Italian Wine Quotes

I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.

Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.

First of all, let's get one thing straight. Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees, white wine, and raven-haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a maze. It's alluring, but complicated. It's the kind of place that can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters, or in the course of ten minutes. Italy is the only workshop in the world that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis.

There’s nothing healthier than olive oil and red wine. You eat like an Italian and you’ll live forever. It’s not good to be too skinny.

Kitchen solace—the feeling that a delicious meal is simmering on the kitchen stove, misting up the windows, and that at any moment your lover will sit down to dinner with you and, between mouthfuls, gaze happily into your eyes. (Also known as living.)” RECIPES THE CUISINE of Provence is as diverse as its scenery: fish by the coast, vegetables in the countryside, and in the mountains lamb and a variety of staple dishes containing pulses. One region’s cooking is influenced by olive oil, another’s is based on wine, and pasta dishes are common along the Italian border. East kisses West in Marseilles with hints of mint, saffron and cumin, and the Vaucluse is a paradise for truffle and confectionery lovers. Yet

My head is turning like a cartwheel; I thought that wine tasted strange.

Got any more of that wine, Casanova?" "I'm French, Sarah, not Italian. And I'm a vampire. I always have wine," Matthew said with a wicked smile. "There's no danger of running out.

She dreamed of Venice. However, it wasn’t a city alive with stars dripping like liquid gold into canals, or Bougainvillea spilling from flowerpots like overfilled glasses of wine. In this dream, Venice was without color. Where pastel palazzi once lined emerald lagoons, now, gray, shadowy mounds of rubble paralleled murky canals. Lovers could no longer share a kiss under the Bridge of Sighs; it had been the target of an obsessive Allied bomb in search of German troops. The only sign of life was in Piazza San Marco, where the infamous pigeons continued to feed. However, these pigeons fed not on seeds handed out by children, but on corpses rotting under the elongated shadow of the Campanile.

The English were fascinated with the Italian people and their amazing Epicurean culture. Italian poetry, painting, pornography, music, drama, fashion, wine, women, cheese, anything Italiano was a premium commodity in London during Shakespeare’s day.

I explained my whole theory about parenting being better if it was like a large Italian family having dinner under a tree while children play. Rebecca poured more wine and explained her theory of child-rearing, which is that you should behave as badly as possible so that the children will rebel against you and turn out like Saffron in Absolutely Fabulous.

…And the sound of the sea, like the wild-animal breath of the world itself, frightened them as it gasped and died at their feet.

To speak, about wine even to the waiter, is to bring about an explosion. (...) The entirely unexpected nature of this explosion—that is the joy of intercourse. I, mixed with an unknown Italian waiter—what am I? There is no stability in this world.

One can rarely say enough about the kindness of Italians. One is always treated as a human being who needs unpredictable things—like a moment by oneself with a bottle on the beach. They have a true gift for what can only be called spontaneous delicacy.

La vita è troppo breve per bere vini mediocri

All I knew was that there was a wine called Chianti, which came in bottles with little baskets,

Rice,” the Italians say, “is born in water and dies in wine.

As for describing the smell of a spaniel mixed with the smell of torches, laurels, incense, banners, wax candles and a garland of rose leaves crushed by a satin heel that has been laid up in camphor, perhaps Shakespeare, had he paused in the middle of writing Antony and Cleopatra — But Shakespeare did not pause. Confessing our inadequacy, then, we can but note that to Flush Italy, in these the fullest, the freest, the happiest years of his life, meant mainly a succession of smells. Love, it must be supposed, was gradually losing its appeal. Smell remained. Now that they were established in Casa Guidi again, all had their avocations. Mr. Browning wrote regularly in one room; Mrs. Browning wrote regularly in another. The baby played in the nursery. But Flush wandered off into the streets of Florence to enjoy the rapture of smell. He threaded his path through main streets and back streets, through squares and alleys, by smell. He nosed his way from smell to smell; the rough, the smooth, the dark, the golden. He went in and out, up and down, where they beat brass, where they bake bread, where the women sit combing their hair, where the bird-cages are piled high on the causeway, where the wine spills itself in dark red stains on the pavement, where leather smells and harness and garlic, where cloth is beaten, where vine leaves tremble, where men sit and drink and spit and dice — he ran in and out, always with his nose to the ground, drinking in the essence; or with his nose in the air vibrating with the aroma. He slept in this hot patch of sun — how sun made the stone reek! he sought that tunnel of shade — how acid shade made the stone smell! He devoured whole bunches of ripe grapes largely because of their purple smell; he chewed and spat out whatever tough relic of goat or macaroni the Italian housewife had thrown from the balcony — goat and macaroni were raucous smells, crimson smells. He followed the swooning sweetness of incense into the violet intricacies of dark cathedrals; and, sniffing, tried to lap the gold on the window- stained tomb. Nor was his sense of touch much less acute. He knew Florence in its marmoreal smoothness and in its gritty and cobbled roughness. Hoary folds of drapery, smooth fingers and feet of stone received the lick of his tongue, the quiver of his shivering snout. Upon the infinitely sensitive pads of his feet he took the clear stamp of proud Latin inscriptions. In short, he knew Florence as no human being has ever known it; as Ruskin never knew it or George Eliot either.

The dolce itself, after so much rich food, was to be a straightforward one---the ricotta, with honey and a sprinkling of cinnamon, and a glass of vin santo, sweet white wine, into which would be dipped tozzetti, handmade hazelnut biscotti.

The culturalists tried to make the idea more appealing by pointing out that even in modern languages we use idioms that are rather imprecise about color. Don’t we speak of “white wine,” for instance, even if we can see perfectly well that it is really yellowish green? Don’t we have “black cherries” that are dark red and “white cherries” that are yellowish red? Aren’t red squirrels really brown? Don’t the Italians call the yolk of an egg “red” (il rosso)? Don’t we call the color of orange juice “orange,” although it is in fact perfectly yellow? (Check it next time.)

Indeed, nothing is further from realizing the pretension of the beautiful than an ill-arranged ball. So many things difficult to assemble are necessary that during an entire century perhaps only two are given that can satisfy the artist. There must be the right climate, locale, decoration, food and costumes. It must be a Spanish or Italian night, dark and moonless, because the moon, when it reigns in the sky, throws an influence of languor and melancholy over men that is reflected in all their sensations. It must be a fresh, airy night with stars shining feebly through the clouds. There must be large gardens whose intoxicating perfume penetrates the rooms in waves. The fragrance of orange trees and of the Constantinople rose are especially apt to develop exaltation of heart and mind. There must be light food, delicate wines, fruit of all climates, and flowers of all seasons. There must be a profusion of things rare and difficult to possess, because a ball should be a realization of the most voracious imaginations and the most capricious desires. One must understand one thing before giving a ball: rich, civilized human beings find pleasure only in the hope of the impossible. So one must approach the impossible as closely as one can.

Eels from the Tiber are a traditional Roman delicacy, pan-cooked with soft onions, garlic, chiles, tomatoes, and white wine, but a much more common dish is baccalà, preserved salt-cured cod, which is fried in thin strips, then simmered in a tomato sauce flavored with anchovies, pine nuts, and raisins. For really good fresh fish, you are better off heading either up or down the coast, toward Civitavecchia to the north or Gaeta to the south.

Oh, this smells fantastic.” She slid up onto one of the stools. “Italian. And you said you could only make one thing.” “Yeah, I really slaved over this.” He turned toward the oven with a flourish and removed a flat pan with… Ehlena burst out laughing. “French-bread pizza.” “Only the best for you.” “DiGiorno?” “Of course. And I splurged on the supreme kind. I figured you could pick off what you don’t like.” He used a pair of sterling-silver tongs to transfer the pizzas onto the plates and then put the baking sheet back on the top of the stove. “I have red wine, too.” As he came over with the bottle, all she could do was stare up at him and smile. “You know,” he said as he poured some into her glass, “I like the way you’re looking at me.” She put her hands over her face. “I can’t help it.” “Don’t try. It makes me feel taller.” “And you’re not small to begin with.” -Ehlena & Rehv

But beyond the extravagance of Rome's wealthiest citizens and flamboyant gourmands, a more restrained cuisine emerged for the masses: breads baked with emmer wheat; polenta made from ground barley; cheese, fresh and aged, made from the milk of cows and sheep; pork sausages and cured meats; vegetables grown in the fertile soil along the Tiber. In these staples, more than the spice-rubbed game and wine-soaked feasts of Apicius and his ilk, we see the earliest signs of Italian cuisine taking shape. The pillars of Italian cuisine, like the pillars of the Pantheon, are indeed old and sturdy. The arrival of pasta to Italy is a subject of deep, rancorous debate, but despite the legend that Marco Polo returned from his trip to Asia with ramen noodles in his satchel, historians believe that pasta has been eaten on the Italian peninsula since at least the Etruscan time. Pizza as we know it didn't hit the streets of Naples until the seventeenth century, when Old World tomato and, eventually, cheese, but the foundations were forged in the fires of Pompeii, where archaeologists have discovered 2,000-year-old ovens of the same size and shape as the modern wood-burning oven. Sheep's- and cow's-milk cheeses sold in the daily markets of ancient Rome were crude precursors of pecorino and Parmesan, cheeses that literally and figuratively hold vast swaths of Italian cuisine together. Olives and wine were fundamental for rich and poor alike.

He spooned the zabaglione into ramekins and slid them into the fridge. They were to form part of a complex assemblage of warm and cold, consisting of a fresh peach gelato, just starting to thaw; then zabaglione made with Barolo wine, slightly chilled; then a warm froth of more zabaglione, a thicker one this time, made with the yolks of goose eggs and rich, sherry like marsala; and finally a topping of crisp fried mint leaves and freshly roasted espresso beans, arranged like the petals and seeds of a flower on top of the other ingredients.

