The Food of Love - Rilegato

Capella, Anthony

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0670033227 ISBN 13: 9780670033225

Casa editrice: Viking Pr, 2004

Riassunto

Enchanted by Italy's rich culture, first-time American visitor Laura finds herself falling for the handsome Tomasso, who woos her with magnificent meals and hides the fact that shy, enamored Bruno is actually the chef. A first novel. 50,000 first printing.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Anthony Capella spends part of each year traveling in Italy. He is based in London and this is his first novel.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

One

In a little side street off the Viale Glorioso, in Rome’s Trastevere, there is a bar known to those who frequent it simply as Gennaro’s. It is, to look at, not much of a bar, being the approximate size and shape of a small one-car garage, but the passing tourist would note that there is room outside for two little tables and an assortment of nonidentical plastic chairs that catch the sun in the morning, while the passing coffee lover would note that there is room inside on the stained zinc counter for a vast, gleaming Gaggia 6000, the Harley-Davidson of espresso machines. There is also room, just, behind the stained zinc counter for Gennaro, widely regarded by his friends as the best barista in all Rome and a very sound fellow to boot.

Which was why, one fine spring morning, twenty-eight-year-old Tommaso Massi and his friends Vincent and Sisto were standing at the bar, drinking ristretti, arguing about love, waiting for the cornetti to arrive from the bakery, and generally passing the time with Gennaro before jumping on their Vespas to go off to the various restaurants around the city that employed them. A ristretto is made with the same amount of ground coffee as an ordinary espresso but half the amount of water, and since Gennaro’s espressos were themselves not ordinary at all but pure liquid adrenaline, and since the three young men were in any case all of an excitable temperament, the conversation was an animated one. More than once Gennaro had to remind them not to all argue at once—or, as the Roman vernacular has it, to parlare ’nu strunzo ’a vota, to only speak one piece of shit at a time.

The unusual strength of Gennaro’s ristretti was the result of his honing the Gaggia’s twin grinding burrs to razor sharpness, packing the basket with the resulting powder until it was as hard as cement, then building up a head of pressure in the huge machine and waiting until the dial showed eighty pounds per square inch before finally allowing the water to blast into the packed coffee. What came from the spout after that was barely a liquid at all, a red-brown ooze with a hanging quality like honey dripping off the end of a butter knife, with a chestnut-colored crema and a sweet, oily tang that required no sugar, only a gulp of acqua minerale and a bite of a sugar- dusted cornetto, if only the bakery had delivered them. Gennaro loved that machine like a soldier loved his gun, and he spent even more time stripping it down and cleaning it than he did making coffee. His goal was to get it up to a hundred PSI, way off the gauge, and make a ristretto so thick you could spread it like jam. Tommaso was privately convinced that even to attempt this feat was to run the risk of the Gaggia’s exploding and taking them all with it, but he respected his friend’s commitment and ambition and said nothing. It was, after all, self-evident that you couldn’t be a great barista without taking risks.

The conversation that morning was about love, but it was also about football. Vincent, who had recently become engaged, was being scolded by Sisto, to whom the idea of restricting yourself to just one woman seemed crazy.

“You might think today that you have found the best woman in the world, but tomorrow”—Sisto flicked his fingers under his chin—“who knows?”

“Look,” Vincent explained patiently, or as patiently as he was capable of, “how long have you been a Lazio supporter?”

“All my life, idiot.”

“But Roma are...” Vincent hesitated. He wanted to say “a better team,” but there was no point in turning a friendly discussion about women into a deadly fight. “...doing better,” he said diplomatically.

“This season. So far. What of it?”

“Yet you don’t start supporting Roma.”

“È un altro paio di maniche, cazzo.* That’s another thing altogether, you dick. You can’t switch teams.”

“Exactly. And why not? Because you have made your choice, and you are loyal to it.”

Sisto was silent for a moment, during which Vincent turned to Gennaro triumphantly and ordered another ristretto. Then Sisto said craftily, “But being a Laziale isn’t like being faithful to one woman. It’s like having dozens of women, because the team is made up of different people every year. So you’re talking shit, as usual.”

Tommaso, who up till now had taken no part in the argument, murmured, “The real reason Vincent and Lucia got engaged is that she said she’d stop sleeping with him unless they did.” His friends’ reactions to this piece of intelligence were interestingly different. Vincent, who had after all told Tommaso this in strict confidence, looked angry, then shamefaced, and then—when he realized that Sisto was looking distinctly envious—pleased with himself.

“It’s true.” He shrugged. “Lucia wants to be a virgin when we marry, just like her mother. So we had to stop sleeping together until we got engaged.”

