On this particular evening, my husband and I are cooking a recipe of Marcella Hazan's. Nothing fancy. But splendid. Steaks (pan sauteed), finished in a sauce of sweet and dry vermouth, garlic, tomato paste, and red pepper flakes, reduced to a shining unctuous glaze; oven-roasted potatoes with rosemary; insalata mista with soft lettuces.
The salad is his responsibility.
My husband is working with the Boston lettuce at the sink. It's organic. Hydroponic. We're careful about what we eat. And organic tastes better— not like a chemistry experiment.
We shop at Whole Foods. We spend a fortune. But we tell ourselves it's money well spent. Cooking is our hobby. We don't eat out. We don't go to the theater. We can justify how much we spend on food if we shift some food expenses over to entertainment.
The lettuce we've bought comes with a little tail of roots in case you want to plant it instead of eat it. (We don't.) It comes in its own little plastic house so that nothing can crush it as it makes its way from the farmer to your home. I am grateful for the care that is taken with this lettuce. At least someone cares about doing something well these day.
I am chopping garlic. And he is preparing the lettuce. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him take the little root clump in his fist to twist it free. But these roots must be cut away with a very sharp knife. And I know that if he continues, all those lovely little lettuce leaves will be crushed and mangled. And I must stop this. At once.
"Stop that!" I shout. "You're supposed to cut the roots of the lettuce away, not wring its goddamned neck!"
I bound across the kitchen, butcher knife in hand, as if I am ready for assassination. I pull the lettuce away, rescue it. I take it over to my work station to examine it. I am acting like the lettuce is one of our children, at risk from his father's brutality.
"Jesus Christ," he says. "You could have told me nicely. I would have listened. You don't have to shout." But otherwise, he says nothing. He is practicing self-control. And he is succeeding.
I am ashamed.
Ashamed, like the day I was cooking Brussels sprouts.
The Brussels sprouts.
I am the only person I know with a Brussels-sprout-shaped scar on my thigh. I will tell you how it happened, although it is not a pretty story.
One day, I am cooking Brussels sprouts for dinner. Why I am cooking Brussels sprouts, that piss-tasting vegetable preferred by the English, in an Italian American kitchen is because I am in my Anglomaniac period. (The Belgians believe that Roman legions brought the Brussels sprout to Brussels. But I don't believe it. Unless they brought them there, and left them. I've never found a recipe for Brussels sprouts in an Italian cookbook. And I've never seen one in Italy. Though I've been told that if they're very, very young, and if you saute them in very hot oil till they go crisp, they're good. But I don't believe it.)
Anyway, when I'm cooking these Brussels sprouts, I'm writing about Virginia Woolf and going to England a lot. As I said, I'm in my Anglomaniac period, which lasts five years. I am cooking Brussels sprouts and other English things like trifle, and bangers and mash. To admit that I cooked bangers and mash is difficult. I persuaded myself that these were good things to eat, that Virginia Woolf ate these things, and that, in eating them, I was growing closer to her, understanding her.
I didn't consider that if Virginia Woolf knew me, knew where my people came from, knew what they had done for a living, knew how I had supported myself with strange odd-jobs throughout my adolescence, knew that we lived in a tenement, she certainly wouldn't have invited me to her parties, no matter how smart I was.
In 1908, Virginia Woolf travels to Italy and keeps a diary. She has nothing much to say about Italy— about Milan, Florence, Assisi, Perugia, Siena. She likes the colors of the houses. She remarks that in Italy you are constantly reminded of history. She writes a bit about a fresco she sees. She says that she thinks the priests in Siena are handsome. She says nothing about the food; she doesn't eat pasta. (About this, I should have been suspicious. To travel to Italy, and not mention the food. And not eat pasta.)
She compares everything she sees to England, and finds it wanting. The strangeness of this place, of the people's ways, disorients her. Except for the occasional walk, or a bit of sightseeing, she spends most of her time in her room, reading the novels of Thomas Hardy and George Meredith at a furious pace, to keep herself from realizing where she is, to remind herself of England, the superiority of its landscape, of its civilization.
