It’s a common occurrence around midnight, when you’ve been walking around town for hours with your friends and dinner is just a distant memory, rendered a little fuzzy perhaps by one or two glasses too many—that’s when your body needs starch. I personally am not crazy about sweets—I’d never trade a braided mozzarella or a cacciatorino salami for a slice of cake; for that matter, I wouldn’t trade Amtrak’s finest pepperoni pizza for a Popsicle. But a cornetto is a cornetto. Plain, with cream filling or chocolate filling, grande or mini, it’s always a satisfying treat. Especially after midnight, when the fatally alluring aroma of freshly baked pastries comes wafting down a dark street.
We headed over to a cornettaro we knew near St. Peter’s, and between after-game commentary on the tied score and gobbling down the delicious piping hot buns we held gingerly in our hands, we were quickly and happily full.
Once again, I was proud of how Liz acquitted herself. Whenever I took her out to eat, she never disappointed. She was just like me: she could eat and eat and never seemed to gain weight. Neither she nor I, as far as we knew, had tapeworms, though my family and friends have often theorized that this might be the reason I was able to eat, overeat, and then have a little more, without ever gaining a pound.
We said good night to Alessandro and Paolo and climbed onto my trusty scooter. When I pulled up in front of Liz’s house, I told her, “Buona notte.”
“Buona notte to you, Luca! Thanks for taking me to the stadium—I’m sorry we didn’t win but only tied.”
“Aw, don’t worry about it. You tie sometimes—it happens. You know what we say in Rome when something’s not a problem?”
“No. What do you say?”
“ ’Sti cazzi!”
This time there wasn’t a hint of sadness in her smile.
18
Little More Time with You
Every so often, Liz would vanish. I’d send her an e-mail to say hello and get no answer back. A few days later I’d text her, and she’d text back, one time from Naples, another from Sicily, or Lucca or Venice or Bologna. When she went to Sardinia, though, I knew in advance. I was embarrassed and ashamed to have to say I’d never been there myself. My grandmother is from Sardinia, so it seemed an act of disrespect toward her that I had never visited her birthplace—as much as I’d like to and as fascinating as I find the place. I’ve seen the Grand Canyon three times. I’ve spent the night in Wilkes-Barre. I’ve traveled all over New Jersey. I’ve crossed America coast to coast a number of times, in all manner of vehicles and means of transportation. But I’ve never been to the island where my grandmother was born! I should have seized that opportunity to go there with Liz, but work kept me from going.
Every time she came back to town, Liz sent me a text message to let me know. And every time she returned, it made me happy—happier every time. I waited anxiously to hear about her experiences—especially her dining experiences—in the various places she’d visited. For instance, her Sardinian meals, dining on porceddu and cannonau .
My new friend loved food and was always happy to explore new cuisines. I was starting to worry, though, about what awaited her in the months to come. I’d known for a while about her plan to travel to India, where she planned to live in an ashram, followed by three months in Bali. The idea of the ashram captured my imagination, as did the prospect of India in general: I love Indian food (especially the way my friend Madhuri cooks shrimp). Still, after wading through meal after meal with Liz as my stalwart companion, I wondered how she’d manage to survive in a genuine Indian ashram.
Well, I have to admit that I didn’t really know what life was like in an ashram, but I imagined a forced diet of air and vegetables. Liz, cross-legged in perpetual meditation, focused with all her spiritual forces on trying to reject the wicked thoughts that the devil or the demon might send her: spaghetti alla carbonara and bucatini alla amatriciana , saltimbocca alla romana and maialino al forno, orata con patate and melanzane alla parmigiana. Knowing her as I did, I understood she’d have to draw on superhuman strength to resist thoughts of this kind.
By now, Liz was able to navigate with remarkable skill through the sea of Roman culinary lore. Still, there was one last exam she’d have to take before receiving the Certification of Roman Quality, before she could be given the key to the city’s kitchen: pajata.
