There are two things messing with my head right now. One is my imminent return to northern Tuscany in March. Just the other day I was thinking, “gee, we should go to that little restaurant…” and I stopped myself because that little restaurant was 9 time zones away in Tuscany—and I’m pounding away at this disgustingly filthy keyboard in California, quickly realizing that even a foodie who talks to himself frequently doesn’t jump on a plane just for a worker’s lunch in the Lunigiana.
The other thing messing with my “zucca” is food, of course. You see, the other day I had an impulse to buy four ounces of “Cajun Seasoning” called “Slap ya Momma.” 8 ounces of it lightened my wallet by 4 bucks.
When I got home I doused my ribs in Slap ya Moma. Well, not my ribs, but the ribs of some nameless and nearly fat-free pig whose flesh, the “other white meat” that corporations have so carefully cultivated to taste like nothing resembling pork, needed some spicing up.
I cooked the ribs long and slow. They smelled divine. (I’m assuming that divinity has a preferred odor, perhaps artificial, and that the sensual nasal-tickling steam rolling off a hot hunk of roast pork with Cajun seasoning would do for this purpose, at least in my version of heaven.)
Then I ate them. It was as if the pig itself had been removed from a salt mine. It was salty as hell.
Divine hell. What a concept.
Anyway, I’m figuring what the “Cajun Seasonings” was was 8.9 ounces of salt along with some some dried peppers and things to make up the other 0.1 ounce.
Then I though, “Shezam, I could do this! What a racket!”
You know what I’d do? I’d make up something called “Essence of Tuscany; a Rub for All Seasons.”
The idea actually came to me when I was on a walk with my Lunigiana neighbors Francesca and Armando as documented in the video: Lunigiana Panorama. Francesca is a gatherer, you see, and every once in a while, along a road lined with wildflowers like you see in the gratuitous picture below from that exact walk, she would reach down and snap off a twig of something. Like wild thyme. Then she’d spend some time telling us what she did with it.
So here’s what I’d do. I’d get a bathtub full of salt and 1000 containers. then I’d go around with Francesca picking things up off the ground that she deems edible.
I’d dry them. I’d crush them between my fingers. I’d take the two tablespoons or so of spices and mix them with the bathtub overflowing with salt.
Then all that’s left to do is to funnel them into little bottles—which I’d charge $12 for. Imported Essence of Tuscany. Who wouldn’t pay 12 bucks? What could it cost me? 5 cents for the salt and the spices are free! I could be a millionaire and pay no taxes. Conservatives would laud me as an innovator, especially if I had my bathtub moved to China and had Chinese political prisoners working as “interns” filling my bottles. I’d be on the cover of Time Magazine as the guy who brought Tuscany to your table. Scantily clad young women would beat a path to my door. The gigantic Doberman would scare them.
Anyway, I’m going nuts thinking about how long I’ve been away from bankrupt Italy. Can you tell?