His ragù begins the same way all ragù begin: with finely diced onion, carrot, and celery sautéed in olive oil, the sacred soffritto. "It's important to really caramelize the vegetables. That's where the flavor comes from." Later come two pounds of coarsely ground beef ("from the neck or shoulder- something with fat and flavor") and a pound of ground pork butt, browned separately from the vegetables and deglazed with a cup of white wine (pignoletto, of course). Peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, bay leaves, and three hours of simmering over a low flame. Seasoning? "Salt. Never pepper.

Once there was and once there was not a devout, God-fearing man who lived his entire life according to stoic principles. He died on his fortieth birthday and woke up floating in nothing. Now, mind you, floating in nothing was comforting, light-less, airless, like a mother’s womb. This man was grateful. But then he decided he would love to have sturdy ground beneath his feet, so he would feel more solid himself. Lo and behold, he was standing on earth. He knew it to be earth, for he knew the feel of it. Yet he wanted to see. I desire light, he thought, and light appeared. I want sunlight, not any light, and at night it shall be moonlight. His desires were granted. Let there be grass. I love the feel of grass beneath my feet. And so it was. I no longer wish to be naked. Only robes of the finest silk must touch my skin. And shelter, I need a grand palace whose entrance has double-sided stairs, and the floors must be marble and the carpets Persian. And food, the finest of food. His breakfast was English; his midmorning snack French. His lunch was Chinese. His afternoon tea was Indian. His supper was Italian, and his late-night snack was Lebanese. Libation? He had the best of wines, of course, and champagne. And company, the finest of company. He demanded poets and writers, thinkers and philosophers, hakawatis and musicians, fools and clowns. And then he desired sex. He asked for light-skinned women and dark-skinned, blondes and brunettes, Chinese, South Asian, African, Scandinavian. He asked for them singly and two at a time, and in the evenings he had orgies. He asked for younger girls, after which he asked for older women, just to try. The he tried men, muscular men, skinny men. Then boys. Then boys and girls together. Then he got bored. He tried sex with food. Boys with Chinese, girls with Indian. Redheads with ice cream. Then he tried sex with company. He fucked the poet. Everybody fucked the poet. But again he got bored. The days were endless. Coming up with new ideas became tiring and tiresome. Every desire he could ever think of was satisfied. He had had enough. He walked out of his house, looked up at the glorious sky, and said, “Dear God. I thank You for Your abundance, but I cannot stand it here anymore. I would rather be anywhere else. I would rather be in hell.” And the booming voice from above replied, “And where do you think you are?

Subject: Some boat Alex, I know Fox Mulder. My mom watched The X-Files. She says it was because she liked the creepy store lines. I think she liked David Duchovny. She tried Californication, but I don't think her heart was in it. I think she was just sticking it to my grandmother, who has decided it's the work of the devil. She says that about most current music,too, but God help anyone who gets between her and American Idol. The fuzzy whale was very nice, it a little hard to identify. The profile of the guy between you and the whale in the third pic was very familiar, if a little fuzzy. I won't ask. No,no. I have to ask. I won't ask. My mother loves his wife's suits. I Googled. There are sharks off the coast of the Vineyard. Great big white ones. I believe you about the turtle. Did I mention that there are sharks there? I go to Surf City for a week every summer with my cousins. I eat too much ice cream. I play miniature golf-badly. I don't complain about sand in my hot dog buns or sheets. I even spend enough time on the beach to get sand in more uncomfortable places. I do not swim. I mean, I could if I wanted to but I figure that if we were meant to share the water with sharks, we would have a few extra rows of teeth, too. I'll save you some cannoli. -Ella Subject: Shh Fiorella, Yes,Fiorella. I looked it up. It means Flower. Which, when paired with MArino, means Flower of the Sea. What shark would dare to touch you? I won't touch the uncomfortable sand mention, hard as it is to resist. I also will not think of you in a bikini (Note to self: Do not think of Ella in a bikini under any circumstanes. Note from self: Are you f-ing kidding me?). Okay. Two pieces of info for you. One: Our host has an excellent wine cellar and my mother is European. Meaning she doesn't begrudge me the occasional glass. Or four. Two: Our hostess says to thank yur mother very much. Most people say nasty things about her suits. Three: We have a house kinda near Surf City. Maybe I'll be there when your there. You'd better burn this after reading. -Alexai Subect: Happy Thanksgiving Alexei, Consider it burned. Don't worry. I'm not showing your e-mails to anybody. Matter of national security, of course. Well,I got to sit at the adult table. In between my great-great-aunt Jo, who is ninety-three and deaf, and her daughter, JoJo, who had to repeat everyone's conversations across me. Loudly. The food was great,even my uncle Ricky's cranberry lasagna. In fact, it would have been a perfectly good TG if the Eagles han't been playing the Jets.My cousin Joey (other side of the family) lives in Hoboken. His sister married a Philly guy. It started out as a lively across-the-table debate: Jets v. Iggles. It ended up with Joey flinging himself across the table at his brother-in-law and my grandmother saying loud prayers to Saint Bridget. At least I think it was Saint Bridget. Hard to tell. She was speaking Italian. She caught me trying to freeze a half-dozen cannoli. She yelled at me. Apparently, the shells get really soggy when they defrost. I guess you'll have to come have a fresh one when you get back. -F/E

I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of

She had never eaten food like this before. No: she had never eaten before. It was as if these flavors had always existed, had always been there in her imagination, but now she was tasting them properly for the very first time. Each course was more intense than the last. The spaghetti was coated in a thick sauce of meat, tomatoes, and wine, rich, pungent, and sticky. The lamb, by contrast, was pink and sweet, so tender it seemed to dissolve in her mouth. It was served without vegetables, but afterward Tommaso brought the first of the contorni to the table: a whole artichoke, slathered in warm olive oil and lemon juice and sprinkled with chopped mint. Laura licked every drop of oil off her fingers, amazed by the depth of the flavor.

The soul of Sardinia lies in the hills of the interior and the villages peppered among them. There, in areas such as Nuoro and Ozieri, women bake bread by the flame of the communal oven, winemakers produce their potions from small caches of grapes adapted to the stubborn soil and acrid climate, and shepherds lead their flocks through the peaks and valleys in search of the fickle flora that fuels Sardinia's extraordinary cheese culture. There are more sheep than humans roaming this island- and sheep can't graze on sand. On the table, the food stands out as something only loosely connected to the cuisine of Italy's mainland. Here, every piece of the broader puzzle has its own identity: pane carasau, the island's main staple, eats more like a cracker than a loaf of bread, built to last for shepherds who spent weeks away from home. Cheese means sheep's milk manipulated in a hundred different ways, from the salt-and-spice punch of Fiore Sardo to the infamous maggot-infested casu marzu. Fish and seafood may be abundant, but they take a backseat to four-legged animals: sheep, lamb, and suckling pig. Historically, pasta came after bread in the island's hierarchy of carbs, often made by the poorest from the dregs of the wheat harvest, but you'll still find hundreds of shapes and sizes unfamiliar to a mainland Italian. All of it washed down with wine made from grapes that most people have never heard of- Cannonau, Vermentino, Torbato- that have little market beyond the island.

If you want waiters in tuxedos with white linen cloths over their arms, menus with unpronounceable words all over them, and high-priced wines served in silver ice buckets when you go out for Italian food, our little restaurant is not the place to come. But if you mostly want good, solid, home-cooked pasta with tasty sauces made with real vegetables and spices by a real Italian Mama and will trade white linen for red-and-white checked plastic tablecloths, you'll like our place just fine. If you're okay with a choice of just two wines, red or white, we'll give you as much of it as you want, from our famous bottomless wine bottle — free with your dinner. This restaurant owner took competitive disadvantages and turned them into a good, solid, “fun” selling story.

His antipasto was the classic Roman fritto misto---tiny morsels of mixed offal, including slivers of poached brains and liver, along with snails, artichokes, apples, pears, and bread dipped in milk, all deep-fried in a crisp egg-and-bread-crumb batter. This was to be followed by a primo of rigatoni alla pajata---pasta served with intestines from a baby calf so young that they were still full of its mother's milk, simmered with onions, white wine, tomatoes, cloves, and garlic. For the secondo they would be having milza in umido--- a stewed lamb's spleen, cooked with sage, anchovies, and pepper. A bitter salad of puntarelle al' acciuga---chicory sprouts with anchovy---would cleanse the palate, to be followed by a simple dolce of fragole in aceto, gorella strawberries in vinegar.

It wasn't tuna ventresca that drew diners to this community over others, nor was it heritage beef. It was the final bottle of a 1985 Cannonau, salt-crusted from its time on the Sardinian coast. Each diner had barely a swallow. My employer bid us not to swallow, not yet, but hold the wine at the back of the throat till it stung and warmed to the temperature of blood and spit, till we wrung from it the terroir of fields cracked by quake and shadowed by smog; only then, swallowing, choking, grateful, did we appreciate the fullness of its flavor. His face was ferocious and sublime in this moment, cracked open; I saw it briefly behind the mask. He was a man who knew the gradations of pleasure because he knew, like me, the calculus of its loss. To me that wine was fig and plum; volcanic soil; wheat fields shading to salt stone; sun; leather, well-baked; and finally, most lingering, strawberry. Psychosomatic, I'm sure, but what flavor isn't? I raised my glass to the memory of my drunk in the British market. I imagined him sat across the table, calmed at last, sane among the sane. He would have tasted in that wine the starch of a laundered sheet, perhaps, or the clean smooth shot of his dignity. My employer decanted these deepest longings, mysterious to each diner until it flooded the palate: a lost child's yeasty scalp, the morning breath of a lover, huckleberries, onion soup, the spice of a redwood forest gone up in smoke. It is easy, all these years later, to dismiss that country's purpose as decadent, gluttonous. Selfish. It was those things. But it was, also, this connoisseurship of loss.

