As a single woman, and an often single diner, I'm used to what my mom and I term as "singing for my meal." I may have discussed this, but anytime you are the third diner or the only single among dining couples, there is a mild expectation that you are responsible for more witty repartee than the average diner or that your tales of romantic woe are more worth regaling, which they probably are because who wants to hear accounts that detract from the perception of your co-diners' marital bliss. So, in short, I have developed a shtick when someone asks "you're single, why?" or "why are you traveling/eating alone?"
However, this developed a new wrinkle yesterday, as my co-diner, the proprietor of the restaurant, was married (and had a bambino) so the singing for my meal schtick with an ostensibly safe married man became hilariously awkward after biscotti. I'll recount.
Bologna is beautiful (I took a day trip there yesterday from Vicenza)... tiled-roofed buildings, beautiful stalls of fruits and vegetables, stores that load themselves full of sides of proscuitto, shades of white cheeses, truffle oil, truffles, chocolates, big bowls of pesto to buy by the pound, wide varieties of tagiatelli/tortellini made by hand, sweets, sweets with pine nuts, sweets with meringue, sweets with candied fruits... I walked through one alleyway at least three times to soak in the richness of the colors and smells.
I climbed a tower that had hundreds of stairs, which were smoothed like old marble and saw the city from above... the churches, the other towers, the basilica, the buses, the hills in the distance. It was poetic and lovely and the entirely normal tourist experience.
I wandered to my first pick of a restaurant, found it closed, so wandered to the second restaurant I had circled in my Lonely Planet guide, a recommended restaurant, mind you, and sat down. I had found myself at La Drogheria della Rosa, a charming, old place that had glass cases in the walls facing the street with old bottles of Bordeaux, and shelves on the interior with old glass bottles for drugs, as it was an old pharmacy. The bar was stocked full of interesting, brightly-colored bottles and the counter itself was packed with old books. It was so cramped with old things you couldn't help but feel comfortable, like you were in someone's drugstore-converted kitchen.
It began innocently enough: I got my free half glass of prosecco, clumsily ordered my water (in English) and my wine (in Italian), and got to work on my plate of carne: mortadella, proscuitto, and salami.
This is the part no one can figure out: why am I sitting there, taking photos of my food, fixedly observing other diners and those outside the window, and contentedly eating, alone. So, the red-bespectacled restaurant proprietor had to find out. He put down his glass of prosecco he had been carrying around and sat at the other half of my small table. Mediterranean men are crusty and gruff, so I think an inherent challenge I take on as I meet them is to soften them up. As a challenge to myself. Foolish, foolish girl thinking this wasn't just a facade.
So we talk about tourism in Bologna, life in the US, the south of Italy, and the north of Italy. I listen intently, thinking his visit will be short and I can resume the slow degustazione of my food. He instead encourages me to keep eating. I finish my half-glass of prosecco, and he brings the entire bottle to the table. I take a break from meat sampling, the waiter comes to take the plate, and the proprietor gives him a stern rebuke in Italian that he should wait until I'm done. I felt like his own goose being personally-fattened.
My dinner arrives..tagiatelli con ragu...personally delivered by the chef. It was amazing... flat but unexpectedly undulating pasta with a meat sauce (beef cooked in onions, carrots and I imagine garlic, but it tasted Greek, like it had cinnamon in it).
The proprietor would jolt up often to talk to someone outside or fawn over departing guests, a not unwelcome respite for me. But slowly, the other two tables left, the chef left, the waiter left, and the other previously-unseen kitchen staff said their goodbyes. The half bottle of San Giovese was extinguished and the proprietor brought over a full bottle of wine that he said was much better than what I had.. some mix of three grapes.
Then the esteemed proprietor, Emmanuelle, became moved. He had requested that the poor abused waiter change the opera from Carmen to La Traviata. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with my comment to an Italian that I liked opera but Bizet was French, correct? I think I can now tie Emmanuelle's changed mood to the second scene, perhaps, of La Traviata. My delicious dinner was gone, Emannuelle demanded biscotti (while the waiter was still there) to accompany my espresso and the looks began. With a careless gesture, he encouraged me to dip the biscotti in the wine. As I was savoring the simple pleasures of cookies, I didn't realize Emmanuelle's soul was uncontrollably under the spell of the music. Each sip of his wine was followed by what I now know was a mildly lecherous look that I thought was merely the standard Italian look men gave women. I guess it was really both.
After I made some intentionally absurd comment to defuse his romanticism, he closed his eyes and swayed to the music. Then he reached out his hand, I foolishly thought to give me a high-five (listening to opera with an over-forty man doesn't have the same effect on me as it did him) and he intertwined his fingers in mine. Creepy, but not criminal, just time to get the check. Then he told me how nice it was to meet me, which obligatorily is followed by two kisses on the cheek, but in his case, a very deliberate miss and a kiss on the lips. Then kissing my forehead and pressing my head to his potbelly. Really? And all this while I'm still setting in my chair, like any other American tourist. He gets up, for who knows what opera-motivated motive. After two glasses of prosecco and at least three of wine, I foolishly can't stop laughing at the absolute absurdity of the situations in which I can find myself with very little effort.
I gather my things, additionally re-noting the wide window to my left Emanuelle has already used to wave to numerous passers-by. The last thing I wanted on my innocent day-trip was an Italian woman chasing me with a butcher knife after seeing her husband's fingers intertiwned with mine because he can't control his romantic impulses when he's in the company of a very conservatively dressed, self-deprecating tourist with pasta bolognesa remnants likely on her face.
Still before things got creepy:
He returned with an invitation to view the wine cellar, which was thankfully the best entree for my departure I could imagine. Somewhere there was another kiss on the lips and a monologue of the serendipity of my wandering into his restaurant. He wished me all the luck and love in the world, kept grasping and beating his chest as he was captive to his intense emotion, and kept repeating that men in Washington "don't have eyes." I thanked him as platonically as possible, took the rose he gave me (and had given every other departing woman), and wished I could find a toothbrush.I couldn't stop laughing spontaneously the rest of the day and into the night. I restrained myself from laughing when I headed into a church almost instinctively directly after lunch. I'm tempted to be extremely flattered that I have some unknown power of seduction without effort, but I'm discouraged from thinking that Italian men truly place any value on marriage and now am cautioned to be mindful that boca-soloing over opera is a prohibitively risky adventure.