Pajata is the name in Roman dialect for the small intestine of a milk-fed veal calf, processed by the skilled hands of the butcher-cum-surgeon, who reduces it to sections between four and eight inches in length. Then he ties them with a string. They are then seared with a sauté of chopped herbs and cooked at considerable length with wine and tomato, until a dense and exquisite sauce forms, ready to be spooned onto a steaming dish of rigatoni. Every Roman adores pajata. And even more than the pajata itself, every Roman loves watching the face of his guest in the awful moment when they realize the uncomfortable truth about what they are eating.
It was as we were digging into two steaming bowls of rigatoni with pajata that I expressed to Liz my worries about her nutritional well-being in the ashram.
“Liz, are you sure you’re going to be able to survive this experience in India?”
“Don’t worry, Luca. I’ve built up plenty of reserves here in Italy, and I can’t imagine restricting my intake of food will really hurt me.”
“That makes sense. Still, you love food! And you’re hardly a vegetarian teetotaler—if when you’re there all they give you to eat is water and vegetables, then I’m going to be worried about your health.”
“Well, to be honest, I have no idea what it’ll be like. Of course, a diet of vegetables and water would be a challenge, but I can do it for a while.”
“Okay, but just remember, even if they put you on a vegetarian diet, you can always eat pajata!”
“But, Luca, isn’t pajata meat?”
“No, Liz . . . it’s shit!”
The interminable seconds of terror that petrify the gaze of the person who receives that illuminating answer are a priceless spectacle.
Still, Liz didn’t seem too upset. Truth is, when eating in Italy, she didn’t seem very worried about “technical” details. If she liked something—and she liked practically everything—she ate it with gusto. The same thing went for pajata.
In the meantime, Liz, to my immense satisfaction, was becoming a full-fledged Lazio fan. She came with us to the stadium a second time, this time in the afternoon with her Swedish friend Sofie for a championship game, and a couple of times to the pub, to watch Lazio away games. This time, the spectacle of Lazio fans, although on a smaller scale and in a slightly more intimate atmosphere, was still pretty colorful. I watched my friend as she sipped her beer and watched the game. It struck me that she felt at home and that her heart was finally at peace. I was happy to see her happy. I liked to think—I hoped—that I was at least in part responsible for it.
By now we could begin to feel the chill of November, even in Rome. Something happened that was all too rare: I felt like celebrating my birthday. It’s not that I don’t care about my birthday; in fact, it’s a sacred day to me. It’s just that I don’t much like organizing parties, especially for myself, because on my birthday I always seem to be in a trance. And when people give me presents, I stand there like an idiot and break down, a victim of my own swelling emotions.
That year I was up for it, though, partly because this time there was a special coincidence: my birthday was on a Friday and that Thursday was Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is an American festivity that has always fascinated me: a holiday during which family warmth and human connections reign untroubled, a holiday of happiness for friends and relatives who see each other only once a year on that special day—and, most important to me, a holiday during which giant turkeys reign!
I absolutely had to seize the opportunity. I had a new American friend—an excellent, enthusiastic eater—who would be in Rome on Thanksgiving, which was almost the same day as my birthday that year. How could I fail to ta
ke advantage of this chance to make a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner?
I started courting Liz, begging her to teach me how to stuff and roast a turkey. I would take a day off work and become her sous-chef, helping her from the beginning to the end of the process of preparing this delicacy that struck me as so exotic.
In the end, although she had serious doubts about how it would turn out, Liz agreed. Her doubts were largely based on the fact that both she and I prefer eating to cooking. She would arrange to find the correct recipes, with a list of all the kinds of food and ingredients that would be difficult to obtain in Italy. We’d do our best to come up with adequate substitutes. Then we’d go shopping for everything we needed, and I’d take care of the rest.
We decided where to have the dinner: at Velletri, in the Castelli Romani, the villa that belonged to my friends Mario and Simona, which was where the John Horse Quartet had held its rehearsals. The guest list would include—aside from the owners of the house and their twin thirteen-year-old girls, Sara and Giulia—Giuliana, Liz, and Paolo, my friend from the Stadio Olimpico, with his girlfriend Sara. Unfortunately, my brother and Alessandro wouldn’t be able to come. At the last minute, two of Liz’s friends confirmed they’d be joining us: Deborah, a psychologist who lives in Philadelphia and who had come to stay with her for a few days, and Sofie.
