From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home(75)

Nun c’è megghiu sarsa di la fami.

Hunger is the best sauce.

—Sicilian proverb





WILD FENNEL




I awoke the first morning of my third summer in Saro’s family home hot and jet-lagged but in the pleasant stupor of a long-forgotten memory—my first trip to the island, when Saro and I had stumbled into a rural trattoria on the northern coast. This memory could have been revived only in Sicily, where the sights, sounds, and smells served as conduits to parts of Saro, events and details that I couldn’t seem to access in Los Angeles. Life after loss was confounding in that way: memories lapsed and then resurrected themselves unexpectedly, almost magically. But that morning, as I lay in the soft morning light in a semi–dream state conjuring up a bygone memory of fennel, I grabbed hold of the magic and held on.

“Let’s stop here,” he had said after we had spent the better part of the day exploring the secondary roads and towns around Hotel Baia del Capitano.

We pulled into a gravel parking lot off the two-lane road parallel to the autostrada.

“It looks closed.” I was a little grumpy, a little hungry, a lot unsure about where I found myself.

“It’s not closed,” he responded.

“How do you know?” I challenged.

“Because it’s 3:00 p.m. And look behind the building. The owners live here.” He pointed to a side building with a laundry line and geraniums in terra-cotta pots flanking the front door. Apparently, those were all the visual clues I should have needed to puzzle out that a chef was inside and the place was not closed.

Moments later, we pushed the door open and found an empty restaurant of ten or so four-top tables. It was simply decorated with a small hand-painted vase on each table, yellow walls the color of the frescoed suns in sacristies all over Tuscany. The guitar riffs of Pino Daniele came from the kitchen. The owner/chef stepped out. He was short and stout, with a face that looked like so many of the faces dotting all the isles of the Mediterranean.

“Salve,” Saro said, greeting him before he could greet us. “Siamo appena arrivati dall’America, possiamo mangiare qualcosa?—We’ve just arrived from America, could we have something to eat?”

It was spring, and the owner/chef explained that he was waiting for swordfish to be brought in by the local fishmonger in anticipation of the dinner service later that day. “We’re not open yet, but since you’ve come from America, I’ll make you pasta. Sedetevi—Sit down.” He pulled back the wooden chairs, turned over two glasses, and reached toward the bar behind him for a liter of Ferrarelle mineral water.

“Di dove siete?—Where are you from?” He pried the top off with an opener from his back pocket.

“Los Angeles.”

“Well, then, how about a plate of wild fennel? I have some growing in back.”

“That’s all we need,” Saro said.

Two plates were placed in front of us. I saw greens, wilted briefly, sautéed in olive oil with a little onion, salted, and then braised in a tomato sauce. The plate was dusted with a shaving of ricotta salata.

“This is Sicilian nature on a plate,” Saro said as he turned his fork, whirling spaghetti into perfect barrel-shaped clusters ready to heave into his mouth. “This dish is spring. Wild fennel makes us know we are alive, no matter what is happening.”

That morning I wanted nothing more than to know that it was possible for me to feel alive, fully alive again. The half living of life after loss was shifting. I wanted to be reminded of the bounty of life. I ached with desire, the possibility exhilarated me.

In the quiet of that morning, I wanted to reach across to Saro and feel the curve of his back. His skin was a thing of shameless softness, a rich sensuality. I wanted to inch closer, near his inhaling and exhaling. I wanted to raise the back of his shirt and reach closer to kiss my favorite landing spot, the skin between his shoulder blades. His back was a constellation of moles. I wanted to dive into Orion’s belt.

I imagined he’d then awaken.

“It’s too early,” his voice would say, gravelly sweet. I poured rich details into the fantasy: a vendor outside our window selling swordfish, just caught, steaks by the kilo; the light of late morning penetrating the shutters of our stark marble room. In my fantasy, the space was cool, but I wouldn’t be fooled. I was imagining us in Sicily in July.

“We have to get up,” I’d say, thinking of breakfast and its ritual of brioche, cappuccino, and inky newspapers. “Saro, you know I hate an empty pastry case.”

“You have to ask the guy to save you one, no?” Saro always believed in befriending the guy at the local coffee bar.

I lay there in bed a little longer, summoning my deepest desires. I imagined his body rolling toward me. How he had smelled of salt and earth, with a hint of cardamom. Thoughts of breakfast receded into the pale stucco walls. “How do you do that?” I wanted to ask him.

“Do what?” he’d say.

“Make me think of dinner before I have had the day’s first coffee?”

“Amore, you would think of dinner with or without me. I just make your dinner better.”

I’d laugh and he’d kiss me. Making love in Sicily had been full of ecstasy. I would demand seconds. Instead, I pulled myself back to reality.