For the primo piatto, the chef had chosen to serve a dish he called gnocchi- small dumplings made with potato flour. It was an unusual dish as potatoes were a rarity from the New World and largely unknown. The gnocchi were simply dressed in browned butter and sage and then dusted with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. It was a plain presentation with no garnish, and it was accompanied by a white table wine of no special distinction. My mouth watered as I carried the gnocchi up to the dining room. I'd tasted one dumpling in the kitchen, and I loved the earthy flavor as well as the way it resisted when I sank my teeth in. The butter and sage coated my mouth so that the taste lasted even after I swallowed. I liked the way it felt in my stomach, solid and nourishing, and I looked forward to learning how to make it.

He worked at a feverish pace. He experimented with all manner of pies: tortoises, eel, chicken, frog, mushroom, artichoke, apricot, cherry, and his favorite of all, a luscious strawberry pie. He made omelets, stuffed eggs, and poached eggs with rosemary over toast. There were soups galore: fennel, tortellini, Hungarian milk, millet, kohlrabi, pea, and his famous Venetian turnip soup, which this time he made with apples instead. He molded jelly into the shapes of the cardinali crests, colored with wine, carrot, and saffron. He delighted most in the moments when he worked with his favorite knife, carving and slicing roasted cockerel, peacock, capons, turtledoves, ortolans, blackbirds, partridges, pheasants, and wood grouse. Every slice of the knife gave him greater confidence and belief in his power to make the world his.

I keep to the light and look through the windows of restaurants and pubs. I climb up the stairs of a theater and see people inside standing around in little groups on a red carpet and talking. There are tall tables some stand around with bowls of sharing food on top---nuts and crisps and dips and olives. I keep walking, past an Italian bistro in which people are eating seafood pasta; in another restaurant, two people have a huge plate of oysters between them; a man and a woman are talking animatedly about something they have on their table---a thick wad of paper that has text on it and notes written in pen---while they share food in a Peruvian restaurant. "Have you tried the scallops?" someone says. "Have you had time to look at the menu?" says another person. Two women, all in black, with instrument cases, are sharing a bottle of wine outside. A waiter comes out with a platter of sushi.

The sauce. Memories flooded into her brain. It was zabaione. She had a sudden vision of herself, that first night in Tomasso's apartment, licking sauce from her fingers. Coffee. The next taste was coffee. Memories of Gennaro's espresso, and mornings in bed with a cup of cappuccino... but what was this? Bread soaked in sweet wine. And nuts--- a thin layer of hazelnut paste---and then fresh white peaches, sweet as sex itself, and then a layer of black chocolate so strong and bitter she almost stopped dead. There was more sweetness beyond it, though, a layer of pastry flavored with blackberries, and, right at the center, a single tiny fig. She put down the spoon, amazed. It was all gone. She had eaten it without being aware of eating, her mind in a reverie. "Did you like it?" She looked up. Somehow she wasn't surprised. "What was it?" she asked. "It doesn't have a name," Bruno said. "It's just... it's just the food of love.

It was Lillian Bowman-now Lady Westcliff- dashing and radiant in a wine-red gown. Her fair complexion was lightly glazed with color from the southern Italian sun, and her black hair was caught fashionably at the nape of her neck with a beaded silk-cord net. Lillian was tall and slender, the kind of raffish girl one could envision as captaining her own pirate ship... a girl clearly made for dangerous and unconventional pursuits. Though not as romantically beautiful as Annabelle Hunt, Lillian possessed a striking, clean-featured appeal that proclaimed her Americanness even before one heard her distinctly New York accent. Of their circle of friends, Lillian was the one that Evie felt the least close to. Lillian did not possess Annabelle's maternal softness, or Daisy's sparkling optimism... she had always intimidated Evie with her sharp tongue and prickly impatience. However, Lillian could always be counted on in times of trouble.

As we walk through Savignio, the copper light of dusk settling over the town's narrow streets, we stop anyone we can find to ask for his or her ragù recipe. A retired policeman says he likes an all-pork sauce with a heavy hit of pancetta, the better for coating the pasta. A gelato maker explains that a touch of milk defuses the acidity of the tomato and ties the whole sauce together. Overhearing our kitchen talk below, an old woman in a navy cardigan pokes her head out of a second-story window to offer her take on the matter: "I only use tomatoes from my garden- fresh when they're in season, preserved when it gets cold." Inspired by the Savignio citizenry, we buy meat from the butcher, vegetables and wine from a small stand in the town's piazza, and head to Alessandro's house to simmer up his version of ragù: two parts chopped skirt steak, one part ground pancetta, the sautéed vegetable trio, a splash of dry white wine, and a few canned San Marzano tomatoes.

Cacciatore means “hunter” in Italian. Allegedly, in the olden days, if a hunter were to return home empty-handed, his wife would go kill a chicken. This uncommon dish is centered on the common ingredients of chicken and vegetables. 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 3½ to 4 pounds chicken thighs 1 onion, sliced 1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced 8 ounces button mushrooms, sliced 2 garlic cloves, sliced ⅓ cup white wine 1 (28-ounce) can plum tomatoes 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme 2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano Salt Freshly ground black pepper 1 In a Dutch oven over medium heat, heat the olive oil. Working in batches, cook the chicken pieces, skin-side down, until evenly browned, about 5 minutes. Turn over and repeat. Transfer to a platter and continue with the next batch. 2 Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of fat. Add the onion, pepper, and mushrooms to the pot. Increase the heat to medium-high. Cook about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, or until the onions

Everywhere you turn you see signs of its place at the top of the Italian food chain: fresh-pasta shops vending every possible iteration of egg and flour; buzzing bars pairing Spritz and Lambrusco with generous spreads of free meat, cheese, and vegetable snacks; and, above all, osteria after osteria, cozy wine-soaked eating establishments from whose ancient kitchens emanates a moist fragrance of simmered pork and local grapes. Osteria al 15 is a beloved dinner den just inside the centro storico known for its crispy flatbreads puffed up in hot lard, and its classic beef-heavy ragù tossed with corkscrew pasta or spooned on top of béchamel and layered between sheets of lasagne. It's far from refined, but the bargain prices and the boisterous staff make it all go down easily. Trattoria Gianni, down a hairpin alleyway a few blocks from Piazza Maggiore, was once my lunch haunt in Bologna, by virtue of its position next to my Italian-language school. I dream regularly of its bollito misto, a heroic mix of braised brisket, capon, and tongue served with salsa verde, but the dish I'm looking for this time, a thick beef-and-pork joint with plenty of jammy tomato, is a solid middle-of-the-road ragù.

The rich, juicy savoriness of seafood explodes in the mouth like a breaking wave, so powerful it leaves me writhing! The keystones of this filling are the cheese, tomatoes... squid liver and anchovies!" "Correct! I finely diced each and then sautéed them in olive oil with red peppers and garlic until they were nicely fragrant. I added a splash of white wine, simmered it all until tender and mixed it into the filling." "I see. However, the most critical factor contributing to the depth of the dish's flavor... is actually on the outside." "Huh? The outside?!" "Again correct! Once the squid liver and anchovies were simmered, I removed the solids. To the remaining sauce, I added heavy cream... and heated it until it became thick before I then seasoned it with a pinch of salt and pepper to make a squid liver and anchovy cream sauce! I drizzled the sauce over the baked squid. Its creaminess makes for a stark contrast with the tangy, salty flavors of the filling... giving the tongue endlessly shifting flavors to enjoy! Concentrating solely on making the filling delicious would not lead to the flavor I ultimately wanted for my dish. It had to be the casing and the filling together! Only when those two resonated in perfect harmony... ... would the flavor of the spear squid reach its peak deliciousness! That is my Calamari Ripieni!

Signor Renzo's lodge stood on a grassy knoll near the crest of the hill. It was a modest place, just a low stone hut, before which stretched a woven ceiling of vines. My dinner was cooked on an open fire by the table. This was no banquet, but what the cook called a pique-nique, a meal for hunters to take outdoors. After Renzo had chosen two fat ducklings from his larder, he spitted them over the fire. Then he made a dish of buttery rice crowned with speckled discs of truffle that tasted powerfully of God's own earth. 'Come sit with me,' I begged, for I did not like him to wait on me. So together we sat beneath the vines as I savored each morsel and guessed at the subtle flavorings. 'Wild garlic?' I asked, and he lifted his brows in surprise as he ate. 'And a herb,' I added, 'sage?' 'For a woman, you have excellent taste.' For a woman, indeed! I made a play of stabbing him with my knife. It was most pleasant to eat our pique-nique and drink the red wine, which they make so strong in that region that they call it black or nero. I asked him to speak of himself, and between a trial of little dishes of wild leaves, chestnut fritters, and raisin cake, Signor Renzo told me he was born in the city and had worked at a pastry's cook shop as a boy, where he soon discovered that good foods mixed with ingenious hands made people happy and free with their purses.