In Florence, she meets an Anglo-Italian countess, a woman reputed to be extremely intelligent. After a brief meeting, Woolf decides that, no, this woman isn't intelligent; her reputation for learning is unfounded. She is a peasant in disguise, and therefore loathsome, as peasants are. She behaves like a child. Oh, the countess can feel, Woolf concedes. But the feelings of Italians always becloud their reason.
About the Brussels sprouts.
The night that I am cooking them, I plan on dressing them simply, with a little brown butter, caraway seeds, salt, and pepper. They will accompany the pork chops I'm sauteing and finishing in the oven.
But while they're boiling, my husband and I start fighting. We fought a lot in those days, though I can't remember what this fight was about. Probably about nothing important, because we agree about everything that is important— politics, and the importance of family, and what to eat for dinner.
On this night, I get so angry that I pick up the pot of Brussels sprouts, and fling the Brussels sprouts (boiling water and all) at him. I don't hit him, thank goodness. But one waterlogged sprout lands on my thigh and burns me.
The burn heals in time, of course. But the scar is still there. And it is shaped exactly like a Brussels sprout. So that each time I undress, each time I bathe, there it is, that Brussels sprout scar, to remind me that I am a dangerous woman, and that the kitchen is a hazardous place for me.
On the night I yell at my husband for how he desecrates the lettuce, I apologize. We are both trying (and usually, now, successfully) not to fight. We are married nearly forty years, and we should know how to get along, how to have a serene and joyful life together. (I don't say, but think, we should figure this out before one of us dies.)
My husband accepts my apology. "I'm used to it," he says. "You're always crazy in the kitchen." And then, because he's taking Italian lessons, is trying to be Italian Italian, he says "pazza nella cucina."
"Crazy in the kitchen." The words come back. I admit that, yes, I am crazy in the kitchen. And one day, I hope I will not be. I hope that I can become, in the kitchen, the person I am in other places. I can work on this, I know. Can work on it the way I work on perfecting my breads, my muffins, my minestrones, my pastas, my risotto. With care, attention, reverence, and discipline.
And though I know that the voice that derided him about the way he handled the lettuce was not my voice, but my mother's voice, I know that it is my voice too, and that it is too late in my life to use my mother as an excuse. I know I act this way, this crazy-in-the-kitchen way, because I want the food I make to be perfect. With each perfect meal I make, I can undo the past. Undo that my mother couldn't feed me, undo her fury at my grandmother. Undo my father's violence. Undo my ancestors' history.
I act as if, through this alchemy at the stove, I can erase my past instead of reliving it. But reliving it I am— all the fury of it, all the battles, all the despair. And must stop reliving it.
THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER
My father takes a little piece of cardboard, pulls a pencil from the pocket of his shirt, draws a diagram of the neighborhood in Italy where he lived for a year when he was a child: a little village called Scafati, in the province of Campania.
He shows the location of a road, the Via Nova, that passed through Pompeii on its way to Salerno; another road, perpendicular to the first, in Scafati. A piazza. A fountain. A church. A small river near the church. A house by the river. The canning factory down the second road, where his mother worked.
"This is where we l
ived," he tells me, pointing to a little square he's drawn to represent his family's home. "This is what I want you to find."
Scafati is not too far from Positano, where we're staying, the village where his mother lived when she was a girl. But before we go to Scafati, we want to see if we can find any members of my grandmother's family living in Positano.
We've asked the owner of the hotel, whose family has been here for generations, if he knows anyone with my grandmother's maiden name. He says he doesn't, says that it was common for entire families to leave the village at the same time. During the great emigration, people left in large numbers because it was difficult to grow food in Positano, for there is no arable land. The village is situated in a fault in the earth's crust; the houses, terraced into the limestone and limestone dolomite of the mountainside; its terrain is some of the most rugged in the region. To grow anything, even today, you must cart soil into the village from far away, and unless you own property elsewhere, you must buy the soil. If you are poor, the soil is too expensive to buy.