At first, Liz did her best to restrain my enthusiasm. She patiently tried to explain to me, as you might a child, what a mammoth organizational enterprise it is to make stuffed turkey for eleven. The turkey would have to be huge, and the cooking times geological, if not actually biblical . . .
Still, I was determined. I swore I’d find a smaller turkey, maybe a newborn turkey, and it would be just a symbolic gesture. Everyone could have just a bite. So the morning of the party, I started my desperate hunt for a turkey. An old friend of mine who was a butcher soon disabused me of all hope, revealing the awful truth: if you want a whole turkey in Rome, you need to order it several years in advance.
But I wasn’t ready to give in: this was my first Thanksgiving and I was determined to have my turkey. As I usually do, I insisted on seeing the glass as completely full, and I kept trying in various butcher’s shops. The answer was always the same. By noon, I had to admit that even if I finally was able to find a turkey, we’d never be able to cook it in time. And I still had to go shopping with Liz for all the rest of the ingredients, and then she’d have to prepare the stuffing, chopping up pounds and pounds of bread—as per the recipe, which she had miraculously obtained from back home in the United States.
I thought to myself that life can really be tough sometimes. So what’s the solution? Surrender? Never!
And so I said to myself the single most illogical thing I could: “ ’Sti cazzi! I’m buying the turkey anyway!”
And that’s just what I did. But not a whole turkey: just four or five pounds of turkey breast. I hurried over to Liz’s house, we did the rest of the shopping, and I left her at home ripping bread into small pieces. Then we were finally ready to leave for Velletri, which is at least an hour’s drive from Rome. Along the way, in the car with Liz, Deborah, and Sofie, I was upset. The traffic was horrible, I was afraid we’d get there late, and I felt like all I’d organized was a huge mess, instead of a party. Everything kept going exactly the opposite of how I wanted it to go.
When we finally got to Velletri, I was reassured by the human warmth I felt from Giuliana, Mario, Simona, Sara, and Giulia, and their beautiful house in the verdant countryside. And even though I was bewildered by the array of emotions I had experienced that day, I noticed that the guests needed no introductions. They had already made friends and seemed to be at their ease.
So, with everyone’s help, we started cooking under Liz’s direction and Deborah’s supervision. They were the two Americans who possessed the secrets of the stuffing that we were going to fill the turkey with—except we’d never fill anything. All we had was turkey breast; the mixture of dates, sausage, parsley, and other mysterious ingredients would simply be served alongside the breast of our poor unsuccessful turkey.
We opened a couple bottles of wine while Operation Tacchino (Italian for “turkey”) continued, and we talked about the event that had led to the very first Thanksgiving, the meeting between the Pilgrim Fathers and the Native Americans.
The time had come to taste the stuffing. A few seconds of suspense and the almost incredulous smiles of Liz and Deborah confirmed to all those present that the stuffing was ready and actually quite good. I felt a little less tense, even though the ultimate test was yet to come: from my privileged position at the head of the table, I would await the reaction of my ravenous fellow diners. I was ready to turn and run if things went badly.
But everyone seemed happily surprised at their first taste of turkey alla Luca Spaghetti. Liz and Deborah told me that it tasted just like a genuine American stuffed turkey, and that was a source of great joy to me. I know, I know—it doesn’t take much. But isn’t it worth being joyful when Thanksgiving falls right next to your own birthday and you get to spend it with the people you’re closest to, with a delicious turkey and a fine bottle of wine—or two, or three, or who’s counting?
I was happy, confused, and thrilled—and once again I had seen that it’s always a good idea to be an optimist. What would have happened if I hadn’t shouted at myself: “ ’Sti cazzi!”?
I thanked all my friends for the love and generosity they’d shown in helping me to achieve my funny wish for my birthday/Thanksgiving dinner. I asked them all to join me in a cheerful toast, and I promised them that the first thing I’d do the following morning was go out and order a turkey for next Thanksgiving.
