The pile of used books was daunting. She'd found ten of them. Tin old, interesting looking, out-ofprint Italian cookbooks. While she was choosing them they hadn't seemed so thick - and ten certainly hadn't seemed to be so many. But now that they were home with her, piled in a neat stack on the glass top of the wrought iron sculpture she used as a coffee table, they appeared to have multiplied.
Couldn't she have narrowed her choices down by a few less books before she'd left the bookstore?
"In baking we must always rise to the occasion," she reminded the enormous, longhaired blackand-white tomcat that perched in the middle of the black-and-white toile chaise. The perfect match made Lina grin. She enjoyed purchasing furniture that properly accessorized her pets, even if the cat didn't deign to notice. Lina did receive a brief look of boredom from his side of the room and a quick swish of his tail in response to the proclamation of her bakery motto.
"Patchy Poo the Pud Santoro," she addressed him formal y by his ful name. "You are a handsome beast, but you know nothing about baking."
At her feet, the half-sleeping Old English bulldog snorted as if in agreement with her.
"Don't be rude, Edith Anne," Lina scolded the dog halfheartedly. "You know considerably more about eating than you know about baking."
Edith sighed contentedly as Lina scratched her behind her right ear. With the hand that wasn't busy, Lina picked up the first book. It was a thick tomb entitled Discovering Historical Italy. She let it fal open and began reading a long, complex paragraph about the proper preparation of veal. She blanched and snapped the book shut. Veal was a popular dish in Italy, but to her veal meant baby cows. Mush-brained, adorable, wide-eyed baby cows.
"Perhaps it's not possible to rise to a very difficult occasion without the proper preparation." She said to the now snoring Bulldog. "In baking or otherwise." She closed the book, setting it gently back on the table a little like it was a bomb that might very wel explode if not treated carefully.
"I think this particular preparation cal s for a nice glass of Italian red," she told Patchy Poo the Pud Santoro. He glanced at her through slitted eyes and yawned.
"You two are no help at al ."
Shaking her head, Lina walked away from the table and headed directly to her wine closet. In her opinion, a Monte Antico Rosso Sangiovese was the perfect preparation tool for any difficult situation - baking or otherwise.
"Maybe I can serve enough wonderful Italian wine with my new menu that my customers wil get too soused to pay much attention to what they eat." She spoke over her shoulder to her animals as she poured herself a ruby-colored glass of wine, but she didn't need a non-response from her pets to know that that was ridiculous. Then she'd be running a bar and not a bakery, which would give Anton an apoplectic fit. Lina straightened her spine, snagged a bag of double-dipped chocolatecovered peanuts, the perfect accompaniment for the Sangiovese, and marched back into her living room. Planting herself on the couch, she opened her notebook and chose the next book in the pile, Cooking With Italy.
The dog and cat lifted their heads and gave her identical y quizzical looks.
"Let the games begin," she told them grimly.
Three hours later she had finished combing through nine of the ten books, and she had a list of four possible main course recipes: chicken picatta, puttanesca on spaghetti, eggplant parmigiana, and a lovely aioli platter, complete with artichokes, olives, tomatoes, poached salmon and carpaccio.
Lina felt a little thril of accomplishment as she looked over her list. She was actual y enjoying herself. Delving through the musty old books had become an exercise in Italian history and culture
- two things that had been a constant part of her upbringing.
Only one more cookbook was left. Lina picked up the slim hardback. She had purposefully saved this one for last. In the bookstore she had been intrigued by the cover, which was a deep, royal blue etched with a gold embossed design. The title, The Italian Goddess Cookbook, rested over the golden il ustration of a stern looking goddess who sat on a massive throne. She was dressed in a long robe and her hair was wrapped around the crown of her head in intricate braids. In one hand she held a scepter topped with a ripe ear of corn, in the other she held a flaming torch. Underneath the il ustration the words, Recipes and Spel s for the Goddess in Every Woman, flowed in beautiful gold script. The author's name, Filomena, was branded into the cover underneath the embossed print.
