Toward the end of my spring break, that strange week that divided before from after, I stopped by the fancypants liquor store and bought a bottle of Ramazzotti. On most of the nights that followed I poured myself a tablespoonful or so. I am not much of a drinker but I do like amari. Somewhere along the way I stopped pouring my nightly tablespoonful, but this afternoon I measured out the last of it. It doesn't taste like licorice and orange peel today; it tastes like March, when my uncertainty and worry about the virus were tempered by the belief that this nation had pulled together in tough times before and would do so again. Today it tastes like dread and dashed hopes.
I doubt I'll buy another bottle.
But maybe I'll see if the fancypants liquor store can get me a bottle of Cardamaro. It tastes like cardoons, apparently, which are an artichoke cousin. And my very favorite amaro of all the ones I have tasted is Cynar, which is artichoke-flavored.
Probably, if I drink a tablespoonful of Cardamaro every night, it will forevermore be redolent of cynicism and disgust. Whyyyyyy, my friends, why are we in such a preventably stupid place re: this virus? It baffles me. It enrages me. I sent a polite but pointed email to the county yesterday after our outing to a nearby lake. There were hordes of people there yesterday, most of whom did not seem especially fussed about social distancing. Despite the crowding, the only folks wearing masks were the Gladly family, the friends we were meeting for a socially distanced canoeing get-together, and one little cluster of three young adults. I urged the county to require the people staffing the boat rental facility to wear masks. I said, Would you really want county employees to serve as vectors for COVID transmission at the same time that your health department is warning us about a surge in local cases?
Will they listen to me? Who can say?
The canoeing was very pleasant, once we were away from the crowded rental shack/boat ramp. While we were waiting for our friends Stella whimpered, "This is like one of my nightmares." It is still very odd to me, the number of people who did not even attempt to give us a 6-foot berth. Anyway.
This afternoon I made a batch of tapenade, and I am finding it very delicious. Do you need a five-minute recipe for a very delicious spread? Here you go: chuck a can of oil-packed tuna into the food processor with a couple of cloves of garlic. Add two heaping handfuls of pitted olives, a scant handful of drained capers, and a healthy squeeze of anchovy paste. Blitz to a flavorful puree. If you are feeling non-traditional, stir in a spoonful of harissa and another of preserved lemon paste. Eat on crackers.
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