Stitched and Imaginary Affinity

If you’ve been reading the last few days, you’ll note I’ve been pedaling around a lot.  Going to and from meetings on a bike has been an idyllic way to reacquaint myself other neighborhoods, other pathways, in my adopted home.  Today I’ve got Nick Drake on, the album “Five Leaves Left.”  It’s never the right music to work to.  I’d get caught up in the lyrics.  It’s never the right music to hit the gym with, as it's too meandering.  But it’s just about perfect today, biking around, trying to get lost and then find my way back.  There’s a few photos of him, where he looks a lot like I did once, upon a time, and it’s stitched an imaginary affinity between me and he. 

I have directions to the local high-end market, where I intend to stop for groceries.  I’d visited the super market in the basement of the nearby mall.  It’s fine if you want instant noodles and soy sauce but most of what I’d otherwise be looking for, sharp cheddar cheese for example, is nowhere to be found.  What’s more it feels dirty and crowded and ultimately unappetizing.  I pedal along, checking the app on my phone and nearly pass this place, before I spy it on my right.

It’s big and clean and more expensive than the other joint.  Though much of what I want isn’t here either.  I think of the Stop and Shop (renamed “Tops”) back home.  It has an “Asian” section where everything from sesame oil, to Indian curry cubes to Thai coconut milk is lumped together, taking up half and aisle or so.  The same is true here.  There may as well be a “Western” section.  It is here that there are some Italian noodles, a determined search unearths a bottle of tomato sauce and even some balsamic vinegar.

It’s a tight kitchen back home, but I’ve taken over the space to chop garlic and dice onions.  No, there weren’t any breadcrumbs to buy, so I set out to make my own, which gets a bit messy with all the mashing.  And just around the time the meatballs are in the peanut oil and the big pot is boiling for the pasta, the training session call that was ninety minutes away is only five minutes off. I turn it over to the able hands of my stepdaughter and return to this wanna-be Italian meal later in the evening. 

Thursday, 9/19/19