This worship of the sacred fire did not belong exclusively to the populations of Greece and Italy. We find it in the East. The Laws of Manu as they have come to us show us the religion of Brahma completely established, and even verging towards its decline; but they have preserved vestiges and remains of a religion still more ancient—that of the sacred fire—which the worship of Brahma had reduced to a secondary rank, but could not destroy. The Brahmin has his fire to keep night and day; every morning and every evening he feeds it with wood; but, as with the Greeks, this must be the wood of certain trees. As the Greeks and Italians offer it wine, the Hindu pours upon it a fermented liquor which he calls soma. Meals, too, are religious acts, and the rites are scrupulously described in the Laws of Manu. They address prayers to the fire, as in Greece; they offer it the first fruits of rice, butter, and honey. We read that “the Brahmin should not eat the rice of the new harvest without having offered the first fruits of it to the hearth-fire; for the sacred fire is greedy of grain, and when it is not honored it will devour the existence of the negligent Brahmin.” The Hindus, like the Greeks and the Romans, pictured the gods to themselves as greedy not only of honors and respect, but of food and drink. Man believed himself compelled to satisfy their hunger and thirst if he wished to avoid their wrath.

Every Sunday he arrived in his wine-dark Buick, a tall, prune-faced, sad-seeming man with an incongruously vital head of wavy hair. He was not interested in children. A proponent of the Great Books series—which he had read twice—Uncle Pete was engaged with serious thought and Italian opera. He had a passion, in history, for Edward Gibbon, and, in literature, for the journals of Madame de Staël. He liked to quote that witty lady’s opinion on the German language, which held that German wasn’t good for conversation because you had to wait to the end of the sentence for the verb, and so couldn’t interrupt. Uncle Pete had wanted to become a doctor, but the “catastrophe” had ended that dream. In the United States, he’d put himself through two years of chiropractic school, and now ran a small office in Birmingham with a human skeleton he was still paying for in installments. In those days, chiropractors had a somewhat dubious reputation. People didn’t come to Uncle Pete to free up their kundalini. He cracked necks, straightened spines, and made custom arch supports out of foam rubber. Still, he was the closest thing to a doctor we had in the house on those Sunday afternoons. As a young man he’d had half his stomach surgically removed, and now after dinner always drank a Pepsi-Cola to help digest his meal. The soft drink had been named for the digestive enzyme pepsin, he sagely told us, and so was suited to the task.

The carciofini were good at the moment, no doubt about it, particularly the romagnolo, a variety of artichoke exclusive to the region, so sweet and tender it could even be eaten raw. Puntarelle, a local bitter chicory, would make a heavenly salad. In the Vini e Olio he found a rare Torre Ercolana, a wine that combined Cabernet and Merlot with the local Cesanese grape. The latter had been paired with the flavors of Roman cuisine for over a thousand years: they went together like an old married couple. There was spring lamb in abundance, and he was able to track down some good abbachio, suckling lamb that had been slaughtered even before it had tasted grass. From opportunities like these, he began to fashion a menu, letting the theme develop in his mind. A Roman meal, yes, but more than that. A springtime feast, in which every morsel spoke of resurgence and renewal, old flavors restated with tenderness and delicacy, just as they had been every spring since time began. He bought a bottle of oil that came from a tiny estate he knew of, a fresh pressing whose green, youthful flavors tasted like a bowl of olives just off the tree. He hesitated before a stall full of fat white asparagus from Bassano del Grappa, on the banks of the fast-flowing river Brenta. It was outrageously expensive, but worth it for such quality, he decided, as the stallholder wrapped a dozen of the pale spears in damp paper and handed it to Bruno with a flourish, like a bouquet of the finest flowers. His theme clarified itself the more he thought about it. It was to be a celebration of youth---youth cut short, youth triumphant, youth that must be seized and celebrated.

Pasta with Garlic Scapes and Fresh Tomatoes In Italy, you can find a garden anywhere there is a patch of soil, and in many areas, the growing season is nearly year round. It’s common to find an abundant tomato vine twining up the wall near someone’s front stoop, or a collection of herbs and greens adorning a window box. Other staples of an Italian kitchen garden include aubergine, summer squash varieties and peppers of all sorts. Perhaps that’s why the best dishes are so very simple. Gather the fresh ingredients from your garden or local farmers’ market, toss everything together with some hot pasta and serve. In the early summer and mid-autumn, look for garlic scapes, prized for their mild flavor and slight sweetness. Scapes are the willowy green stems and unopened flower buds of hardneck garlic varieties. Roasting garlic scapes with tomatoes and red onion brings out their sweet, rich flavor for a delightful summer meal. 2 swirls of olive oil 10 garlic scapes 1 pint multicolored cherry tomatoes 1 red onion, thinly sliced Sea salt and red pepper flakes, to taste ½ lb. pasta—fettuccine, tubini or spaghetti are good choices 1 cup baby spinach, arugula or fresh basil leaves, or a combination 1 lemon, zested and juiced Toasted pine nuts for garnish Heat oven to 400 ° F. Toss together olive oil, garlic scapes, tomatoes, onion, salt and pepper flakes and spread in an even layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 12–15 minutes, until tomatoes are just beginning to burst. If you have other garden vegetables, such as peppers, zucchini or aubergine, feel free to add that. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions. Toss everything together with the greens, lemon zest and juice. Garnish with pine nuts. Serve immediately with a nice Barolo wine.

It's funny that already having a DOC, Italians created a superior guarantee with the DOCG.

Then what’s this?” She raised her glass of expensive wine, used it to indicate their plush surroundings. His gaze followed her indication around the dim-lit, upmarket Italian restaurant. “Dinner in comfort.” “With a side order of persuasion?” “More like an offer I’m hoping you can’t refuse.

The Italians don’t like laws: in fact, they like disobeying them: it’s their game, like the Russians’ game is chess … 

SERVES 6 TO 8 AS AN APPETIZER     Two 10-ounce packages large white stuffing mushrooms (about 24 mushrooms) ½ cup finely chopped scallions (about 4) ¼ cup finely chopped red bell pepper ¼ cup fine dry bread crumbs 6 tablespoons grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano 3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley ¾ teaspoon kosher salt ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil ½ cup dry white wine 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

He greeted me in his usual attire - pajama pants. "Hey stranger!" he said, hugging me for a few long seconds. "I've already set up the board. Can I get you some rose" I nodded, overwhelmingly relieved to be with another human being - even if he was really a wolf in grandma's clothing. Or was he just a wolf in wolf's clothing? After all, he wore pajamas... Hmmm. I contemplated all this as he poured me a glass of wine. "Mind if I smoke?" he asked as he lit up a joint and motioned me over to the sleek brown couch. Italian, of course. Through the three windows that faced south, north, and west, I saw the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, where I had paid to have my parents' names inscribed in the immigrant wall of honor. Some American Dream this was!

Sandy’s was one of those places that made poor, white trash feel like high-class consumers. This was the kind of place you’d take your mistress to, but never your wife. Wives expected better. Mistresses were impressed by the blandness of the over-priced wine and the vast Italian menu options.

4/20, CANNABIS DAY, APRIL 20 420 FARMERS’ MARKET RISOTTO Recipe from Chef Herb Celebrate the bounty of a new growing season with a dish that’s perfectly in season on April 20. Better known as 4/20, the once unremarkable date has slowly evolved into a new high holiday, set aside by stoners of all stripes to celebrate the herb among like-minded friends. The celebration’s origins are humble in nature: It was simply the time of day when four friends (dubbed “The Waldos”) met to share a joint each day in San Rafael, California. Little did they know that they were beginning a new ceremony that would unite potheads worldwide! Every day at 4:20 p.m., you can light up a joint in solidarity with other pot-lovers in your time zone. It’s a tradition that has caught on, and today, there are huge 4/20 parties and festivals in many cities, including famous gatherings of students in Boulder and Santa Cruz. An Italian rice stew, risotto is dense, rich, and intensely satisfying—perfect cannabis comfort cuisine. This risotto uses the freshest spring ingredients for a variation in texture and bright colors that stimulate the senses. Visit your local farmers’ market around April 20, when the bounty of tender new vegetables is beginning to be harvested after the long, dreary winter. As for tracking down the secret ingredient, you’ll have to find another kind of farmer entirely. STONES 4 4 tablespoons THC olive oil (see recipe) 1 medium leek, white part only, cleaned and finely chopped ½ cup sliced mushrooms 1 small carrot, grated ½ cup sugar snap peas, ends trimmed ½ cup asparagus spears, woody ends removed, cut into 1-inch-long pieces Freshly ground pepper 3½ cups low-sodium chicken broth ¼ cup California dry white wine Olive oil cooking spray 1 cup arborio rice 1 tablespoon minced fresh flat-leaf parsley ¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese Salt 1. In a nonstick skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the THC olive oil over medium-low heat. Add leek and sauté until wilted, about 5 minutes. Stir in mushrooms and continue to cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add carrot, sugar snap peas, and asparagus. Continue to cook, stirring, for another minute. Remove from heat, season with pepper, and set aside. 2. In a medium saucepan over high heat, bring broth and wine to a boil. Reduce heat and keep broth mixture at a slow simmer. 3. In a large pot that has been lightly coated with cooking spray, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons THC olive oil over medium heat. Add rice and stir well until all the grains of rice are coated. Pour in ½ cup of the hot broth and stir, using a wooden spoon, until all liquid is absorbed. Continue adding the broth ½ cup at a time, making sure the rice has absorbed the broth before adding more, reserving ¼ cup of broth for the vegetables. 4. Combine ¼ cup of the broth with the reserved vegetables. Once all broth has been added to the risotto and absorbed, add the vegetable mixture and continue to cook over low heat for 2 minutes. Rice should have a very creamy consistency. Remove from heat and stir in parsley, Parmesan, and salt to taste. Stir well to combine.