As I walk the alleyways and staircases of the village, I wonder whether every house I pass is the one she lived in; whether she went to school here— probably she didn't; wonder whether she played by the seaside; whether she helped her mother carry water from the well.
Positano is achingly beautiful. Still, this upscale resort was once so poor, so isolated, so incapable of sustaining its people, that in 1931, fewer than two thousand people remained. "The people move out, the tourists move in," the hotel owner says. I go to Santa Maria Assunta to light a candle in the Starry Chapel in memory of my paternal grandmother, as I have lighted candles for my mother's mother and my stepmother in every church I visited in Puglia. This ancient church is where my grandmother worshipped as a child. But as I traverse the little alleyways and stairways leading to the sea, I see little girls in white dresses carrying lilies, little suited boys trailed by relatives moving slowly, reverentially along. Today is their First Holy Communion.
As the procession moves inside, the organ begins to play. Then there is a moment of silence.
A group of old women sitting together sing "Maria Madonna," their voices deep, guttural, dirgelike. This is church music unlike any I have heard before. It is not joyful; it instead honors life's inevitable sorrows, even in moments of celebration.
I light my candle and imagine my grandmother, more than a century ago, taking her First Communion here. I see her moving slowly, up the center aisle, surrounded by her family. My family.
I am connected to this place, although by a very fragile thread. Who I am, who I have become, is rooted in this beautiful place that my grandmother's family was forced to leave.
I want to stay in Positano. I don't want to go to Scafati. I've looked on a map, and it is a winding drive from Positano up the Amalfi coast, and around and through a confluence of highways leading to Naples. No matter how hard I stare at the map, I can't figure out how to get to Scafati, can't figure out how to find my father's home. When my father tells me about Scafati, he recites a well-known jingle about the place: "Scafati, scefeti, malacqua, malagente, pure erbe et malamen-ti." He writes the words down as best he can, probably incorrectly. Though he doesn't translate the saying, the meaning is clear. There is a lot of bad stuff in Scafati— water, people, and bad things that grow.
My father planned to come to Italy with us, but he's not well enough now to travel, might never again be well enough to travel. He says it's all right; if he dies today, he has no regrets, he's lived a good life.
But he wants me to find where he lived, take a picture, come home and tell him what it's like now.
Though I know our chances of finding my father's house are slim, I promise him I'll try. He's old now, and rarely asks me to do anything for him. "This is the least I can do," I think. And Scafati is a place with meaning for me too.
My father is old now, his memory imperfect. He can't remember which way is north, which is south, or, on second thought, whether the fountain is by the church or down the road. Whether his house was one or two blocks away from the church, or many.
I take his diagram, ask a few questions, scribble a few notes, hope for the best. In one corner of the diagram he's written a name: Joseph Bulari. A relative, he says. The man who owned the canning factory where my grandmother worked.
"Stop someone in the square," my father suggests. "Ask them if they know him. When we lived there, everybody knew him. He was a factory owner, a big shot. If you can find him, he'll show you where we lived, show you where my grandmother lived, show you the factory he owned, show you everything."
"But Dad," I say, "how old was he when you lived there?"
"A grown man," my father says. "A prosperous man. An important man."
"Then he's gotta be dead by now," I say.
"Oh yes," my father says. "Of course. But maybe you'll find someone who knew him."
"Why don't we tell him that we tried to find where he lived, but couldn't?" This is my husband talking, on the morning that we're supposed to find the house by the river in Scafati.
It's one of those mornings to cherish, when you want to abandon your plans to find the village where your father lived, and sit on a little patio looking at what you'll probably never see again, this village tucked into a bowl in a mountain, with colorful houses stacked like children's blocks, with its tile-roofed domed cathedral so near the sea, this improbable place where your grandmother once lived when it was a poor and desolate fishing village with people in astonishing numbers leaving for America and other parts of Italy. So that, by the time your grandmother left, there were hardly any people living there at all.
