Allow the Marching Band Plenty of Room as They Parade Through the Inter-mall Grocery Store

I mimed the use of a frying pan yesterday, in a public store.  Sound effects were used.

It was after experiencing the thrill of Italian shopping success, and I got greedy.  You see, our hotel kitchenette doesn’t contain a frying pan, and I wanted eggs for lunch, so after my morning of executing “I would like,” “please,” “thank you,” “strawberries,” “what is this?” and plenty of numbers all in Italian, supplemented by copious pointing so as to achieve the purchase of two pears, strawberries, two mystery Sicilian fruits, Jack Daniels, and a boob cake, I was perhaps a bit over confident. 

I walked by a little hole in the wall store in our little village (they’re all hole in the wall stores in our village), and recognized in the signage, amongst many things that I did not recognize, “casa” (house).  The window displayed various, well, crap, and I assumed maybe it was kind of like a dollar store – lots of various cheap crap, among which just might be a frying pan.  I could march in there, pick out a frying pan, and pay for it after deciphering the price the storekeeper would vocalize, using the Italian numbers that I’ve learned.  Yes. 

I marched into the store.  It was tiny and quite dark, almost cave-like.  The majority of the store’s crap must have been in the window, because a quick glance around the dingy, nearly bare shelves made it clear that no frying pan was to be found.  Coincidentally, no other customers could be found either.  Therefore, at the moment I’d marched through the door, the shopkeeper had jolted to his feet and was now eagerly asking me, in Italian, what I’d like to buy.  Turning on my heel and walking out was simply not an option – for one, I’d had such a successful morning of Italian shopping, I refused to taint it at the last moment by seeming rude to this man simply because I could not communicate that he did not have what I needed.  I pulled out the first phrase that every visitor learns in Italian, “Do you speak English?”  He replied in Italian, “A little,” using a phrase that I had luckily learned the day before, on Facebook of all places. 

My confidence began to melt.  In English: “Frying pan?”  I asked, full of hope.  He looked perplexed.  Me, again in English: “Cook egg?”  He squinted his eyes and appeared doubtful and quite done with our conversation.  But wait! – thanks to Rosetta Stone - I know “egg” in Italian.  Me: “Cook uovo? Pan?”  He looked like he regretted that I walked into his store and was beginning to regret that he had opened his store at all that day.  I, however, am not easily swayed.  I’d had a great morning of intercultural relations, and if I had anything to do with it, that would not stop now.  I marched over to the table where his register sat.  Smiling, I placed one palm flat on the table.  I showed him my other hand, which was curled as if holding an object.  “Uovo,”  I said of the air that I was holding up.  “Crk, crk,” I clicked as I tapped my egg-air on the table.  I ‘cracked’ my egg-air in my  ‘frying pan,’ (ahem – my other hand), and then grabbed my wrist, my ‘frying pan handle,’ with my formerly-egg cracking hand, and proceeded to hiss, “Tssssstt…!” while I jiggled my frying-pan-hand that contained egg-air by its frying-pan-handle-wrist over the burner-table.  Keep in mind, that throughout this charade, the only thing that the poor shopkeeper has for sure understood is that I've walked into his variety shop and stated, "Egg."  Yes...

The shop keeper, while appearing less regretful at the turn of his day, displayed a look that so perfectly conveyed his simultaneous amusement at my performance and wonderment as to the number of times I’d been dropped on my head as a child.

I thanked him in Italian, smiled, picked up my shreds of dignity, and left the store knowing that I gave it my best shot. 

And hey, I know numbers.  If he had vocalized his guess as to the number of my childhood head drops, we could have communicated back and forth with ease.  With this knowledge, I walked back to the hotel with my head held high.  It was a successful morning of Italian shopping.

Nespoli.  Sicilian fruit, first fruit of the season.  The skin easily peels off to reveal a tender, juicy flesh that is at the beginning of each bite citrusy but finishes with a sweet essence of nectar.

It's no coincidence that this "cassatella" cake resembles a boob.  It honors Saint Agatha, who was martyred after enduring intense torture, which included having her breasts ripped off.  The miracle was that her wounds healed overnight (she was eventually burned to death).  Kinda makes the cake less appetizing, eh?

But no cake goes uneaten on my watch, squeemish story or not.  The middle is sweetened ricotta cheese, surrounded by rum-soaked cake (and I'm talking rum-SOAKED; I was pretty much toasted when I took this picture), covered with an almond glaze and topped with a jelly candy.  As to why it's green, I do not know.