SPRING SHIVER

Here it is, still cold, and near the end of April; never had woodfires at this time of year before; sometime in early March is when we began to get all our warmth directly from the sun again... I have to keep going outside to raid next year’s stack of split oak.

Even the intrepid early frogs are shivering, though not so many early ones this year; the rest are still biding their time. I can hear the eager ones at dusk and dawn from my bedroom, doing their best out there in the new cold mud and the dripping cedars, trying to get out the traditional chants in the usual vigorous way, but they can’t with such stiff diaphragms. A lot of jumpy quaverpeeping out there.

Frogs are cold-blooded of course, so can’t shiver in the mammalian way, but they’ve been around way longer than we have, and have evolved other ways to shiver in reaction to bizarre temperatures, and do their shiver equivalent. You can hear it in the songs they sing: not golden-oldie exaltations at the warm, invigorating burst of spring, but sad, jerky strings of woes and alases, barely making their way through the cold air without falling frozen to the ground...

As to the garden, the “spring” garden, even the Boston lettuce is hunched over, though the stolid iceberg looks at home; the spinach is all tentative green entities hunkered over on the ground, looking around for some sign of life in the cold wind; the lusty Mediterranean tromboncino, forget it, those seeds are dreaming of a coast somewhere south of Naples. Last year’s radicchio is turning purple, the zucchini needs a down vest...

Wonder what a winter in Sorrento costs these days...

FETTUCINI BOLOGNESE a la ROBERTO

Now and then, one can use a break from even the finest Japanese cuisine, a fact even truer if one is a Westerner.

To enjoy this particular recipe to its fullest after a day of hard work the way I did, you must go out into the garden on an autumn evening when the light of a half moon or more is sufficient to see, feel among the shadowy pepper plants and find a big fresh green pepper, then on your way back to the house get some fresh basil tips.

When you get inside, chop up the pepper, tear up the basil, then from the fridge get some of the fettucini left over from the large batch you prepared a couple days ago. Also get out the leftover Sauce Bolognese a la Roberto you made on the same day. The sauce should be even better now. Don't forget the parmesan. Saute the pepper in fine olive oil, add the sauce and some hot water over high heat, add the basil and an appropriate quantity of fettucine, tossing as you cook fast to reduce the sauce and thoroughly heat the pasta, then put all on a plate, grate the parmesan on top and eat everything like you were on a hillside in Italy looking out over the Bay of Napoli. Feel free to lick the plate.

Then you look up and you're back to a mountainside Shiga, above a Lake made silver by moonight. Fast, intense and frugal world travel.