You want to go nowhere else this day. You want to look at the water, at the village, at the cathedral for hours, to imprint them in your memory, so you can revisit them to warm you on another day— a wet and rainy one in New Jersey in mid-October. You know that, though you may want to, you will never return here again.
On this day, the sky is cloudless. The sea, glistening. The breakfast, magnificent— little pastries, cappuccino, freshly squeezed orange juice.
There is the possibility of pizza for lunch, in a little restaurant above the water on the Via Positanesi d'America, that street named to honor emigrants who sent money back home from America so the lives of those who stayed behind would be less harsh.
Why leave this place on such a beautiful day to find a place where an old man lived more than eighty years before? Why drive many miles on a dangerous road that switchbacks up and down mountainsides? Why thread your way through a maze of highways, trying to find the right road? Why stop people and ask, in execrable Italian, if they can tell you how to get to the village, to a church by a river that has a fountain? Sorry, you don't know the name of the church. Sorry, you can't tell them the name of the river. Sorry, you have no idea, really, where this church or river is, except that it's in Scafati, and that your father lived there some eighty years ago.
"We won't find it," my husband says, "so we shouldn't go." But I say, "I gave my word."
I know that finding this place, if we find it at all, won't be fun. My husband will be driving because he can't read maps, can't navigate. He gets distracted, engrossed in the scenery, forgets to look at the map, turns the map around and around because he can't figure out whether we're heading north, south, east, or west, can't figure out whether we should turn right or left at the intersection where he's not absolutely sure we should turn at all. Which means that I navigate. He drives.
But although I read maps well— flawlessly, in fact, if I do say so myself— when I tell my husband to turn this way or that, he might not take the turn I indicate. Maybe he's drifting off and not listening to me. Maybe he's mesmerized by the road. Maybe, though he hasn't even looked at the map, he doubts I know which way to go, though I always do know which way to go.
And so I know we'll miss an important turn. I'll become exasperated. It will take three quarters of an hour for us to get back to the right turnoff. And I'll be p
issed that he didn't listen to me.
I know that it will be a hellish day— him driving, me navigating. Or, as I tell people, him driving, me navigating and screaming.
I know I'll say something awful to him. He'll tell me to calm down, chill out. I'll tell him I won't calm down, chill out. When I travel, I like to know, at all times, where I am and where I'm going. I don't like to stumble upon places by chance. I plot routes carefully. Check and double-check directions.
(Once, a friend I'm traveling with tells me to put away my map, to enjoy the scenery. I say I can't put away the map, can't enjoy the ride unless I know exactly where I am. She tells me you always know exactly where you are because you're always exactly where you are. "Very Zen," I say, nasty. She laughs. I laugh. But I don't put away the map.)
I know that at some point, and well before my husband and I get to where we're going, he'll be hungry. He'll want a snack, a cup of espresso, or a real meal. "What's the rush?" he'll ask, when I say we shouldn't stop. "Why can't we enjoy the journey as well as the arrival?"
On this day, as always, I will insist we press on, though I know that if he isn't fed, we're sure to start fighting. So I will concede and we'll try to find a bar, a cafe, a trattoria. But not just any bar, any cafe, any trattoria. We'll try to find one that's charming.
This will take a long time. This will take us out of our way. This will require superior map-reading skills on my part to get us back on track, to get us to where we're going.
(Once, years ago, my husband, our two sons, both young adults, and I were driving from Rome to Florence on the Autostrada, and we were hungry. It was well past noon. I suggested an autogrill on the highway. I knew that you could get wonderful panini, a respectable pizza, a lovely tricolore there.
But no, they decided they wanted a glorious picnic in a bucolic setting overlooking Florence. And that we'd pick up fixings for the picnic in Florence. "By the time we get to Florence," I say, "there'll be no place open to buy food for a picnic."
Crazy in the Kitchen Page 16