Fontamara, Bread and Wine,

At this crossroads the Christian city came to control the wealth of a huge hinterland. To the east, the riches of Central Asia could be funneled through the Bosphorus into the godowns of the imperial city: barbarian gold, furs, and slaves from Russia; caviar from the Black Sea; wax and salt, spices, ivory, amber, and pearls from the far Orient. To the south, routes led overland to the cities of the Middle East: Damascus, Aleppo, and Baghdad; and to the west, the sea lanes through the Dardanelles opened up the whole of the Mediterranean: the routes to Egypt and the Nile delta, the rich islands of Sicily and Crete, the Italian peninsula, and everything that lay beyond to the Gates of Gibraltar. Nearer to hand lay the timber, limestone, and marble to build a mighty city and all the resources to sustain it. The strange currents of the Bosphorus brought a rich seasonal harvest of fish, while the fields of European Thrace and the fertile lowlands of the Anatolian plateau provided olive oil, corn, and wine in rich abundance.

Beneath a common banner of classically liberal ideals, countless tastes and traditions may mingle and mutate into ever new and exciting flavors. Thus would be born a homeland where the Sufi dances with the Breslover round the neon jungle of Times Square, where the Baptist of Alabama nods along to the merry melodies of Klezmer, where the secular humanist combs the Christian gospels and poems of Rumi for their many pearls of wisdom, where the Guatemalan college student learns to read Marx and Luxemburg in their original German, where the Russian refugee freely markets her own art painted in the style of Van Gogh and Monet, where the Italian chef tosses up a Lambi stew for his Haitian wife’s birthday while the operas of Verdi and Puccini play on his radio, where two brothers in exile share the wine of the Galilee and Golan while listening to the oud music of Nablus and Nazareth, where the Buddhist and the stoner hike through redwood trails and swap thoughts of life and death beneath a star-spangled sky. In this America, only the polyglot sets the lingua franca, the bully pulpit yields to the poets café, decent discourse finds favor over any cocksure shouting match, no library is so uniform as to betray to a tee its owner’s beliefs, no citizen is so selfish as to live for only themself nor so weak of will as to live only for others, and such a land—as yet a dream deferred, but still a dream we may seize—such a land would truly be worthy of you and me.

italian vinaigrette ¼ cup red wine vinegar 2 tablespoons minced fresh oregano (or 2 teaspoons dried) 1 clove garlic, minced 1 teaspoon mustard powder ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil ½ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon black pepper This is a great marinade for chicken or shrimp, or it can be used instead of the lemon oil in our Green Cabbage Slaw. Mix together the vinegar, oregano, garlic, and mustard powder in a small bowl. Add the olive oil in a steady stream while whisking to emulsify. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and whisk until fully incorporated. raspberry walnut vinaigrette ½ cup fresh raspberries, finely chopped or smashed ¼ cup apple cider vinegar 2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts 1 teaspoon minced fresh cilantro (or ¼ teaspoon dried) ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil Salt and black pepper This dressing is used in our Harvest Grilled Chicken Salad, but it’s also delicious on a summer salad of baby spinach, chopped berries (blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries), and diced cucumbers, or mix it into any variation of a Protein Salad. You can also swap out the raspberries for a different berry in this recipe, or use crushed pomegranate seeds in the winter. Mix together the raspberries, vinegar, walnuts, and cilantro in a small bowl. Drizzle in the olive oil while whisking steadily to emulsify. Adjust to taste with salt and pepper and whisk until fully blended.

Rachel reappeared with a wooden peel holding a free-form pizza heaped with vegetables, its edges blackened by the flame. Melody's mouth practically watered at the sight of it. The moules on Saturday had been amazing, but after the day she'd had, pizza and wine and butterscotch bars- hopefully with good coffee- would feed her soul as much as her body. Her friend cut the pizza into diagonal strips with a dangerous-looking mezzaluna, and then it was a free-for-all to grab the crispiest slices. Melody closed her eyes to savor the perfectly tender vegetables on top of the crisp pizza crust and sighed with happiness. "You did a garlic Parmesan cream sauce." "I figured I was allowed to deviate from traditional primavera since it's pizza." "It's good Parmesan." "Local. Makes up for the fact it's not Italian.

The Renaissance extended the definition of la passione to an all-consuming dedication to a worthy pursuit, most often beauty in its infinite variety. Its passionate artists and artisans unleashed the greatest creative flowering the world had ever seen. A few centuries later the Romantics yearned to become impassioned and quiver with the intensity of their ardor. Jurists blamed “crimes of passion” on high-octane emotions that exploded into acts of unspeakable violence. [...] Passion—and passion alone—lifts us above the ordinary. Without passion, there would be no literature, no art, no music, no romance, perhaps none of the wonders Italians have wrought. Beyond sentiment or emotion, la passione italiana qualifies as a primal force of nature that cannot be ignored or denied. “When a passion chooses you, there’s nothing else you can do,” says a friend whose family produces wine and olive oil in Umbria. “Whatever happens in your life, that fire inside you is always burning. You need to follow it. It’s like betraying yourself if you try not to, and the price for betraying yourself is very, very high.

Anna returned to supper preparations, wondering what on earth she had managed to fill her time with before having children. ‘BC’, they jokingly described it. She loved all of them to bits. But there were times when she longed to escape from the bedlam of family life. Lately she felt constantly tired. Some mornings she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other to confront the day. And she was putting on weight despite being careful with her diet. She worried there might be something seriously wrong, but it was easier to push nagging thoughts to the back of her mind. She craved one week on her own: one week of blissful quiet without the confusion and togetherness Italians craved. To go to bed late if she wanted without a 6 a.m. alarm call. Time to read a whole book in one sitting or drink wine in the middle of the day, without the responsibility of being the afternoon chauffeur to one of her children: for swimming lessons, music clubs, gymnastics and now regional tennis coaching, for which Davide had been selected. And a week of sleeping in a bed on her own might be good, she thought – without having to get up to soothe a child’s nightmares or being kept awake by Francesco’s snores or his hand stroking her thigh, when sex was the very last thing on her mind… ‘Penny for them?’ Francesco had crept up behind her, folding her in a hug, nuzzling the back of her neck as she tried to concentrate on chopping parsley and celery for a meat sauce. ‘You wouldn’t want to know,’ she said, thinking that he really wouldn’t and that she was an ungrateful cow to fantasise about a life without them. ‘Mamma, Babbo, stop it!’ Rosanna and Emilia were trying to insinuate themselves between their parents to break up their embrace. ‘Is supper nearly ready?’ Emilia, always hungry, asked.

Most Italians consume alcohol every day, but it’s not what we call drinking. For Americans and northern Europeans alcoholic beverages are mind-altering drugs, used as tranquilizers, sleeping potions, inhibition-looseners (“Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker”—Ogden Nash), or roads to inebriation. That is to say, to getting tipsy, high, drunk, plastered, smashed, sloshed, sozzled, soused, crocked, wrecked, juiced, stinko, tight, pie-eyed, crosseyed, shit-faced, blitzed, fried, wasted, gassed, polluted, pissed, tanked up, ripped, loaded, pickled, bombed, blasted, blooey, blotto, blind drunk, roaring drunk, dead drunk, falling down drunk, drunk as a lord, stewed to the gills, or feeling no pain—and that’s just my own personal vocabulary. Italians reach that state so infrequently that their language provides only a few tame options—ubriaco (drunk), brillo (tipsy), alticcio (high), sbronzo (drunk)—with at most perso (lost) or fradicio (rotten) tacked on for a touch of color. They don’t even have a proper word for a hangover, though if pressed they’ll come up with the stately postumi della sbornia, aftereffects of overindulgence. For Italians, wine and beer are foods. If they provide a little buzz that’s just a pleasant side benefit, improving the sparkle of the conversation. When I first traveled in Italy, parents regularly fed wine-laced water to their kids (“acquavino”), vaccinating them against later dipsomania. And at lunchtime in the cafeteria of my Nuovo Regina Margherita Hospital the docs would jostle to sit at the chaplain’s table, because he’d always bring a bottle of good country wine. Even the harder stuff fits into a culinary protocol: a seven p.m. Campari is meant to whet the appetite, and the cognac or amaro at the end of a large meal to aid digestion. Which is why, in proportion, Italy has one-tenth as many problem drinkers as America.

sautéed hot Italian sausage with brown mushrooms, minced garlic, stewed tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, dried oregano, and scallion greens. I added cayenne and red wine at the end and let the sauce simmer down into a gravy while I boiled water and then cooked the vermicelli pasta. I should have used Parmesan but

SWEET POTATO BISQUE WITH CRABMEAT GRAPEFRUIT ICE IN A SWEET TORTILLA CRISP LAMB SEARED IN ANCHO CHILI PASTE ON POLENTA TWO CHUTNEYS: PEAR & MINT ASPARAGUS FLAN AMERICAN GOAT CHEESE, EAST & WEST, WITH RED-WINE BISCUITS AVOCADO KEY LIME PIE PINON TORTA DE CIELO & CHOCOLATE MOCHA SHERBET She'd invented the cake just for tonight; the sherbet came from Julia Child, a remarkably simple confection made with sour cream. Torta de cielo was a traditional wedding cake from the Yucatan, slim and sublime, light but chewy, where pulverized almonds stood in for flour. This time, instead of almonds, Greenie used the fat, velvety pignoli she ordered from an importer on Grand Street, mincing them by hand to keep them from turning to paste. She did not know whether you could tell the best Italian pine nuts from those grown in New Mexico, but, she caught herself thinking, and not without a touch of spite, she might soon find out.