By this time, everyone at the table was laughing and talking happily. Most important, to my immense relief I saw that I was safe from my greatest fear: that the evening might be one of chilling silence between Americans, Italians, and Swedes who not only didn’t know one another, but didn’t even all speak the others’ languages. Instead, I noticed with pleasure that everyone—including the two twin girls—spoke in their own language with the others, and no one seemed to have any trouble understanding anyone else. To my eyes, there was something miraculous about it all. At that table there were no barriers of age, nationality, or language; I couldn’t tell who was a local and who was an American; and as I savored the magic of this tableful of people, I began to feel myself overwhelmed by a wave of emotion.
Just then Deborah stood up and asked for everyone’s attention. She urged us to honor one of the oldest customs of this holiday. She asked each of us to take turns saying what we were thankful for. Until that evening, I had never heard Giuliana speak in public, but she went first. Absolute silence fell as she thanked me—me!—for standing by her at a difficult time in her life. The intensity with which Giuliana spoke these words seemed contagious. All the others—Sara, Giulia, Deborah—spoke with equal intensity, expressing their own personal thanks.
Everyone sitting around the table was deeply moved, myself more than anyone else. Giuliana was holding my hand tight and Liz was sitting across the table from us, weeping but still extending a smiling embrace to me with her eyes.
In life, sometimes, there are these inexplicable situations, moments that become truly special out of who knows what sort of mysterious alchemy. It is a very rare thing to be so lucky as to realize it and perceive that quality of a moment when it’s happening. I had that rare piece of good fortune. That was one of the finest evenings of my life, and I knew it was happening the whole time. I savored that profound happiness, organically, every second of the evening. I was fully aware that a pinch of optimism and self-awareness can turn a turkey breast into a miraculous evening.
After dinner—just like after every dinner at the villa in Velletri—we got out our guitars. After all, 60 percent of the John Horse Quartet was present, and we couldn’t think of leaving our sense of joy unexpressed to the world. We played and sang everything we could think of: Neil Young, Jackson Browne, America, the
Bee Gees, the Beatles, and—of course—James Taylor. The evening ended with me and Liz singing a duet of “Sweet Baby James.” But instead of “sleeping in the canyons,” I climbed into my car and, with three women half asleep around me, headed back to Rome. My heart was bursting with joy and dawn was peeking over the horizon.
The two and a half months since Liz first walked into my life had slipped by without my noticing it. The city was dressing itself up for Christmas, and even though I was reluctant to admit it to myself, I knew perfectly well that my friend would soon be leaving.
So I did my best to exploit every opportunity I had to spend time with her, from a quick beer in a pub to another Lazio soccer game to one of our Pantagruelian dinners. Still, the days flew by inexorably, and I felt sadder with every day that passed. Not only was I sad, but in a certain sense I felt cheated: rarely in my life have I met anyone with whom I felt such a strong affinity, with whom there was such a natural and immediate sense of complicity, with whom such a powerful and lasting fondness has sprung up so quickly. Life had given me a wonderful gift, a new friend, and now life was taking her away.
Part of me wanted to beg Liz to stay a little longer, but I couldn’t think of interfering with her plans. It would have been selfish. She had a right to spend Christmas with her family, and then leave again, this time for India. Although, with a note of despair, I had to wonder how she’d be able to write me from the ashram. With all the praying and spiritual retreating she’d be doing, was she likely to find her way to an Internet café like the ones she spent so much time in in Rome?
Two days before she left, I took Liz back to Anzio for a last dinner with Giuliana. On the way back from Anzio, before I dropped her off at her apartment, we stopped on a bridge over the Tiber in the darkness of late night. Liz dropped a note in saying good-bye to the city of Rome. The paper slid away on the dark water, breaking the reflection of the stars, which, magically, came back into existence behind it. As I looked around, I silently prayed to my Rome to do something, to reveal itself in all its splendor—lovely, romantic, a little bit bawdy, seductive and tempting as only Rome knows how to be—and persuade Liz to stay for just a few more days. I looked out at Rome, and I watched Liz look out at Rome, and I wished that time could stand still.
Un Amico Italiano Page 15