JAPANO-ITALY AT HOME

This morning when I went out back and was poking around near the shiitake logs for some reason now forgotten, I suddenly noticed that right there in front of my eyes, almost elbowing my corneas, were four beautiful, pristine, brand-new utterly bugless shiitake as big as small dinner plates!! I immediately forgot whatever it was I had come out there for, and began harvesting and trying to balance the velvety delicacies on my hands and forearms as I juggled the brown treasures unbroken back to the house, where for lunch I sliced two of them into long paperthin slices much like wide noodles and sauteed them very lightly in basil-steeped olive oil with a touch of garlic and lemon thyme before tossing in some al dente fettucine sprinkled with some genuine grated parmesan and sort of went to Japano-Italy for a while, somewhere around Torino-Kyoto, where I wondered how I could have forgotten the small but worldfully delicious bounty the shiitake present us each fall around this time; they must know how I love surprises, and said nothing until the moment was just right. And in what a splendid language!!