Tasting

I spent the better part of today in the elegant tasting room of one of New York's top caterers, along with the public relations team from Versace USA. We are collaborating on a gala event with the famous fashion house and part of the process is menu selection. A table has been set for us, adorned with creative touches designed to impress - a pure linen table runner, several crystal goblets (one each for water and red and white wine), and a dizzying assortment of utensils. Ten fantastic hors d'oeuvre selections - from truffled eggplant with green olive aioli to cauliflour-reggiano flan and brown butter jus served in an actual egg accompanied by a teeny spoon - are offered up in a variety of imaginative presentations, followed by two entrees and three different desserts, one more luscious and mouth-watering than the next. Having watched my dress size go up after two weeks in Italy, I decide to take small bites, forgo the free-flowing wine and pass on the tantilizing cheddar biscuits with three butter choices that are parked next to my plate.

With this array of delicacies before me, I am struggling to get rid of my recently acquired stomach, or at least slow the growth. Next to the Versace team - young, bronzed Amazons in platform stilettos and tight fitting dresses - I feel like the house mother, hiding her tummy under a mumu. One of the girls confesses to me that the bottle of wine she consumes nightly is making her fat (or what passes for fat in the fashion world). She looks extremely thin to me.

I would trade all of this splendor for some of my gorgeous figs. I converse with the caterer, who travels to Greece annually, about the superior quality of home-grown, fresh-picked mediterranean fruit. Figs, olives, cherries. All of this fancy stuff is fine, but a steady diet of it makes for poor nutrition and leaves you longing for something pure and simple. That's why rich people take holidays in Sardegna, Positano and Mykonos; to get a taste of how the people in these places live, and especially how they eat. What they find is uncomplicated cuisine and exquisite ingredients.


How do I reconcile my life in New York with my burning desire to be in Italy? It seems absurd to complain about spending my days among some of the world's most beautiful art, organizing elaborate events for a world class museum. If you have to work for a living, it's certainly not the worst job to have. And if there aren't a lot of people who would kill for it, I'm guessing there are a few (some on my staff) who wouldn't mind if I disappeared so they could fill the vacancy.

It's not that I want to live there; 365 days a year in Todi, or any part of Italy, would wreak havoc on my nerves and my waistline. For better or worse, I am a New Yorker, one who loves the diversity of the population and the variety of options in every conceivable category that comes with living in New York. My city-bred intolerance for long lines and long waits makes me a poor candidate for full-time residence in Italy.

What I long for is a good chunk of time, maybe three months, from April through June, or September through November. Enough time to make the transition from American Urban Woman, to one more in tune with the pace of Italian rural life. What typically happens is it takes three days or so to get over jet lag and begin to feel comfortable with the strange rhythm produced by the mid-day shut down; then just as I start to get into the groove, a sort of panic creeps in, when I realize that there's only another week before I head back to the U.S. How will I possibly do everything that needs to be done? And how soon will I be able to come back and do this again?