The Cherry Cheese Incident
My wife and I were sitting at a two-top at Al Tiramisu, chef's Luigi Diotaiuti's dark, subterranean Italian operation in Dupont Circle. I was staring at a portrait-quality drawing of Giuseppe Verdi, whose graying, haunted mug seemed to be accusing me of a life-time devotion to rock ’n' roll. There was a glass-encased display of miniature grappa bottles to my left, as some sort of Italian music wafted overhead. I halfway wished I could switch places with my wife, Carrie, so I could have my back to the wall. It feels that authentic here.
I was drawn to the prosciutto di Parma antipasto because, according to the menu, it comes with "homemade cherry mozzarella." But when I asked the waiter if the fresh cheese was indeed made in-house, he instead explained that the "cherry" adjective indicates the size of the mozzarella, not the flavor. So I tried my question again, and the waiter shook his head no, no, no. The mozzarella is not made in-house, he insisted.
Carrie and I shrugged it off and ordered the antipasto anyway, which was utterly delicious.
This morning, I called Diotaiuti to double-check about the mozzarella. After all, why advertise it as homemade if it's not? The chef explained that the waiter was confused. The buffalo mozzarella is imported from Italy; the cherry mozzarella is made in-house with fresh cow-milk curds.
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2:13 pm
"Graying"? "Haunted"? Vaffanculo, testa di merda! Stop breaking my coglioni. I think I look pretty damn good for nearly 200. We didn't have any Botox in my time.
But then what do you know, you punkass kids with your rock 'n' roll? You don't even realize that "Sticky Fingers" was a bunch of filler.
Sigh. I sure wish the blogospherelioni was a kinder, gentler place. But since I don't have to actually abide by my own wishes, I hope you and your wife and your future children are crushed to death by Pavarotti's fifth stomach roll (the third leading cause of death in Italy.)
2:30 pm
OMG, I could go for one of those cherry and cheese pies.
2:47 pm
Also in my day, nonsequiturs were considered a crime against the Blessed Trinity. Citizens who came to the public square to announce, appropos of nothing, that they'd love a cherry cheese pie right about now were stoned publicly outside of St. Peter's Basilica by order of Pope Pius IX, and their remains were left overnight to be eaten by pigeons.
4:08 pm
Really Carman, you do speak an infinite deal of nothing. Piss off.
4:38 pm
Really, Ernest, it was Rees the Chronically Inscrutable who brought up pies, which had nothing to do with anything, unless "antipasto" has come to mean "pies." (Has my sweet Italiano changed so much since my death? Must I gore you *both* in the eye with my baton?)
Signore Carman, while your callous dig at my appearance has wounded me to the core, you are correctamundo (
4:43 pm
(Correctamundo is Italiano blended with Samuel l. Jacksonese) about that appetizer. Having nothing else to do from my sad wall at Al Tiramisu, I ogle those mozzarella balls all day long. I assure you, were I able, I would quickly eat so many that I would soon outweigh all three tenors and the Pope-mobile.
4:53 pm
Frankly, Giuseppe, it's all the same. I dig your fancy verbal stylings.