"Just one more recipe. Help me to find just one more, and I'l cal it a night," Lina said as she ran her fingers over the raised embossing.
Her fingertips tingled.
Lina rested the book on her lap and rubbed her hands together. She must be getting tired. She glanced at the clock. It was only a little past nine o'clock, but it had been a long day. Lina looked back down at the cover. The gold print caught the lamplight, causing the words Recipes and Spel s for the Goddess in Every Woman to seem to flicker and glow. What an unusual coincidence that the woman who baked like an Italian goddess had found an old, discarded copy of The Italian Goddess Cookbook. Her grandmother would have cal ed it la magia del 'Italia, the magic of Italy. On impulse, Lina closed her eyes. She believed in the magic of Italy. She'd experienced it in the multicolored marble of Florence's Duomo, the geranium-fil ed window boxes of Assisi, and the eerie wonder of the Roman Forum at night. She focused her mind on her love for her grandmother's homeland, then she opened the book that rested on her lap, al owing the pages to fal where they chose.
Lina opened her eyes and began reading:
Pizza al a Romano, or Pizza by the Meter. This extraordinary recipe comes from Rome. It is proper to al ow the soft, supple dough a very long rest - up to eight hours, the longer the better - then place it on a baker's peel two and a half feet long, while rhythmical y pounding it with such vigor that it literal y dances beneath your fingers.
Lina blinked in surprise and grinned. A baker's peel! The long, wooden paddle that was used to drop bread into and scoop it out of the oven. Of course Pani Del Goddess had several of them. She kept reading:
... when the dough has finished dancing, you paint it with oil and then set the peel in the oven where the total y unforeseen occurs: you slowly, slowly withdraw the peel, stretching the remarkably elastic dough to a thin, incredibly light dough of up to an astonishing six foot length -
depending upon the size of each individual goddess's oven.
Wel , Pani Del Goddess had several very long ovens. She could stretch the dough to its ful six feet!
She scanned the rest of the recipe. Included in the book were several different toppings, everything from a light Pizza Bianca, made simply with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper, to Pizza Pugliese, which was a plethora of Italian favorites - eggplant, provolone, anchovies, olives... the list went on and on.
"This may be the answer. Why mess with a bunch of different recipes? Why not have one basic specialty, Pizza alia Romana, with several variations? And it's stil baking!" Reacting to the excitement in her voice, Edith Anne woke long enough to offer a muffled woof of support. Patchy Poo the Pud exercised the innate initiative of a cat and ignored her completely. Lina patted the dog's head while she studied the dough recipe.
... because this dough uses so little yeast and wants a long rising, a goddess can work its preparation into her busy American schedule by making the dough at night . with cool water and refrigerating it immediately after it is mixed. Next morning, place it in a cool spot to rise slowly at room temperature al day. Then simply shape and bake it for dinner...
Lina ran her eyes down the list of ingredients. Dry yeast, water, flour, salt, olive oil - yes, of course she had every-thing on the list. She could make the dough that night, let it sit al the next day, then she and the "baby birds" could sample it tomorrow night. Delighted, she began reading the preparation directions.
Before beginning, you wil need a green candle, to represent the Earth. The Goddess we honor with this recipe is She who breathes life into the flour with which we create our dough, Demeter, Great Goddess of the Harvest, and of Fruits and the Riches of the Earth.
Lina's eyes widened.
As you start preparation, light the green candle and focus your thoughts on Demeter. Then you may begin.
Lina's eyes scanned the recipe. Sure enough, interspersed between instructions for stirring the yeast, and mixing the flour and salt, were otherworldly instructions. Lina read a line and her brow furrowed.
Was it a spel ?
Lina read another line.
It seemed to be more of an invocation, or maybe a prayer. But whatever she cal ed it, the supernatural directions were definitely a part of the recipe. Lina couldn't help but smile. La magia del 'Italia. Her grandmother would approve.
Humming to herself, she went in search of a green candle.