Time to be l'Armadio

We are off to Italy for a week - back to the lovely shores of Lake Como. I will be picking up emails if there is anything urgent, otherwise I will be soaking up the first fragrances of spring: jasmine, violets and the smoke of logs on the fire.

I write a little article for Glasgow Community Times West End and I thought I would leave you with this week's instalment as it does connect back to Italy.

Being a kapha in yogic terms means that my favourite journey is from a horizontal position (preferably a bed) to the fridge and back. Which means that I rather favour a slow pace of life. Maybe you have heard of the Slow Food Movement which originated in Italy in the late 80s.

If you visit their website (www.slowfood.com), you find their official manifesto. It states ‘We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods’. They point out that the problem of today is that many people mistake frenzy for efficiency.

Which means I like to apply this slow food approach to The Publishing Cupboard and follow a slow work approach. However, I fear slow work is not suited to today’s world where it probably looks as though it’s just another form of displacement activity. Except that the word activity implies some actual movement and the wheels of The Publishing Cupboard grind fearfully slowly.

Yet, I still have to be convinced by a fast way of working. After all, where does all the time one saves in frenzied activitiy go?

My mother was born in 1924 on the shores of Lake Como, Italy. In a world untouched by fridges and supermarkets, shopping was necessarily a daily event. Now and again she talks of those days, like edible snapshots of times gone by.

Fast Food
Nonna (grandma) was sitting in front of the fire in the kitchen watching the dying flames. A young cousin came in and presented her with a large snail, as though proffering a special treasure. Nonna took it and popped it into the embers. After a few minutes, she retrieved it, drew the snail out from its shell and ate it with relish. ‘What a delicious snail’ she said ‘ where did you get it?’ The young cousin (who was rather simple), replied ‘the cemetery.’ Somehow it took the edge off the old lady’s appetite.

Special Treats
An aunt kept two cows and every day my mother would collect the milk from where it was left in a hollow in a chestnut tree. As a treat for La Befana (6th January, Epiphany) the aunt would skim the cream off the milk for the whole week before. Then it was whipped until it was thick and white and she’d make chestnut purée from chestnuts gathered from nearby woods. Each child received a tiny mountain of beige purée with a dollop of snowy whipped cream on top.

When I hear these stories, I wonder what memories our children will have. Will the ping of the microwave conjure up a raft of such rich images? The symbol of the Slow Food Movement is the snail. And when I think of this it reminds me of my nonna and the cemetery snail.

I'll let you know how our trip goes.