CIAO DOWN
We overlooked the ghastly red/green/white decor at Cocina Italiano (which apparently means "Italian Pig") since it's Italy's culinary signature; pasta, slopped with tomato sauce, salad on the side. They even designed their flag after it. Their national anthem is probably about tortelini. The WEEKEND WARRIOR respects tradition, and Italian cuisine is about as traditional as it gets. You think of Italy and what do you think of (other than irreperable cars and skinny mutant footwear)--you think of food. The great Italians of the past are all connected with eating: Ceasar, inventer of the salads that bear his name; he roman heroes, and the sandwiches that bare their buns; Galileo, populizer of the leaning tower of Pizza; Vivaldi, composer of the Four Seasonings; Mousillini, inventor of Mousse, (as well as the Lil Duce Coup). The great La Sagna. Martini, Rossi, Spumoni, the whole works. Food and history are inseperable in Italian culture. Rome was the cradle of cuisine, as well as civilization. Well, not civilization, exactly, but fascism--which is still something. Not as big a deal as civilization itself, but that particular cradle was in Mesopotamia and when was the last time you saw a Mesopotamian restaurant reviewed? Anyway Rome, to get through this history drivel, came into being in a single day (contrary to popular myth). It was founded by Romulans and Uncle Remus, who were abandoned as youths (but then weren't we all?) and survived by drinking wolf milk. But don't worry, Italian cuisine has gotten better since then. In fact, the better places don't even have wolf tit on the menu anymore. What replaced it was mostly carbohydrate. Which was just fine with my dining companion of the evening, who can metabolize carbohydrate like a house of burning love. The waiters and patrons did a good job of not noticing her, although everyone has seen her doing her perky co-anchor thing on Channel Nine. Or certainly in those ads for the body salon gym. The ads that told you how you could a body like hers for only several thousand bucks in dues and years of sweat, pain and malnutrition. If you'd had different parents. Well, neener neener, I get to have that very same body for the price of an Italian dinner. What she calls "carbohydrate loading", a buzzword around the aerobics slums for an activity that would be called "pigging out" if done by a person with no lycra suit or subscription to "Your Gorgeous Own Little Self" magazine. She and I have been lovers (if that's really the word for such a sick, demented, twisted, grasping relationship) for years off-camera (well generally, I do happen to have a couple of interesting videocasettes I'd consider renting to discriminating fans.) Electronic media people are a weird bunch. Many are not even really people. There are several pre-programmed androids in the business--looking human above the waist and a mass of circuits and relays below. And there are several computer-generated characters, refinements on Max Headroom. My pasta date is neither and therefore, though she doesn't realize it, is on the way out. But don't tell her. (Like most television types she doesn't read print media because the is a little vague on how the reading thing works.) As the waiter seated us, I was able to impress him with a well-turned Italian phrase or two, such as, "Vini, Vidi, Vici". Meaning, of course, "Get us some wine and put on a video of Miami Vice." Little Miss Local Feed, without italic visual aids to cue her in, was less impressed by my erudition, displaying the demeanor that caused her highschool classmates to vote her, "Most Likely Competitive Little Bitch To Get Slapped Down With A Veal Scallopini." "This is the pits," she proclaimed, looking around the restaurant, "I mean, there's just the two of us, sitting here...eating." |