THE GNOCCHI SIDE OF LIFE

I haven’t written for over 10 days. I was too depressed.

Maybe it’s because I watched the Amy Winehouse documentary, last week. Or because I miss Italy. Especially my mum doing her daily fitness routine on the excercise bike, dressed like Jane Fonda in the Eighties.

I can’t write when I am miserable. And I have been feeling spineless like a gnocchi dumpling.

But that’s ok. We all have the right to be weak and soft. Don't we?

We all have the right to be Gnocchi. Tenuous against the stiffness of pasta. Emotional against the harshness of life.

Gnocchi is a kindly hearted meal. And I bet most of you have no idea what it is made of: potatoes.

Do not treat gnocchi like a pasta dish. They have different personalities.

The best gnocchi are made of 1,000 grams of potato puree and only 250 grams of flour. (It’s the flour that keeps it together, like a rational glue.)

It’s like 75% emotions and 25% brains.

Plenty of feelings and just enough wisdom to survive the boiling waters.

The best gnocchi MUST be soft. They have to melt in your mouth and bring back memories of sweet, hopeful and fragile times. Dreamy and delusional Eras of your life.

They may remind you of when you were 2 and you could get away with throwing gnocchi at your grandma while attempting to eat them. Or bring back memories of the Italian girl you met in Rome in 1989, who made you try the best gnocchi of your life. The one that you are still convinced to have profoundly loved, despite having forgotten her name.

Or maybe, when you see gnocchi, you just visualize your fat, gnocchi-shaped old school mate Chuck.

Whatever. But gnocchi, like feelings, are quick to submerge.

Look at the boiling pot and you will see them popping up in seconds, one by one, like different states of mind: hi, I am the surprise gnocco, hello, here comes anger gnocco, passion gnocco, stress gnocco, happy gnocco, love gnocco!

I am waiting for my plate of gnocchi feelings, at a Tavola, on a rainy day. I ordered mushroom gnocchi, a poisonous combination of softness.

And when they come, they are just perfect: creamy and innocent.

The velvety texture of the potatoes perfectly absorbing the sauciness of the Porcini.

I taste them with my eyes closed. I can almost see my mum smiling on her excercise bike and Amy Winehouse happily smoking pot in Heaven.

Because that’s the very nature of gnocchi: they are somehow ridiculous.

Like emotions you once felt and then digested. They don't hurt anymore, they just make you smile.

@ A Tavola, Darlinghurst

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