Pleasant Finds: Gaffe or Faux Pas About Italian Pasta Scuttled Brewing of Passions a la Last Tango in Paris

We were residing in Staten Island by the mall with a grand view of the landfill. The ride from the ferry past Silvertown always stimulated melodramatic inspiration. The New England vintage architecture of the white wooden houses lining narrow winding streets gave a comforting sense of the 1950's rosiness of the American dream. Then just past the modernistic Catholic Church at the junction, the view transported to the eight lane new development leading to the shopping mall which was the centerpiece. The complex housed three supermarkets and a dozen fast food chains. The aromas of the burgers clashed with the unmistakable whiff from the Fresh Kills dumping ground of the big apple.

It was a time to scout for a bigger apartment. The two bedroom affair on the ground floor sort of tired one out. No matter it was right in front of the playground and the swimming pool. We just thought like everybody else that upward mobility meant one additional room and farther from the garbage trucks. We had our heart set for Wyndham Loop at the back of the mall. The place cowered behind the buffer offered by the star shaped structure against the breezes blowing from the man made hilly terrain across the avenue. Sometimes non biodegradable flotsam like sheeny plastic wraps flew with the wind to dart about the windows and the garden.On early mornings with wide expanse of blue sky hovering on the horizon, the profundity of the trash heap apologized for earthly and material necessities of life.

A call to century 21 was returned by a mirthful voice. "Meet me in front of building C, the name's Gina." "I will drive up in a red Civic." The wife was busy with the toddlers and the chores so I came alone. Right there empty apartments and the friendly voice over the phone elicited exciting prospects that couldn't be pinpointed exactly as to nature and wherewithal. Marlon Brando's wild experience in Last Tango In Paris sliced the thick imagination. Misgivings began to parade like pitfalls that needed strategy. Would I look too Oriental for her taste? I just got a speeding ticket back in the Smokey Mountain part of the highway in Tennessee. Smokey bear wrote one up that said white Caucasian male. I was ecstatic. "At last, it's too good to be true." "I'm true blue American!" "Ha ha"

She exceeded my expectations. She stepped out of her car in black tights and figure hugging bright red sweater. When she offered her handshake, my stumble bum impulse was to kiss it like Porfirio Rubirosa. Good she pulled back in time and I puckered empty air. "I'm practicing for the gum blowing contest in my son's school." I offered the best alibi I could think of for the smooching echo. Saying it from a bowed position lessened credibility but I quickly grabbed incredulity which was written on her face and made it my weapon. "I'm the biggest supplier of bubble gum from the Orient into the east Coast." I ventured haphazardly not knowing what to say next. "In fact the carbon gas from chewing it is my downstream product." She stared at me like she felt impressed.

She had curly blond hair and yes she admitted she was Italian. They lived mostly around the major Catholic Church. We walked up tongue tied and breathing heavily to the third floor unit. She unlocked it easily and the subdued shadows inside beckoned mightily about unspoken clinches. Hungering mouths seeking one another in frenzied abandon waited for their cue in the wings. Clothes torn off in a hurry and cast aside with bated breath seemed the next number in the logical sequence of high emotion suddenly face to face with a very private venue far from prying eyes. She sort of pirouetted around with her resplendent figure and gestured to the master's bedroom. "Aha, just like I thought, she's making the first move, and dropping opening hints." "Okay, the bedroom it will be." I let my thoughts race ahead of reality.

She enunciated a mouthful of Brooklynese about figures and amounts which flew in and out of my pair of ears. I couldn't concentrate and did all I can to prevent the bubbling in my mouth of frothy saliva. I was so uptight with breathless anticipation and pinched nerves about what's the next step to take in the seduction process. I came unglued when she handed to me a copy of the contract and my trembling fingers let it slip to the floor. Very awkwardly I immediately hunched on all fours to the carpet like a Labrador to retrieve it. I should have just bent over. That's probably the reason, she thought it prudent to retreat in haste to the nice kitchen. My clumsiness threw her off the courtship routine. Never mind, the kitchen is a tell all clue of what's in her mind. Heat and sweat make cooking a fusion of juices that come alive.

It's in the kitchen where I really struck out. "Nice kitchen," I said, "you are Italian and must be a good cook, a real progeny of the great Marco Polo." "To him you owe the beginnings of spaghetti which rudiments he brought back from his legendary travel to China." "Your pasta is really a western adaptation of the ancient Chinese noodle." Major quiet. It was the lull before the storm. She looked appalled like I muttered the unspeakable. Her thorns, fangs, and quills came springing out in the open like I stepped on a porcupine. I tried to save the day and hose down the situation and inadvertently threw gasoline into the conflagration. I bombed out of the coliseum by saying, " If the Romans propagated pasta in the old Roman empire then Cleopatra's Egypt would have pizza instead of eating shawarma all the time. And the British would not have kidney pie and fish fry. Fish fry by the British was a legacy that became tempura for the Japanese when the former forced them to open their country to foreign commerce. The Chinese gave the chow mien to the Mongols who crossed the dessert to plant the seed of stroganoff in the steppes. Same noodle found it's way to Indo-China and south east Asia."

She wasted no more time. She gave me her card, walked out in a huff and drove away gunning the engine.

flaxseed