Menu Turistica, Episode I

On the matter of eating alone: a single woman peering into the interior of a restaurant creates an odd set of anxieties. A couple or a group in the process of evaluating a potential dining establishment possesses a collective confidence. But a woman alone—a woman standing and staring, breeze catching the edge of her coat and face illuminated by the interior lights—she appears unsure, naive, lonely. It does not matter how studied her approach. She seeks comfort, lovely plates, alluring odors, friendly staff, and a table in a corner where she will be left to her own. Looking up, guests are startled by her, other patrons brush past her on their way in, the wait staff wonder if she is a mere begger.

Elena hated the thought of it, so she rushed into restaurants and regretted her rashness—or she spent hours walking quickly, confidently, hungrily, past restaurant after restaurant. She could not decide which was worse, a faulty choice (regretted instantly), an appearance of hesitance, or enduring the terrible walking hunger that dragged her toward the deepest kind of sadness.

On her first night in Florence, she walked hours, miserable. Finally, she settled on the small storefront of Casalinga, a trattoria near Piazza Santa Trinità. Inside, the space opened to fit many tables. Like most trattorias, it was extremely well lit, as if the restaurant owners wanted to display the clean floors—and they were very clean and very white. The whole place with its pale peach walls and pink tablecloths was altogether cheery and not at all romantic.

Italy was supposed to be one of the most romantic countries, lush in its languor. Elena thought of siestas—bed in the middle of the day—and long late dinners to be taken only after the sun went down. Indeed, the satisfaction of human needs—bodily needs—was taken seriously, artfully. Sex. Yes sex. Elena was afraid of sex, but in the same way she was afraid of traveling alone. The thought of it exhilarated her even as she drew back from it. It was all related really: sex and food and traveling and art museums and Italy. She wanted all of it, or at least something.

The hostess hesitated. A tall, impossibly beautiful, young woman standing alone—surely she must be meeting someone or perhaps was part of the crowd entering. In that case always consult the tallest man in the crowd, or the oldest. Elena lifted one finger. If she had wanted to speak—but she didn’t; she never did—she might have said solo me but the woman, with her brown curly hair, broad face, and sparkling white apron, wouldn’t know that.

The waiter seemed confused, too; he waited, as if for someone to sit down across from her, not helped by her remote look of a woman who had always had everything she could want and too much attention because of it. Elena opened her shoulder bag and removed a novel about people who left home to live in other countries. She set it on the table in front of her and then looked at him. He was forty-something with dark hair, fair skin, and earnest brown eyes. He was not fat, but he looked like he enjoyed food and life; his cheeks were ruddy. Elena could pass for Italian and so he spoke to her in Italian.

“P…p…parli inglese?” When she replied, her stutter betrayed that she was American even before the words. This, she thought, was fascinating to him and she rather hated him for that. She managed to seem terribly bored. Near her, ten patrons were eating through the entire menu. The antipasto and the wine were just starting to go around and already everyone was very jolly. The waiter circled them and offered up all of the best morsels from the menu and they took. In reality, he did not offer, he simply made a statement and asked how many they wanted: a bowl of minestrone, a plate of anchovies and olives, perhaps some gameroni, caught fresh this morning. A few raised their hands and he counted them off with his fingers.

She tried to pay attention to her novel. He eyed her again, brought her the quarter-liter of wine and the bottle of acqua minerale she had pointed to on the menu and left her to study her choices. She eyed the tripe, scribbled on the menu in pen. She had heard that the Florentine method of preparation was quite good. She enjoyed reading menus in restaurants because it gave her something to do. It was the one time during the meal when she was occupied in a way that didn’t make others curious about her. The waiters and guests still assumed that someone would join her; perhaps they wished to join her. In the past few years, she had sometimes sat at bars in restaurants where other patrons made her acquaintance. She was often joined by men and usually two of them. Now that she thought of it, she had not recently sat at a bar in a restaurant to eat her dinner wherein a man had not eventually made her acquaintance. It was a new world, cause and effect: eat dinner at a bar, meet a man. She had only recently come to an age where such things happened. Now, if she sat at a bar, she might meet a man and perhaps he would be attractive. But perhaps he would be unattractive and that’s why she didn’t always sit at the bar. Not that all the men she met and talked to needed to be beautiful, but if she was going to eat dinner next to him, he might as well be attractive—so much better for the digestion.

When the waiter returned to her table, she shrugged. She looked back at the menu, then back again, then pointed to the special. He took a step back and measured her. He said, “the chicken is very good tonight." She felt sure he thought that she did not know what it was. It took the air out of her. Maybe she was wrong to want the offal of a grazing beast.

He seemed to sense her disappointment, considering her again. “Trippa, eh?”

She gave him a long, slow-blooming smile.

The tripe looked like wide pasta in a tomato sauce. It didn’t taste much different, but before the bite melted away, cilia brushed across the roof of her mouth. It was furry, luxurious. The waiter returned to ask her how she was enjoying it. She had enjoyed her wine and was feeling relaxed.

“Molto b-b-b-bene. Grazie.” She took a deep breath and another sip.

He tipped his head to the side and smiled. “Where are you from?”

“San Francisco.” She was no longer stuttering, but all of her words started with long slow consonants that slithered between her tongue and teeth.

“How are you enjoying your trip?”

“Firenze is very beautiful.”

“That it is,” he said. “There are many place to see. You must go to the Piazzalle Michelangelo. The best view of Firenze,” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

“What would you like now?” he asked her.

The trippa was heavy and rich, but she ordered insalata mista and then tiramisu.

He served dessert to the group of ten Italians and then brought over a bottle of grappa. She followed the bottle of clear liquid with her eyes. He noticed her glance and raised the bottle toward her. She shrugged and then nodded. He brought her a glass and poured it out for her. She raised it to her lips and took a sip. It numbed her lips and burned her mouth. Then she took the second draft and this dropped into her throat with stunning warmth.

“Are you finished?”

She nodded.

“Allora,” The waiter leaned over her table and wrote on the white paper square that protected the white cloth below. He listed off each of the things she had ordered and wrote the corresponding amount on the table. He listed tripe and salad, the wine, her espresso and then he totaled it.

She shook her head and looked at him inquisitively.

He waved the pen in the air and pouted his lips. She paid slightly more than he had written and stood.

“So you have not yet seen Piazzalle Michelangelo,” he said to her.

“No.”

“You should see it,” he said. “The best view in the world. I could take you there—I am off work in . . . ” he looked at his watch, “an hour. At ten. You come back here and I will take you.”

She considered him. She had mistaken his charm for the false courtesy of a waiter. She was almost startled enough to take him up on his offer, but perhaps he asked every American woman to Piazzalle Michelangelo. And why would she say yes anyway? She didn’t find him a bit attractive, though he certainly wasn’t ugly. He was too old, though perhaps the difference was only fifteen years—not unimaginable but not desirable either.

“Sono stanca,” she said and yawned to punctuate it.

“Perhaps another day, then,” he said.

She smiled and made her way to the door.

[In the next episode, an aimless Elena meets Massimo and his friend Massimo and must decide which one of them will take her to Piazzalle Michelangelo.]