Category: Wednesday’s Child

An Italian friend has just been to St. Tropez, which of course does little to recommend him as a vacationer of any great discernment, seeing as here in Sicily the prickly pear is now in season and you can have your fill of the divine fruit from a street vendor, who peels it while you wait, for about $1 American.  But anyway, tastes are tastes, as the Italians are the first to say. My friend brought back a curious souvenir of the famous watering hole, Nikki Beach, where one balmy afternoon he went to have lunch, and it occurred to...

The heartbreak of Tom’s departure made me want to get drunk.  Living in Italy as I do, I rarely drink spirits – the climate is against it – and using even the cheapest wine to get plastered is a little like using the gold nib of an heirloom pen to open a bottle of Heineken. Then there is the problem of company, because downing vodka at the kitchen table, alone at three in the morning, is not how I wish my wife to remember me when I’m dead. Eventually a suitable candidate had been found, salted lard and sour pickles...