i am sick of recipes. sick. sick. sick.

i went to zibibbo today, and just when bene and i were sitting down to work, she went to go get her cigarettes and couldn't find them (i think i am driving her to an earlier death. she must smoke a pack every two hours when we are working). so she said "come on!" and i grabbed my drafts and we went for a ride down to the nearest tabbachaio, who of course didn't have the gauloises red, only the yellow, which bene informed me are so light that smoking them is like like smoking a breadstick. so, we went back into the car, racing in another direction, screeched to a halt, and i jumped out as i was asking her the quantities for a swordfish recipe. but this tabacchi only had gauloises blue. she gave in and had me get the blue, and then we rushed back to zibibbo, where we promptly found her original pack of gauloises red.

she spent a few minutes making fun of my italian--i guess fregola doesn't mean what i thought it did. maybe we should alert the food writers in america. but fregola has nothing to do with semolina. it's kinda dirty, actually.

and then she escaped. not much work got done there today, but i did eat a nice homestyle plate of salsicce e fagioli.

now, i am in T's house, drowning in recipes and gardening factoids. oh, AK, how i wish you were here. i don't know how i am ever going to do this without you. expect many frantic emails over the next few weeks.