Only in Naples Read Online Free PDF Page A

anyone else’s.
    Her dance was perfectly choreographed: she simultaneously stirred the
ragù,
fried the meatballs, sautéed the peas. I ducked and dodged. I was at times behind her, at times beside her. She had been to the gym, and wore New Balance sneakers and light green, fitted sweats. How was her makeup perfect after a workout?
“Non sudo,”
I don’t sweat, she explained. Ah, that’s convenient. The kitchen window was open and sea air was coming in. Look at the volcano! Raffaella pointed. When it’s windy like this, you can see the towns surrounding the base of Vesuvius. Even the outlines of the houses. The wind sweeps away the mist and fog.
    “Vieni, assaggia.”
Come, taste. Her wooden spoon was suddenly coming at me, full to overflowing with
ragù,
her hand cupped underneath to catch any spills. She stuck the whole huge spoon into my mouth, and I almost gagged on the wood.
“Com’ è?”
How is it? I answered that it was
buonissimo,
and she dipped the same spoon back into the pot and tasted it herself.
    “Hm.”
    I was told to cut the hard-boiled eggs into quarters. Raffaella laid the fried meatballs, spitting and sizzling, on freshly ironed dishrags. My Italian had improved enough to be able to ask, “How much egg? How many cheese? How many much peas?” Okay, my quantifying adjectives weren’t perfect, but I got my point across. In response, she put her arm around my waist and whispered conspiratorially,
“Più ci metti più ci trovi!”
—the more you put in the more you get out. In other words: That analytical, precise, quantifying brain has no place in my kitchen, girl.
    (Many years later, in my mother’s kitchen in Bethesda, Maryland, I would find Raffaella staring at a ring of measuring spoons as if they were an archaeological find. “They’re for measuring quantities,” I explained. “In cooking?” she asked, bewildered. She then shook her head and laughed.
“Americani! Americani!”
Yes, we’re a wild and crazy people.)
    “Lella!”
Nino was standing in the door of the kitchen calling his wife’s nickname. He was pissed off. What had she done? I wondered.
“C’è una puzza
terrificante!”
It stinks in here! Nino, I later learned, has an extremely sensitive sense of smell. He insists that his wife turn on the ventilation when she is cooking so that the smell of food doesn’t waft into the rest of the apartment.
“Scusa, scusa!”
Sorry! she cheerfully replied, and turned on the hair dryer–sounding machine. Nino disappeared, still indignant.
    Nino was fourteen years Raffaella’s senior, and had spent most of their marriage managing the hotel that he and his brothers owned. He left early in the morning and came back late at night, Raffaella told me; it was the least she could do to care for him with a smile when he was at home. He was forced into early retirement because of an ugly family battle that nobody talked about, and now he was at home all the time. She made sure the ventilation was on when she was cooking, served him at the table, and accepted his negative comments about how the pasta was cooked with a smile or a wink and “I think you’re right, Nino.”
    It bugged the hell out of me—she was cooking his favorite dish, for God’s sake! But soon I realized that my irritation at Nino’s outburst had no place in Raffaella’s kitchen, either. “Ketrin!” she was yelling over the fan (the flat
a
and
th
of Katherine were too much of a challenge for most Italians), “make sure you add a little
ragù
first so the rice doesn’t stick….” I was forced to move on, to concentrate on the preparation of that rice.
    The preparation became aerobic. Raffaella’s biceps bulged as she stirred the dense
ragù
in with the rice. I was asked to lay out fresh dishrags (impossibly white) on the table, ousting the baby meatballs (they’d had themselves enough of a nap). I held the tiny balls in my fists until Raffaella offered me the pot with the rice and
ragù.
I plopped them in and