After all, alcohol is a potentially addictive poison, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying a glass of it with dinner on a regular basis. Likewise, I want to be able to enjoy a bit of fructose—potentially addictive poison anyone?—in the occasional dessert. For me, that’s part of the joy of life. So I’ll have my glass of wine and maybe a small dish of the amazing gelato at that Italian restaurant. But I’m walking right by ninety percent of what’s for sale at my local supermarket—row after row of sugar-sweetened beverages, snacks, candy, and convenience entrees. We drink water, snack on whole fruit, rudely ignore candy, and cook from scratch.

He took a moment to regain his composure, but he got it right on the next take and finally began to make the Bolognese sauce. The pan on the stove had butter that we had already partially melted, and he poured in some olive oil. Then he stirred in the previously identified chopped vegetables, and after several minutes (which would later be edited out), the vegetables were translucent. When he added the finely chopped beef, Sally told the viewers, "You could also use a very good grade of hamburger." He poured in some milk, let it evaporate, and then added crushed tomatoes, red wine, and broth. "Now you must cook the sauce two, three hours until it is done," he said. The cameras stopped and we swapped the pan for an identical one with a finished sauce. We also poured boiling water and cooked spaghetti into the pot that had been sitting empty on the stove.

He walks into the empty cafe, then sees the table she's set up for them: atop a white linen tablecloth is a spread of treats that makes George salivate: tomato breads, zucchini blossom pizza, vanilla cannoli, Sicilian salad, red wine, and, of course, a plate of chocolate and pistachio cream cupcakes.

She soaked, washed, and trimmed three artichokes, baby purple Romagnas, which would sadly lose their beautiful hue once they hit hot water, then washed and peeled a bunch of pencil-thin asparagus. She pulled out several small zucchini and sliced them into translucent moons. She washed three leeks, slicing them down their centers and peeling back each layer, carefully rinsing away any sand, then chopped the white, light green, and some of the darker parts into a fine dice. She shelled a couple handfuls of spring peas, collecting them in a ceramic bowl. She chopped a bulb of fennel and julienned one more, then washed and spun the fronds. She washed the basil and mint and spun them dry. Last, she chopped the shallots. With the vegetables prepped, she started on the risotto, the base layer for the torta a strati alla primavera, or spring layer cake, she'd been finessing since her arrival, and which she hoped would become Dia's dish. She'd make a total of six 'torte': three artichoke and three asparagus. The trick was getting the risotto to the perfect consistency, which was considerably less creamy than usual. It had to be firm enough to keep its shape and support the layers that would be placed on top of it, but not gummy, the kiss of death for any risotto. She started with a 'soffritto' of shallot, fennel, and leek, adding Carnaroli rice, which she preferred to arborio, pinot grigio, and, when the wine had plumped the rice, spring-vegetable stock, one ladle at a time. Once the risotto had absorbed all the liquid and cooked sufficiently, she divided it into six single-serving crescent molds, placed the molds in a glass baking dish, and popped them all in the oven, which made the risotto the consistency of a soft Rice Krispies treat. Keeping the molds in place, she added the next layer, steamed asparagus in one version, artichoke in the other. A layer of basil and crushed pignoli pesto followed, then the zucchini rounds, flash-sauteed, and the fennel matchsticks, cooked until soft, and finally, the spring-pea puree. She carefully removed the first mold and was rewarded with a near-perfect crescent tower, which she drizzled with red-pepper coulis. Finally, she placed a dollop of chilled basil-mint 'sformato' alongside the crescent and radiated mint leaves around the 'sformato' so that it looked like a sun. The sun and the moon, 'sole e luna,' all anyone could hope for.

She got tipsy on pinot noir and ate too much of her pesto angel hair with blackened chicken-- now, at the door to the room, she's regretting it. She feels nauseous from the wine, and she knows her breath is bad from the garlic. Tom doesn't seem to notice; he's calm and a little giddy and keeps passing a hand over her ass, up under her dress. She wants to feel sexy; but she just can't, not with the thought of her dinner or her certainty that she has pesto in her teeth. Italian places are romantic in theory, but the pasta and the garlic and the rich sauces and filling wines are not conducive to carrying the romance past dinner.

When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine...

There was something about her voice that made Bruno think of dolci, of meringues and sweet zabaglione, and peaches bubbling as they poached in wine.

As far as he was concerned, Testaccio, not the Via del Corso or the Piazza del Campidoglio, was the real heart of Rome. For centuries animals had been brought here to be butchered, with the good cuts going to the noblemen in their palazzos and the cardinals in the Vatican. The ordinary people had to make do with what little was left---the so-called quinto quarto, the "fifth quarter" of the animal: the organs, head, feet, and tail. Little osterie had sprung up that specialized in cooking these rejects, and such was the culinary inventiveness of the Romans that soon even cardinals and noblemen were clamoring for dishes like coda all vaccinara, oxtail braised in tomato sauce, or caratella d' abbachio, a newborn lamb's heart, lungs, and spleen skewered on a stick of rosemary and simmered with onions in white wine. Every part of the body had its traditional method of preparation. Zampetti all' aggro were calf's feet, served with a green sauce made from anchovies, capers, sweet onions, pickled gherkins, and garlic, finely chopped, then bound with potato and thinned with oil and vinegar. Brains were cooked with butter and lemon---cervello al limone---or poached with vegetables, allowed to cool, then thinly sliced and fried in an egg batter. Liver was wrapped in a caul, the soft membrane that envelops a pig's intestines, which naturally bastes the meat as it melts slowly in the frying pan. There was one recipe for the thymus, another for the ear, another for the intestines, and another for the tongue---each dish refined over centuries and enjoyed by everyone, from the infant in his high chair to the nonnina, the little grandmother who would have been served exactly the same meal, prepared in the same way, when she herself was a child.

Italian Dressing with Roasted Garlic Serves: 4 4 to 8 cloves garlic, roasted (see Note) 1 cup unsweetened soy, hemp, or almond milk ½ cup raw cashew butter 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or more to taste 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons fresh parsley 1 teaspoon dried basil ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes Pinch of dried oregano ⅛ teaspoon black pepper or to taste Blend ingredients together in a high-powered blender or food processor. Adjust seasonings if necessary. Note: Garlic can be roasted with the entire bulb intact and skin on, or it can be roasted using peeled and separated cloves. Roast at 300˚F for about 25 minutes or until soft. PER SERVING: CALORIES 239; PROTEIN 10g; CARBOHYDRATE 14g; TOTAL FAT 17.4g; SATURATED FAT 3.3g; SODIUM 119mg; FIBER 2.3g; BETA-CAROTENE 131mcg; VITAMIN C 7mg; CALCIUM 112mg; IRON 2.4mg; FOLATE 27mcg; MAGNESIUM 105mg; ZINC 2.8mg; SELENIUM 6.9mcg

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I want to live in America!' This was met with protests. 'Will you leave us all behind?' asked his mother. 'I want you to come too.' Said Luke. But nobody wanted to go. 'America is a fine country, no question.' Said Monsieur Gascon expansively. 'They have everything there, big cities, not like Paris of course, but great lakes and mountains and prairies as far as the eye can see. If your own country is not so good, if you're English or German or Italian, unless you're rich, milor, it's probably better in America. But in France, we have everything. We have mountains, the Alps and the Pyrénées. We have great rivers like the Seine and the Rhone. We have huge farmlands and forests. We have cities and cathedrals, and Roman ruins in the south. We have every kind of climate. We have the greatest wines in the world and we have 300 cheeses. What more do you want?

During the late second and first centuries there was an almost insatiable demand for Italian wine

A wonderful warmth and numbness embraced his body. He was free, sitting in a rustic little café in an Italian town he'd never heard of, drinking wine, and inhaling the smells of a delicious feast

I believe that we shocked each other by how swiftly we went from being the people who knew each other best in the world to being a pair of the most mutually incomprehensible strangers who ever lived. But it was vital to my survival to have a one bedroom of my own i saw the aprtment almost as a sanatorium a hospice clinci for my own recovery I painted the walls in the warmest colors i could find and bought myself flowers every week as if i were visiting myself in the hospital is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty why are you studying Italian so that just in case Italy ever invades Ethiopia again and is actually successful this time? ciao comes from if you must know it's an abbreviation of a phrase used by medieval venetians as an intimate salutation Sono il Suo Schiavo meaning i am your slave. om Naamah Shivaya meaning I honor the divinity that resides whin me. I wanted to experience both , I wanted worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence the dual glories of a human life I wanted what the Greeks called kalos kai agathos the singular balance of the good and he beautiful I'd been missing both during these last hard years because both pleasure and devotion require a stress free space in which to flourish and I'd been living in a giant trash compactor of nonstop anxiety , As for how to balance the urge for pleasure against the longing for devotion. four feet on the ground a head full of foliage looking at the world through the heart. it was more than I wanted to toughly explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well. same guatemalan musicians are always playing id rather be a sparrow than a snail on their bamboo windpipes oh how i want italian to open itself up to me i havent felt so starved for comprehension since then dal centro della mia vita venne una grande fontanana dolce sitl nuovo Dante wrote his divine comedy in terza rima triple rhyme a chain of rhymes with each rhyme repeating here times every five lines. lamor che move il sole e laltre stelle we are the masters of bel far niente larte darrangiarsi The reply in italy to you deserve a break today would probably be yeah no duh that's why I'm planning on taking a break at noon to go over to your house and sleep with your wife, I walked home to my apartment and soft-boiled a pair of fresh brown eggs for my lunch i peeled the eggs and arranged them on a plate beside the seven stalks of the asparagus (which were so slim and snappy they didn't need to be cooked at all,)I put some olives on the plate too and the four knobs of goat cheese I'd picked up yesterday from the fromagerie down the street tend two slices of pink oily salmon for dessert a lovely peach which the woman at the market had given to me for free and which was still warm form the roman sunlight for the longest time I couldn't even touch this food because it was such a masterpiece of lunch a true expression of the art of making something out of nothing finally when i had fully absorbed the prettiness of my meal i went and sat in apatch of sunbeam on my clean wooden floor and ate every bit of it with my fingers while reading my daily newspaper article in Italian happiness inhabited my every molecule. I am inspired by the regal self assurance of this town so grounded and rounded so amused and monumental knowing that she is held securely in the palm of history i would like to be like rome when i am an old lady. I linger over my food and wine for many hours because nobody in

Roman traders, usually Arab or Egyptian rather than Italian, traded amphorae of wine, mirrors, statues and lamps in return for ivory, spices, topaz and slaves. And a new luxury was starting to arrive from China, via Parthia and Eudaemon (Aden): silk.

