Free The Food of Love by Anthony Capella Page A

ineffective at warding off the temptations of distance. Every week or so Laura
     
    would bump into one or other of the male students from the
    course, half-naked, in the apartment’s tiny bathroom. Maybe, she thought to herself, Judith’s parents had known what they were
    doing by sending her to Rome after all.
    Little by little, Laura’s own days and nights fell into a kind of routine - lectures and seminars in the morning, followed by art
    galleries or language lessons in the afternoon, and CNN or pizza in the evenings. Friday nights saw her at the Fiddler’s Elbow or the Druid’s Den with the other students, drinking Bud and watching American or British sports on TV. Occasionally they might go
    to one of the little restaurants in Trastevere, and even more occasionally she might have a date with an Italian, each romantic
    disaster being subsequently relayed by phone to Carlotta in Milan.
    When homesickness crept up on her, as it did from time to time,
    either she or Judith would make the trip down to Castroni’s and
    hand over huge bundles of euros for a tub of margarine, some
    sliced bread and a big jar of Skippy peanut butter. But then, quite by chance, she wandered into a little bar off the Viale Glorioso, and Rome - noisy, impetuous, colourful, chaotic - decided to
    reach out and haul her into the dance.
     
    At the restaurant, Bruno, unable to understand why nothing
    was going right for him, shouted at the commis that the eggs
    must be stale. He had never had this problem before with his zuppa inglese, and the meringues he was making had refused to harden too.
    The unfortunate lackey scurried off to find more eggs. Bruno
    felt bad. He knew it wasn’t the eggs. It was something to do with himself. To make dolci you had to be able to conjure yourself into a mood that was as joyous and light as the dishes you were creating But today he was distracted. He kept thinking about the girl in
    the market, the girl he’d barely spoken to, wishing that he could have cooked for her the meal that he had cooked for Tommaso’s
    girl last night. He could imagine her expression as she slid the first piece of lamb into her mouth, a mixture of rapture and astonishment, and then the gradual contentment settling over her face as
    her appetite was sated by another mouthful, and then another…
    He sighed, and tried to put the whole thing out of his mind.
     
    The pizzas were cooked in the Roman fashion: thin slivers of
    dough, as crisp as poppadums, slathered with a sauce of fresh
    tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. Traditionally, a Roman pizza is
    cooked for the length of time that the cook can hold his breath, and these had been fired to perfection in the wood-burning oven
    at the front of the restaurant, making them hard underneath but
    leaving the sauce still liquid.
    To her surprise, Laura found she was starving. Last night’s
    meal, far from leaving her sated, seemed to have awakened her
    appetite, and she tucked in with gusto.
    ‘This isn’t a pizza, it’s a pancake,’ a student called Rick muttered, poking his food with a finger. ‘Do the words “deep” and
    “pan” mean nothing to these people?’ The boys had all ordered
    side salads. Laura almost told them that in Italy you had the salad afterwards, but thought better of it.
    ‘Who’s got the ketchup?’ another student called. Rick produced
    from his backpack a bottle of Heinz Tomato Sauce, which
    was ceremoniously passed around the table.
    A mobile phone rang. It took Laura a few moments to work
    out that it was hers, since for some reason it was now playing the Cream classic ‘Sunshine of Your Love’. Then she realised
    Tommaso must have changed it while she’d been in the shower. ‘Pronto^ she said cautiously.
    It was Tommaso. ‘Laura! Do you like your new ringtone?’
    ‘Thank you. I love it.’
    “I don’t know why I called you. I just can’t stop thinking about last night,’ he said dreamily.
    She lowered her voice. “Me too.’
    ‘I don’t