Vincent’s statement, apparently illogical, drew no comment from his friends. In a country where literal, fervent Catholicism was only a generation away, everyone knew that there were as many grades of virginity in girls as there were in olive oil—which, of course, is divided into extra- virgin (first cold pressing), extra-virgin (second pressing), superfine virgin, extra-fine virgin, and so on, down through a dozen or more layers of virginity and near virginity, before finally reaching a level of promiscuity so unthinkable that it is labeled merely as “pure” and is thus fit only for export and lighting fires.

*Literally, “that’s another pair of sleeves.”

“But at least I’m getting it now,” he added. “I’m sleeping with the most beautiful girl in Rome, who adores me, and we’re going to be married and have our own place. What could be better than that?”

“Tommaso gets it, too,” Sisto pointed out. “And he isn’t getting married.”

“Tommaso sleeps with tourists.”

Tommaso shrugged modestly. “Hey, can I help it if beautiful foreign girls throw themselves at me?”

This amiable conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the cornetti, a tray of tiny sugared croissants, which in turn called for a final caffè before work. While Gennaro flushed the pipes of his beloved Gaggia in readiness, Tommaso received a sharp nudge in the ribs from Sisto, who nodded significantly toward the window.

Coming down the street was a girl. Her sunglasses were tucked up on the top of her head amid a bohemian swirl of blond hair which, together with her calf-length jeans, single-strap backpack, and simple T-shirt, marked her out immediately as a foreigner even before one took in the guidebook entitled Forty Significant Frescoes of the High Renaissance that she was holding open in one hand.

“A tourist?” Sisto said hopefully.

Tommaso shook his head. “A student.”

“And how do you know that, maestro?”

“Her backpack is full of books.”

“Psst! Biondina! Bona!” Sisto called. “Hey! Blondie! Gorgeous!”

Tommaso cuffed him. “That isn’t the way, idiot. Just act friendly.”

It seemed puzzling to Sisto that any girl fortunate enough to be blond and attractive would not be impressed by having the fact pointed out to her, but he allowed himself to be guided by his more experienced friend and closed his mouth.

“She’s coming over,” Vincent noted.

The girl crossed the street and paused next to the bar, apparently oblivious to the admiring stares of the three young men. Then she pulled out a chair, put her backpack on the table, and sat down, arranging her slim legs over the next chair along.

“Definitely a foreigner,” Vincent said sadly. Because every Italian knows that to sit down to drink coffee is bad for the digestion and will therefore be penalized by a surcharge costing three times as much as you’d pay at the bar. “You wait. She’ll ask for a cappuccino.”

Gennaro, watching the pressure gauge of the Gaggia intently, snorted dismissively. No proper barista would dream of serving cappuccino after 10:00 a.m, any more than a chef would offer cornflakes for lunch.

“Buongiorno,” the girl called through the open door. She had a nice voice, Tommaso thought. He smiled at her encouragingly. Beside him, Vincent and Sisto were doing exactly the same. Only Gennaro, behind the zinc counter, maintained a suspicious frown.

“’Giorno,” he mutttered darkly.

“Latte macchiato, per favore, lungo e ben caldo.”

There was a pause while the barista thought about this. Although the young woman had spoken in Italian, she had revealed her origins as much by what she had ordered as by her accent. Latte macchiato—milk with just a splash of coffee, but served in a lungo or large cup, and ben caldo, hot, so that it could be drunk slowly instead of being thrown down the throat in a couple of quick gulps in the proper manner. She was indisputably American. However, nothing she had ordered actually offended propriety—she had not asked for espresso with cream, or decaf, or hazelnut syrup, or skim milk—so he shrugged and reached for the twin baskets of the Gaggia, while the three young men tried to look as handsome as possible.

The girl ignored them. She pulled a map out of her backpack and compared it, with a somewhat perplexed expression, to a page in her guidebook. A telefonino rang in her backpack: she took that out, too, and proceeded to have a conversation that those inside could not overhear. When Gennaro finally judged his macchiato worthy of being served, there was a scuffle to be the one to deliver it to the girl’s table, which Tommaso won easily. He took one of Gennaro’s little cornetti as well, placing it on the saucer and presenting it to the girl with a smile and a muttered, “On the house.” But the girl was engrossed in her call, and her smile of thanks was all too brief. He had time to notice her eyes, though—gray eyes, clear and untroubled, the color of a sea bass’s scales.

Dd

In fact, Laura Patterson was deeply troubled, or as troubled as it is possible for a twenty-two- year-old American girl to be in Rome on a fine spring morning, which was why she was glad to discover tha...

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Viking Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0670033227
• ISBN 13: 9780670033225
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 310