Normalcy?” I ask, louder than is probably necessary, surprising myself with the unusual amount of animated expression in my voice. “A regular human being? Jesus, what the fuck is there in that? What does that even mean? Credit card debt, a mortgage, a nagging spouse and bratty kids and a minivan and a fucking family pet? A nine-to-five job that you hate, and that’ll kill you before you ever see your fabled 401k? Cocktail parties and parent-teacher conferences and suburban cul-de-sacs? Monogamous sex, and the obligatory midlife crisis? Potpourri? Wall fixtures? Christmas cards? A welcome mat and a mailbox with your name stenciled on it in fancy lettering? Shitty diapers and foreign nannies and Goodnight Moon? Cramming your face with potato chips while watching primetime television? Antidepressants and crash diets, Coach purses and Italian sunglasses? Boxed wine and light beer and mentholated cigarettes? Pediatrician visits and orthodontist bills and college funds? Book clubs, PTA meetings, labor unions, special interest groups, yoga class, the fucking neighborhood watch? Dinner table gossip and conspiracy theories? How about old age, menopause, saggy tits, and rocking chairs on the porch? Or better yet, leukemia, dementia, emphysema, adult Depends, feeding tubes, oxygen tanks, false teeth, cirrhosis, kidney failure, heart disease, osteoporosis, and dying days spent having your ass wiped by STNAs in a stuffy nursing home reeking of death and disinfectant? Is that the kind of normalcy you lust for so much? All of that—is that worth the title of regular human being? Is it, Helen? Is it?

Once upon a time, my father told me, fine dining meant baked lobster and cocktails. Not all restaurants could be counted on to have wine lists. But at Peasant Stock, they made osso bucco and cassoulet, and for dessert things like macaroon soufflé with apricot-brandy sauce. They never served ice cream, but some far more fascinating item called granita, in potent infusions of espresso or huckleberry or blood orange.

Obviously they were Italians. No other people could have grouped themselves so picturesquely or returned the salutes of the crowd with so much grace — a grace that was none the less because about half the men on the train were drinking out of up-ended wine bottles.

SAUSAGE PAPPARDELLE FENNEL SEEDS, CHIANTI, GARLIC, TOMATO & PARSLEY SERVES 1 | TOTAL 14 MINUTES 4½ oz fresh lasagne sheets 1 clove of garlic ½ a bunch of Italian parsley (½ oz) 1 pork or veggie sausage 1 teaspoon fennel seeds Chianti or other Italian red wine ¾ cup passata (strained tomatoes) Parmesan cheese, for grating Boil the kettle. Cut the lasagne sheets lengthways into 1¼-inch strips to make pappardelle. Peel and finely slice the garlic. Finely chop the top leafy half of the parsley, then the stalks, keeping them separate. Put an 11-inch frying pan on a high heat. Once hot, put a little drizzle of olive oil into the pan, then squeeze the sausagemeat out of the skin into the pan, breaking it up with your spoon (if using a veggie sausage, crumble or slice). Fry and stir for 2 minutes, then add the garlic, parsley stalks and fennel seeds. Once lightly golden, add a good splash of red wine, let it cook away, then add the passata and scatter the pasta into the pan. Carefully pour in enough boiling kettle water to just cover the pasta – about 1¼ cups. Let it bubble away for 4 minutes, or until the pasta has absorbed most of the water and you’ve got a nice rich sauce, stirring regularly and loosening with an extra splash of water, if needed. Turn the heat off, stir in the parsley leaves, then season to perfection. Finish with a grating of Parmesan and a kiss of extra virgin olive oil, if you like.

Drinks included in the French-Italian family all contain vermouths, either sweet, dry, or both, or sometimes brand-named products, such as Lillet, an aperitif wine that’s closely related to vermouth. The name of this family of drinks is derived from the fact that people used to call sweet vermouth “Italian” and dry vermouth “French,” referring to their countries of origin (regardless of where specific bottlings were actually produced).

...the glass of wine I've drunk is beginning to take a few corners off the world...

This return to myself. The same one that was barren and starved with her passing, now brought back to life. Adam, the stairs, the food and wine. It has all made the blood pump faster and my skin feel softer, weightier. The blessing of this life, this one, brilliant, beautiful life. All the loss and anguish. All the joy that makes it possible. The tender connections, the fragility, the impossible odds of being here, now, together. The choice of continuing to make it so.

The final word on nutrition and health has been revealed. Compared to Americans, Brits, and Canadians, people of various nationalities suffer fewer heart attacks: the Japanese eat very little fat; Mexicans eat a lot of fat; the Chinese drink very little red wine; Italians drink a lot of red wine; Germans consume a lot of beer, sausages, and fats; Ukrainians consume a lot of vodka, pierogis, and cabbage rolls. And all suffer fewer heart attacks. Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Vincotto (Italian for cooked wine) is a tradition dating back to Roman times as a way to preserve wine. Its complex, sweet properties have recently attracted culinary interest as a condiment with many uses. 4-5 cups red wine—Primitivo is a good choice ⅔ cup honey 3 cinnamon sticks 3 whole cloves Combine everything in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil. Then simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes, until the liquid is reduced to about a cup. Once it’s cool, remove the cinnamon sticks and cloves, and pour into a jar or cruet. It’s delicious drizzled over salads, cooked meats, grilled vegetables or ricotta cheese. [Source: Traditional]

Oh! The vile indignity of the human condition! Oh! The undeserving condition of the human cowardice! Go and inquire the grass and the trees. They from themselves produce flowers, leaves and fruits; you from yourself, you produce nits, lice, and worms. They from themselves produce oil, wine, and balm; you from yourself send out mucous, urine, and dung. They from themselves send out the fragrance of sweetness; and you make of yourself an abomination of stench!” Lothar of Segni, future Innocent III quoted by Eugenio Garin in his History of Italian Philosophy

I squat to retrieve the pitcher but Bruno’s faster. He offers it to me and I make the mistake of looking him in the eye. My balance is thrown and I start to fall back. Bruno drops the pitcher and takes hold of both of my wrists to keep my butt from slamming into the ground. He uses my momentum, and in one swift movement, we’re both standing again, face-to-face. Too close. Way too close. He smells of wine. And basil. Bruno picks up the pitcher, slowly this time, and loops my fingers through the handle. “All right?” he asks, his smile big and hypnotizing. I nod. “You should wash this.” I nod again. “And refill it.” Nod. “You agree with everything I say?” Nod. “You like sleeping in my bed last night?” My face combusts, suddenly very aware of all the customers, especially the table of American hoochies not even five feet away. I steal a glance at them. The brunette’s mouth hangs open and the blond one looks me up and down, her expression simultaneously appalled and impressed. I’m mortified. And slightly thrilled. I run through the restaurant and into the kitchen without looking back. I blast the cold water into the sink, let it fill my cupped hands, and dip my face down into it again and again until I’m no longer on fire. When my eyes clear, I notice a hand towel dangling in front of me. Luca. I take it and quickly pat my face dry. “I--”…have no idea what to say. “Your brother…” Luca makes an understanding noise. “Bruno is”--he struggles for the world--“loud.” I would have said something else, but his definition is accurate too. Luca wasn’t even outside but he obviously knows his brother well. Bruno barging in on me while I was changing should have told me everything I needed to know about him.

He uses my momentum, and in one swift movement, we’re both standing again, face-to-face. Too close. Way too close. He smells of wine. And basil. Bruno picks up the pitcher, slowly this time, and loops my fingers through the handle. “All right?” he asks, his smile big and hypnotizing. I nod. “You should wash this.” I nod again. “And refill it.” Nod. “You agree with everything I say?” Nod. “You like sleeping in my bed last night?” My face combusts, suddenly very aware of all the customers, especially the table of American hoochies not even five feet away. I steal a glance at them. The brunette’s mouth hangs open and the blond one looks me up and down, her expression simultaneously appalled and impressed. I’m mortified. And slightly thrilled.

