Codename Cappuccino

For shame

At times like these, chronicling my very stupid odyssey in cheez seems positively gratuitous, and that is me being charitable. On a good day, I might defend these idle blatherings by saying that everyone needs an escape now and then. Perhaps you, dear reader, have reached Peak Despair at the cavalcade of outrages that He Who Must Not Be Named has committed his first week in orifice (not a typo). And maybe it's worth wading through my own self-indulgent musings for occasional nuggets of diversion, such as the one I'll be extolling presently. I can only hope that my own little version of talk (type) therapy is of value to someone besides me.

Allora.

It seems that the Tuscans have a habit of bequeathing their friends and loved ones with pointed nicknames. Often they are designed to be illustrative of the object's best-known flaw/most embarrassing attribute, or evocative of some private joke or long-forgotten anecdote that may or may not be revelatory of the owner's character. 

While I pride myself on being somewhat worldly, especially when it comes to cultural customs and MOST especially when these customs involve food, last weekend I had a bit of a slip up. Nay, a catastrophic lapse. I had the incredible fortune to tag along with one Gernot Kollmann of Immich Batterieberg as he took a group of his village winemakers on a grand tour of Chianti and Montalcino. In addition to peeping some stupendously scenic medieval fortresses and abbeys and attempting to retain feeling in my toes whilst scanning the Albarese and Galestro in some ludicrously pictureseque vineyards, I got the chance to meet the inimitable Francesca Padovani of Fontareza, who makes some of the aforementioned Montalcino and exudes badassery from effectively all of her pores. 

The first night I met her, she was holding court at a  QUAINT AS BALLS (per Zagat's) little trattoria called Il Leccio, so named for the oak tree from which "Montalcino" derives its name. This place was, by her description, her living room, as she evidently takes most of her meals there and knows the owner well enough that she can duck into the waiter's station or the cellar to grab whatever she wants. That night, the unending barrage of antipasti (my favorite way to eat -- little bites of savory custards and frittati and crostati and variously sauced vegetables and charcuterie) made main courses (secondi) utterly out of the question and primi mostly superfluous, though I did manage to put away a formidable portion of pici aka pinci aka hand rolled thicker-than-spaghetti-typed-noods sauced with a legitimate ragu that I hesitate to call Bolognese because I'm sure that would not be gastronomically accurate. Even the seemingly unstoppable appetites of my Saxon companions balked at the prospect of roasted meats after the onslaught of plates issuing from the kitchen. The owner was not thrilled. We agreed to go in on a bottle of (corked) local dessert wine to make amends for the unexpectedly small bill. 

The next day proceeded as a series of activities organized around various opportunities for eating, as every day ought to.  As I'd been dragging ass for reasons that made themselves apparent later (menses, bros), I decided that I would be abstaining from a post-lunch dessert (as I mentioned I'm the absolute HEIGHT of asceticism), but would be damned if I would forego a postprandial coffee. 

I was dimly aware of the customs dictating exactly when it is appropriate to ask for milk in your coffee, because TRUST, they exist. But in that horrifying moment when I let the words "cappuccino" fall from my mouth, I didn't remember and didn't care in equal measure. I was hoping no one would notice the potential culinary landmine I skirted, but the waiter, who was a friend of Francesca's, repeated my order loudly enough that F could hear, prompting her to shoot me a look like "ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?" and then proceed to make sounds and gestures illustrating just how embarrassing I was as a member of the human species. Shamefaced, I apologized for being a disgusting American troll while she chided me for the lapse in judgement that made it seem like a good idea to put warm milk into my stomach AFTER a large meal. When you put it that way ... 

The waiter returned with my motherfucking C word and I tried my best to save face by saying that it was really more like a dessert than a REAL coffee, I was just combining the two things to be efficient! To no avail. "Cappuccino!" Francesca snarled at me. "Cappuccino!" seconded the waiter. I hid behind my hands. 

"Cappuccino!" the proprietor called to me as she waved to us from the doorway upon our leave-taking. 

Cappufuckingccino. The only thing worse might've been Starbucks. 

Or, I dunno, Crop Top.

