The Food of Love by Anthony Capella Page B

impatiently.
    ‘I’ll do it,’ she said quickly. As she undid the ties Tommaso fell to his knees in front of her, clasping his hands in prayer and muttering in Italian.
    ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
    ‘I’m saying grace,’ he said wolfishly.
     
    Q/eco-n^/a
     
    ‘When there has been time to relish and consume the first
    course, to salute its passing with wine and to regroup the taste buds, the second course comes to the table. If one is ordering
    in a restaurant - one that caters to Italians, not to tourists - the choice of a second course is made after the first course has been eaten. This doesn’t mean that one has made no plans, but that
    one waits to confirm them, to make sure that original intentions and current inclinations coincide …’
    Marcella Hazan, The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
     
    The next morning, Vincent, Sisto and the other early customers at Gennaro’s were greatly entertained to see Tommaso running
    across the road towards the bar, still wet from the shower and
    naked except for a towel around his waist.
    ‘Due cappuccini, Gennaro, presto per favore,’ he shouted. From
    Tommaso’s broad grin it was clear that he had a good reason to be in a hurry, and his friends knew what it was likely to be. They
    greeted him with a round of applause.
    Pausing only to grab a couple of cornetti, Tommaso bore the
    two cups of coffee back across the street, dodging traffic. A Fiat van hooted at him, but although he shouted a ritual Roman insult back - ‘Go and hoot up your wife’s legs, dickhead, there’s more
    traffic up there!’ - his mind was already on other things.
     
    Laura came back into the bedroom from the shower, wrapped in
    a towel, her skin wet and glistening in the early morning sunlight and her hair plastered back across her head.
    ‘You’re beautiful,’ Tommaso said sincerely. LSei bellissima,
    Laura.’ He picked up a little digital camera from a table. ‘Smile?’
    She smiled and he pressed the button. ‘Now, come back to bed.’
    He patted the space beside him, where the tray of breakfast waited invitingly.
    She got back into bed and put her arms around him. He took
    a little froth from his cappuccino and flicked it on to the end of her adorable nose. She laughed, so he took her cup from her and, placing it carefully on the floor, turned to kiss her. After a
    moment’s hesitation she wriggled into his arms, kissing him
    urgently, pushing back at him along the length of her body.
     
    Laura had to run to get to her first lecture, but she managed to find time to phone Carlotta on the way. The first question her
    friend asked, of course, was: ‘So?’
    ‘Uh - I probably went a little further than I’d intended,’ Laura admitted.
    Carlotta’s second question: ‘And? What did he cook?’ She was,
    after all, an Italian, and while any two chiavati are pretty much the same, no two meals ever are.
    As Laura described the menu, item by item, and tried to do justice to the taste and flavour of each, there was a series of gasps and hisses at the other end of the phone.
    ‘White asparagus? From Brenta? With zabaione) My God,
    Laura, that’s a fantastic dish. I’ve only had it once, and I still remember it.’
    ‘That was the high point,’ Laura admitted.
    ‘Cam, I’m so jealous. Maybe I’ll have to come down and visit.
    What’s he cooking next time?’
    ‘He didn’t say. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’m at my lecture and
    I’m late.’
    The college campus was housed in a Renaissance villa set in a
    garden of pine trees and fountains on the Janiculum Hill. As Laura had guessed, the lecture she was meant to be at had already
    started, and she took a seat next to Judith in the seminar room as unobtrusively as possible.
     
    ‘So,’ Kim Fellowes, the lecturer, was saying, ‘the High
    Renaissance. A period of just thirty years, between 1490 and the sack of Rome in 1520, during which the patronage of a Pope and
    the talents of just a few dozen artists created