot. In 2006, before the Ligresti family's companies were overwhelmed by mala gestio, I asked to move into the serious damage branch. As an investigative technician, I dealt with bad accidents that happened or were caused by individuals. It was field work done with experts and doctors, psychologists and lawyers, the judiciary and the police force'.

That too, after all, was a job to tidy up the mess of things. Like the work of the collector. She gets up and brings the peaches filled with macaroons and chocolate: 'Although I was wrong to use Chivasso hazelnuts, they are too sweet,' she says. Actually, they are perfectly fine. The peaches, even like this, are perfect. Chiara Negro Grom has in her collection a Triumph Thunderbird, Marlon Brando's model from the 1954 film 'The Savage', and a Triumph TR6 Trophy from Steve McQueen's 1962 'Great Escape'. And, as we drink our coffee, I imagine Chiara - granddaughter of farmers with a farmhouse and animals, wife and partner of Federico, mother of Romeo (eight years old), one of the first European collectors of vintage motorbikes - going down to the garage, choosing one of the Triumphs and, wearing the Pollon Combinaguai jersey, setting off into the world.