And now that I've amused you with that little anecdote, I feel less guilty inserting a more lugubrious coda into this missive. For infuriating reasons that I won't get into here other than to say they involve the bureaucratic annoyances of work visas and a series of misapprehensions and miscommunications between myself and my employer, my stint here in Tuscany may very well be ending sooner than I had planned. Almost certainly before August, as was originally agreed to, and quite possibly as soon as next week, depending upon the outcome of a conversation with my boss tomorrow. I feel all sorts of conflicted about this. Because, as I've previously stated, in spite of my rather idyllic environs, I have been having a hard time deriving the level of joy one might expect when one is effectively living some mash-up of Under the Tuscan Sun and Eat Pray Love. I have found that the loneliness and confusion and existential nausea I've been trying to outrun for months and maybe years has gotten fucking wise to my shenanigoats and gained in its alacrity with catching up to my old, winded ass. That, coupled with the usual self-doubt the quality of my work and the sinking suspicion that I should be a lot further along in my cheese-ular know how than I am after 2.5 years, as well as the notion that those around me think I'm a straight up freak for being unmarried and kicking around the countryside of Europe pursuing the sorts of things that are mostly the purview of post-collegiate nubiles -- all of this stuff is creating an evil, foreboding goddamned cumulus cloud inside my brain. 

But Jesus Cappuccino Christ, if I have to high-tail it out of here before I've had the chance to commit the perfect ricotta recipe to memory or get at least a LITTLE more proficient in Italian or EAT ACTUAL GOOD PIZZA IN AN ACTUAL PIZZERIA I will never fucking forgive myself. 

Having had to confront the ACTUAL possibility of coming home ("home") to the states, to an uncertain future doing WHAT I don't know, living WHERE I don't know and being forced to DECIDE all of this with a quickness has made me realize the true impetus for my get-out-of-dodge Italian adventure. I mean YEAH it was to learn more cheese stuff. And YES definitely it was to learn Italian and MOST ASSUREDLY it was to eat all of the nation's pizza. But also, it was to defer the oppressive inevitable decision making that I now find myself facing down. What is there to go back to? What have I built? How strong is my imagined network of friends and connections, and how realistically can I lean on them?  WHAT IN THE GODDAMNED HELL DO I WANT? AND HOW DO I GET IT? 

You know, just basic no bigs stuff.

Epilogue/Addendum

On the plus side, I have, rather implausibly, gotten the faintest whiff of spring in the air. It happened first last Tuesday when Ele and I were turned loose to make cheese deliveries to the various small towns betwixt the farm and Florence, wending our way down to San Querico and Impruneta (home to the famous terracotta) all the way to Porta Romana and the narrow alleyways that have become my favorite so far in Florence -- those around the Pitti Palace and Santo Spirito. Just before we arrived in the city proper, we made a pit stop at a butcher shop for a delivery and then popped into the forno across the way for a bite. While laboring over what to shove into my ever chubbier face, I heard Ele explain to the chatty baker lady behind the counter that I was from America, which is evidently the universal sign for "give this woman free bites of all our specialties while lampooning her country of origin for electing a motherfucking imbecile." Fair. Ele nodded at the baker patiently while I stuffed my face with fritelle (these sweet rice dough fritters that they eat at fairs to celebrate whatever saint) and something resembling a fried lasagna noodle dusted with powdered sugar the name of which I did not catch because I was deep in the throes of a sugar induced bliss out.

In spite of my employers' admonition that February and March can be brutal months in Tuscany, the evanescent hint of spring that wafted me-ward on the street in Florence screwed up its adolescent courage and all but enveloped me today as I trudged down our dirt road to discard my recyclables in the bins a confusing distance from the farm. Having been more or less utterly distracted and in my own motherfucking head due to all the aforementioned confusion/uncertainty/weirdness, I have had a hard time stopping to smell the fiori as it were. But the breeze was so delicious that it stopped me dead in my tracks, and rather than looking down at my own feet I paused and gandered at the gorgeous expanse of hills and stone bell towers and stucco houses, heard the indistinct hum of wind and faraway human buzzing, the honking of geese in the middle distance. And when I got back to my little flat, rather than going upstairs into the dark, drafty chambers to sneeze myself into oblivion and putter around making tea and doing stretches and cooking, as one does no matter where one is, I sat on the stone steps outside the negozio and breathed as deeply as my congested-ass nose would allow me to, just still enough that the feral cats that normally keep a healthy distance from me circled closer and closer, until a beautiful greyish blue mottled one, whose coloring reminded me of my recently departed cat friend Zen, posted up on the rocky ledge a few feet away and chirped at me. 

"Cosa?" I asked. And when no answer was forthcoming, I continued: 

"Will you be my friend? I need a friend." 

"Mip," it replied groggily.

"I'll take that as a 'si,'" I assented before scuffling back up the stairs to my house.