I have never before gathered eggs from under a hen. Fernando has never before seen a hen. We bend low into the shed where perch a dozen or so fat lady birds. There's no shrieking or fluttering at all. I approach one and ask if she has an egg or two. Nothing. I ask in Italian. Still nothing. I ask Fernando to pick her up but he's already outside the shed smoking and pacing, telling me he really doesn't like eggs at all and he especially doesn't like frittata. Both bold-faced lies. I start to move the hen and she plumps down from her perch quite voluntarily, uncovering the place where two lovely brown eggs sit. I take them, one at a time, bend down and nestle them in my sack. I want two more. I peruse the room. I choose the hen who sits next to the docile one. I pick her up and she pecks me so hard on my wrist that I drop her. I see there is nothing in her nest and apologise for my insensitivity, thinking her nastiness must have been caused by embarrassment. I move on to another hen and this time find a single, paler brown-shelled beauty, still warm and stuck all over with bits of straw. I take it and leave with an unfamiliar thrill. This is my first full day in Tuscany and I've robbed a henhouse before lunch. Back home in the kitchen I beat the eggs, the yolks of which are orange as pumpkin, with a few grindings of sea salt, a few more of pepper, adding a tablespoon or so of white wine and a handful of Parmigliano. I dig for my flat broad frying pan, twirl it to coat its floor with a few drops of my tourist oil, and let it warm over a quiet flame. I drop in the rinsed and dried blossoms whole, flatten them a bit so they stay put, and leave them for a minute or so while I tear a few basil leaves, give the eggs another stroke or two. I throw a few fennel seeds into the pan to scent the oil, where the blossoms are now beginning to take colour on their bottom sides. Time to liven up the flame and add the egg batter. I perform the lift-and-tilt motions necessary to cook the frittata without disturbing the blossoms, which are now ensnared in the creamy embrace of the eggs. Next, I run the lush little cake under a hot grill to form a gold blistery skin on top before sliding it onto a plate, strewing it with torn basil. The heat of the eggs warms the herbs so they give up a double-strength perfume. Now I drop a thread of find old balsamico over it. And finally, let it rest.

Sipping on my wine in an Italian resaurant near the Pantheon in Rome.

I know it’s early in the party--the huge wine bottle’s still almost full, and the night is young--but I’m impressed at how good everyone looks. And sober. No one’s pink-faced and stumbling, no one’s slurring their words. The groups of people are all mixed. It’s not like the London parties I’ve been to, with boys at one end of the room getting drunk enough to build up the courage to talk to the girls, who are at the other end giggling and pretending to ignore them. This is impressively grown up. And Luca was bang-on in his assessment of me. I’m standing here alone, no one coming to talk to me. I think I look pretty nice: I did myself up in my best makeup, dark smoky eyes and red lipstick. I wish I could wear white, like Kendra, who looks amazing in it, but I’m a little too body-conscious for that. Kendra has an athlete’s body, and I don’t. I’m okay with not being really thin, but I’d feel like a great white whale if I wore a white outfit. Is it a whale? I wonder. Or a shark? I shrug. These are the kind of questions you find yourself pondering when you’re at a fantastic party, all your girlfriends have been snapped up on sight, and you’re busy propping up the drinks table with your bum because no one wants to talk to you.

I am Sebastiano, and your name?” he asks. “Violet,” I say as we step over the threshold. “Violetta!” he says, throwing his arms wide. “English girl, Italian name!” And across the room, I see a dark head turn in our direction. That much taller than the rest of the boys, he stands out, his straight black silky hair falling over his face, his blue eyes as bright and cold as the water of the fjord next to my grandmother’s summer rental cottage. I was looking for him before and couldn’t see him anywhere; now that I’ve been distracted by dancing and a Chianti-drinking donkey, he’s spotted me. His gaze flicks like a knife between me and the boy, who’s at the gigantic wine bottle now, filling cups and handing me one. “Salute!” Sebastiano says, touching his cup to mine, and I glance up at Luca, seeing that he’s taking this in, too. A rush of confusion fills me as I toast. I’m glad that Luca’s seen me with someone else, that I haven’t been a wallflower at this party, that I’ve proved him wrong, even a little bit, because there’s a boy here who seems to like me, who’s talking to me, anyway, getting me a drink. In films, in books, flirting with a boy is a surefire way to get the one you actually like interested in you, draw him over to your side. They’re supposed to like competition, the challenge of going after a girl who’s popular. But maybe real life doesn’t quite work that way. Because Luca arches one black eyebrow, his mouth quirks up on one side in a sneer, and he turns pointedly away sliding a cigarette into his mouth, and lighting it with a flip of his Zippo. Disgusting habit, I think as firmly as I can. I’m glad he’s not coming over, smoking a nasty stinking cancer stick. It’s awful when you lie to yourself. I do think smoking is foul, but I’m also more than aware that if Luca strolled over to talk to me, with that cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, I wouldn’t walk away, complaining about the smoke; I’d stand there staring up at him, trying not to grin as widely as a five-year-old meeting Cinderella at Disneyland.

So I smile as best I can, saunter over to the Vespa, take the helmet, and say casually as I put it on: “Grazie! I’ve never been on one of these before.” Luca promptly paralyzes me by leaning down, pulling the helmet strap tight, and fastening the buckle under my chin. His aftershave smells like seawater, cool aquamarine, fresh and light; his breath on my face is warm and touched lightly with wine. “Ecco,” he says softly. His fingertips touch my skin. “It must be tight.” He wheels away from me and swings one long leg over the seat, putting the key in the ignition. Over his shoulder he says: “You must hold on to my waist. And when I lean, you must lean with me. Okay?” He’s waiting for me to get on. I mustn’t hesitate, or I’ll look as if I’m scared; I hike my skirt up and climb onto the back. The little scooter’s revving up, rattling noisily and cheerfully, like the cat purring on the wall; Luca looks back and says, “Aspetta.” Quickly, he shrugs off his jacket and hands it to me. It’s leather, butter-soft, like fabric in my hands. “Put it on. It is not cold, but there is wind when we drive,” he says. I slip it on, my head spinning. The collar smells of him, as if he’s wrapped around me. And then, in turn, I wrap my arms around his narrow waist, I feel his warm skin beneath the light cotton of his shirt. He’s just lean muscle over bone, almost skinny, but as the scooter kicks into motion, I can instantly tell how strong he is, because he controls it with small, seemingly effortless flexes of his muscles. His shoulders bunch lightly, taking the strain of bouncing an old Vespa with two people on it over a road that suddenly feels much more rutted and potholed when you’re not traveling in a jeep with good suspension.

Luca promptly paralyzes me by leaning down, pulling the helmet strap tight, and fastening the buckle under my chin. His aftershave smells like seawater, cool aquamarine, fresh and light; his breath on my face is warm and touched lightly with wine. “Ecco,” he says softly. His fingertips touch my skin. “It must be tight.” He wheels away from me and swings one long leg over the seat, putting the key in the ignition. Over his shoulder he says: “You must hold on to my waist. And when I lean, you must lean with me. Okay?” He’s waiting for me to get on. I mustn’t hesitate, or I’ll look as if I’m scared; I hike my skirt up and climb onto the back. The little scooter’s revving up, rattling noisily and cheerfully, like the cat purring on the wall; Luca looks back and says, “Aspetta.” Quickly, he shrugs off his jacket and hands it to me. It’s leather, butter-soft, like fabric in my hands. “Put it on. It is not cold, but there is wind when we drive,” he says.

Europe’s earliest cookbook came from ancient Rome. In it, the writer Epicius described the recipes for dishes such as stuffed dormouse, and snails soaked in wine and oil. Food fashions may have changed, but many Italians still take great pride in their cooking. Regional Italian dishes have become familiar in countries around the world. They include bolognaise sauce from Bologna, cassata siciliana (an ice-cream dessert) from Sicily, and from Parma, the smoked parma ham which is often served thinly sliced with fresh figs. Italian restaurants are found in towns and cities in many other countries. Traditionally, the midday meal is the main meal of the day, and a family event. Fresh ingredients are usually used, and packaged “convenience foods” are less common than in many other countries. Fresh raw vegetables, sliced very thinly and arranged in a colorful display, are often served as an appetizer. Common drinks are wine (though often watered down for children) and mineral water. For dessert there is usually fresh fruit and more Italian specialties, ice cream and espresso coffee.

He dipped his fork into the layers of eggplant and cheese. Moments later, it seemed to detonate in his mouth. The pasta, he now realized, had simply been a curtain raiser, carbohydrate to take the edge off his hunger, but this new dish was something else, teasing his appetite awake again, the intensity of the flavors bringing to life taste buds he had never even known existed. The cheese tasted so completely of cheese, the eggplant so rich and earthy, almost smoky; the herbs so full of flavor, requiring only a mouthful of wine to finish them off... He paused reverently and drank, then dug again with his fork. The secondo was followed by a simple dessert of sliced pears baked with honey and rosemary. The flesh of the fruit looked as crisp and white as something Michelangelo might have carved with, but when he touched his spoon to it, it turned out to be as meltingly soft as ice cream. Putting it in his mouth, he was at first aware only of a wonderful, unfamiliar taste, a cascade of flavors which gradually broke itself down into its constituent parts. There was the sweetness of the honey, along with a faint floral scent from the abundant Vesuviani blossom on which the bees had fed. Then came the heady, sunshine-filled fragrance of the herbs, and only after that, the sharp tang of the fruit itself. By the time the pears were eaten, both jugs of wine had been emptied too.

A little farther on she managed to find some zucchini she was happy with, and back in the kitchen he watched as she sorted them into two piles, one of wrist-thick vegetables with veined orange flowers at the end, the other of star-shaped open flowers. "These are pretty," he remarked, picking up one of the blooms. "They taste good too." "You eat the flowers?" he said, surprised. "Of course. We have them stuffed with mozzarella, then dipped in a little batter and fried. But only the male flowers. The female ones are too soft." "I hadn't realized," he said, taking one and tucking it behind her ear, "that flowers could be male and female. Let alone edible." "Everything is male and female. And everything is edible. You just need to remember to cook them differently." "In England we say, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." "How very stupid. A goose has a light taste, so you would cook it in a gentle white wine sauce, perhaps with a little tarragon or oregano. But a gander has a strong, gamey flavor. It needs rich tastes: red wine, perhaps, or mushrooms. It's the same with a gallina, a hen, and a pollastrello, a cock." She glanced sideways at him. "If the English try to cook a pollastrello and a gallinathe same way, it explains a lot." "Such as?" he asked, curious. But she was busy with her cooking, and only rolled her eyes at him as if the answer were too obvious to mention.