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Published: October 19th 2010
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Amsterdam is full of sidewalk cafes and, at one of them, I manage to do some shameless eavesdropping. A wisp of a conversation floats across the table, from a middle-age woman who is speaking to her six-year-old grandson.
"We had a lovely visit at the Rijksmuseum. Didn't we, my darling?"
I hear the scraping of a chair and the clanking of cutlery against some glassware.
"Don't you like your sandwich? It's a lovely sandwich. Here, trade sandwiches with Granny. You'll enjoy Granny's lovely sandwich."
More scraping noises can be heard, and a clang against a metal railing somewhere.
"That Rijksmuseum was a bit of a slog, wasn't it? I'm so glad we're here - sit up, my darling! - eating so nicely."
I hear a rattle of sugar cubes being liberated from their bowl. I sense a stack of sugar cubes happening.
"Finish up and you can have a sweetie for dessert. Oops. Now, what shall we have, once you finish up your yummy sandwich?"
"You've got a big bum, Granny."
"Yes, my darling. And you've got a teeny-weeny bum."
"But your bum is really big. It's a really big, big, big, big bum!"
At this point, our cheque comes to the table, and I am torn from the discussion, which was just getting interesting. It makes me miss my grandsons, and long to be sitting at an outdoor cafe with any one of them, haggling over sandwiches or bums. And it occurs to me that such a conversation can happen anywhere - on a blanket in Central Park, at the lunch counter at Selfridges, over sushi on South Granville - between a grandmother in her dotage and a normal, fidgety grandson.
Indeed, it was at Safeway, or maybe it was the Save-On Foods, where an older woman came up to me and tapped me sharply on the shoulder. I had two-year-old Gabriel in hand, but barely, and I was gasping and sweating, having chased him twice around the store. "Pace yourself," she warned.
I like to remember her telling me this, even though at the time I treated her like the Grinch that Stole Christmas and wanted to smack her with a bag of frozen peas. Pacing sounds like a pretty good plan, now that I have three small boys to contend with.
Over the next couple of days I bury myself in a most delicious daydream revolving around what I would do if I could bring the boys to Amsterdam. And just as I am sitting in one of those agreeably dishevelled coffee shops, chin in hand, caught up in another fantasy starring myself as an eccentric but adorable Auntie Mame - pedalling them across polders, passing by windmills, arriving at Marianne's house in time for pancakes - a woman leans over an utters just one word. Scorpaciatta.
There's a back story here, but who needs it? Better to think that I get regularly accosted by soothsayers speaking Italian and let it go at that. Besides, compared to Dutch, Italian is such a beautiful-sounding language that even if this means please-allow-me-to-fondle-your-bunions, I am naturally interested, and ask her to say it again. Scorpaciatta. Try it yourself and see if it doesn't slide right off your tongue.
Truthfully, I have no idea what it means - my grasp of Italian is such that I only retain words that would regularly show up on the menu at the White Spot - but I learn that scorpaciatta is a term that applies to eating locally, filling yourself on what’s grown at specific times of the year. It’s not about being a locavore, really, since it implies no slavish observance to someone else’s food rules. (And besides, who can imagine living your whole life in Oslo and never eating an orange?) It’s more about savouring what is seasonal - the sweetest strawberries in spring, followed by salads bristling with tender arugula, then so many purple cherries that you are actually ready for cherry season to be over. By the time September rolls around, you’re happy to gorge on all the amazing heirloom tomatoes that people have been growing lately. (And why weren’t they around when I was a kid? Not invented yet?) Then you move on to corn, winter squash, and so on.
It suddenly dawns on me that if you could structure your life like that, feasting on the good times when they present themselves, with singular purpose and without restraint, you could stay happy and focused, and not be dreaming about brussels sprouts in the cheerless month of November. Sitting on this bar stool, in this city, at this moment, I am filled with a tangible sense of how intensely sweet life is, like being doused in liquid honey. It seems an oddly profound notion.
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Vera
non-member comment
Thank you
For such a delightful and wise blog. I savor your writing. Called you but must have missed you alas. Are you in the same house in Amsterdam? I was just about with you a year ago. Going back to NY for Halloween as I did last year after Amsterdam. This year it is LA instead for a cousin's reunion. Which, thanks to you, I'll now savor a little bit more. much love, Vera