Noontime in Reggio

Sometimes I don't have work until late in the evening, so I like to sleep late (until someone starts chucking bottles in the glass recycling thing), lie in bed for a while wondering how many bottles the guy can possibly have, and then go for a walk around Reggio. Right now it's very hot, so it's a short walk: down to Oviesse to stock up on water (pain in the arse but necessary chore), and back to the piazza to absorb the culture, take a moment to look at the duomo and get teary about having to leave (for some reason the sight of the duomo over the roof of the vescovado makes me exceptionally emotional), and get some erbazzone to comfort myself. (Yay, emotional eating! So healthy!)

On some days, the erbazzone at Melli (local panificio - bakery) is fresh, hot, and crunchy. Especially if they give you a piece from the side: the side pieces have more crunchiness and a thinner layer of spinach-y stuff, thus giving you the optimal ratio of crunchy part to spinach-y part. It pretty much all depends on when you go - you have to go when they have taken a fresh batch out of the oven, before it has cooled, but after they have finished the last batch. I have not yet discerned the precise pattern of how often they take out a new batch, though. I fear that my time in Reggio will come to an end before I solve that particular mystery. Or if you're good friends with the people there, they just give you some of the new batch anyway.

I'm not good friends with the people there. Probably because I've only been going there for about a month, rather than a decade, like most of the clients (I'm guessing). This is because a) I haven't lived here a decade and b) I was scared to go in there for a really long time because I wasn't sure how one ordered things, or what they were called. It gets kind of awkward when you're like "I want a piece of bread" and they're like "what kind?" and you're like "um... the round kind? I dunno... any kind, really... you pick!" and they raise their eyebrows at you.

The eyebrow raise is killer. Actually, I live in fear of getting the eyebrow raise every time they ask how much I want of the erbazzone/gnocco/crostata/anything-else-that-comes-in-large-trays. Some of them are nice (or just want to sell their stuff) and they place their knife such that you stand to get an enormous piece of whatever you're buying. Then you can experience the satisfaction of a demure "un po' meno, per favore". Very ladylike. Excellent.

Others are a bit stingy, which I don't really get, because hello, how about you worry about selling your product and I'll worry about my weight, okay? and they offer you a midgy little piece and (internally) you're like "aww, hell, lady, I've been running around after six-year-olds all day and I haven't eaten since those stale crackers for breakfast" but because you're a proper repressed girl (men, you have it *so* much easier) what you actually say is "si, va bene, grazie," and try not to sigh regretfully. At least this way you don't get the eyebrow raise, though.

Actually, what's even riskier in terms of eyebrow raise potential is when you get there around 7:25pm (they close at 7:30) and you've just come from a long day at work (see reference to six-year-olds) and you don't plan to put any effort into making dinner so what you really want to do is buy both a piece of erbazzone or gnocco (main course) and a piece of crostata or torta di riso (dessert!) and sit down in your chair (yeah, I don't own a table) and that way the most challenging thing you have to worry about is how to avoid getting crumbs down the front of your shirt. I did that once and got a very disdainful look from the lady, though, so that was the end of that. This can be remedied by visiting two of the branches of Melli separately and buying one thing at each, but that takes more effort and also just makes me feel ridiculously pathetic. So instead I just buy my usual piece of erbazzone and try to remember whether or not I still have any nutella that I can just eat out of the jar for dessert.

Yeah. We Americans are kind of gross. It's the food-related female guilt complex, though, I'm telling you. Otherwise I could just wander over to the gelateria and have a granita (practically calorie-free, I bet - it's just ice and syrup, right?) and stroll around with it, trying not to get hit on by those weirdos in the piazza. As it is, though, I am a girl and so I will never go to the gelateria unless I am either desperate or in a group of friends (that's okay because it's social eating - permissible). Anyway. Both the gelateria and the weirdos in the piazza are a story for another day, so I'll leave you with that incredibly un-enlightening thought...