Minimalist Gossip Magazine Cover (49).pdf (23) - Flipbook - Page 27
undrinkable.’
‘Not from the supermarket?’
‘Santa Maria, Lorenzo, do you not respect your Nonna?
‘Of course…’
‘Then follow the recipe. Ciao bello, and remember, work hard
at school.’
‘Nonna, I am 35,’ and she hangs up, Puccini doesn’t, and the
wine bottle is empty. I’ve lost the thread. Who wouldn’t after
that? Then the music stops and the speakers say;
’Lorenzo, follow the recipe not the words. I only used tins in
Britain back then as I had no choice.’
’Start again.’ And she gives me a full list of instructions;
shops, names, addresses, even directions, which I write down then
crash into bed as my family arrive home. I wake with a hammer in
my head and a flea in my ear. My wife says that I was drunk last
night and threw away good food. I head off with dead Nonna’s list
to Fazzi’s Deli where they have meaty, plum tomatoes and quality
pecorino on the wheel. Then to a Turkish greengrocer who has
spinach as strong as tennis rackets, and basil and oregano from a
hot house. At the allotments I find old Berto who has the onions
he used to grow in Barga, and then at the farm shop I collect the
beef and pork joints as instructed which I will mince at home.
Finally, I go to old Uncle Rino, whom I haven’t seen for years.
He airlifts Tuscan grapes from his brother’s vineyard and
ferments wine in his garage in old lemonade bottles. It tastes of
vinegar and lemons and sometimes explodes. I take two bottles and
carry them at arm’s length.
He says,
‘What’s wrong with you? Back home I used to take crates of
bottles up hill to the farmers and no one got hurt, except that
donkey with three legs that was spooked by the bang and fell over
the terraces.’
He won’t accept payment but instead slips five pounds into my
hand like he used to do when I was a schoolboy.
‘Uncle, I am thirty-five now.’ And he laughs, like I’m not.
When I get home with Nonna’s specific ingredients, I make the
pasta on her old wooden board she used to perch between the table
and her belly. I allow the dough to rest while the smalto cools
and the fresh sugo bubbles bright red like Vesuvius. Then I roll
the pasta and cut it into squares. I feed a spoon of smalto onto
each and fold and crimp as she taught us. I lay twelve portions
on wooden trays to dry until Sunday. The phone rings. I answer
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