Italia
June 28th, 2005 by Adrian Sampson
My family is in Europe somewhere and stops at an outdoor Italian restaurant where the menus hang from logs suspended in the air. I decide that I will order iced tea and, in coordination with my brother, chai with either soy or cow’s milk — he’ll order the other and we will share.
I stand and stare at the menu, searching for some pasta to order. For some reason, I can’t seem to understand the menu. Everything seems to have meat or to be totally incomprehensible. My only hope is for a dish called “Dos Amigos”, which has no description but has a picture of two little boys smiling together. My family attempts to prod me into ordering this, but I yell, out of desperation, “It’s just a picture of a couple of buds!”
The restaurant personnel decides to help out. A short, black-haired woman comes out from behind the counter and invites me inside to see the dishes for myself. Although I was previously unaware that this restaurant had an inside, I enter and follow her to a table where there are seated my brother and a boy of approximately fifteen years at a table with a plate of pasta on it. The rest of the inside of the restaurant is deserted, but there is another dish on a nearby table that seems to be grape leaves wrapped around rice in a fist-size bulb, surrounded by some sort of pasta.
The dish on the table is a plateful of reddish tortellini in the shape of the half-moon date cookies that my father makes during the holiday season (he actually makes these), but quite a bit smaller. On top, there are two cones of rice wrapped in grape leaves. This, the boy explains to me, is why it’s called “Dos Amigos”. The boy lapses into Spanish from time to time. I inquire about the other dish, which is suddenly on our table also. He tells me that the bulb is actually cabbage wrapped around shrimp. Upon closer examination, I can see that this is true. I am disappointed, but indicate that I’ll order the “Dos Amigos”, using a little Spanish myself. My brother and the boy peer at me, as if to hint that we are in an Italian restaurant, you know. I lamely attempt to defend myself by pointing out that the boy did use a few phrases in Spanish also.
The boy takes a water glass from the table, which is mostly full, and shovels some of the tortellini into it. The tortellini floats unappetizingly. He hands it to me and I walk to the outside table to join my family, which includes my cousin Zoe (Zoe’s mother, Maia, is staying with my family for the weekend). During the walk, I realize that it was a bit uncouth to give me old food floating in water and not to include the grape-leaf cones that gave the “Dos Amigos” dish its name. I don’t particularly care.
During this succession, I am sometimes flying around on the peaks of a few dark mountains trying to keep myself and my friends from being somehow hurt by a force of evil. This story is fascinating and very complex, but I have forgotten almost all of it.
Additionally, somebody is getting divorced.
This dream was posted by Adrian Sampson on Tuesday, June 28th, 2005 at 11:21 am. You can leave a response, but pinging is currently not allowed.
europe food pasta restaurant spanish
Kris Skotheim says:
June 29th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
“I decide that I will order iced tea and, in coordination with my brother, chai with either soy or cow’s milk — he’ll order the other and we will share.”
Could this be representative of your inner struggle between different dietary choices? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pressure you, it just stood out to me.
Adrian Sampson says:
June 29th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
This is a good observation and plausible enough psychologically. I have been operating, however, under the assumption that the connection was to something a bit more concrete. About a year or so ago, my family and I were in Colorado for my grandmother’s funeral, and we visited a very classy Indian restaurant famous for its tea and, more importantly, it chai. I have long believed that chai is, in every case, better with soy, but my brother and I decided to try out both collectively.
The anomaly here is that I actually preferred the chai with cow’s milk slightly. The chai itself was the best I can remember tasting.
Zoe Michael says:
November 7th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
ok ok ok… Wierd!!!
At the time that my mom was visiting you I was at Perry-mandsfield, a camp. while there i had a dream about u and devon at the tea factorie in Boulder. u were taking pictures (illiagaly) and triped and spilled your cup of chai. Same time, same place, tea…cosmic!