Mangia Mangia

The way that last post ended  “Nice eat you?”  really rings true for me because food does eat you, in the sense that it slowly consumes the “you” you once were, leaving in its place a much more, shall we say, upholstered version. As recently as 2001 I looked as thin as Flat Stanley. For at least a year after my romance with the Atkins Diet. I looked like an Aerobed just pulled from the box.Now though? Well let’s just say I inflated, largely due to trips like this one in Italy where they bring fresh hot bread to the table the second you sit down and leave you alone with it for a whole ten minutes before then setting down several carafes brimming with the local wines that taste like the kiss of God himself on a hillside in springtime.We’ve been eating this week in Italy my seven college pals and I, sleeping walking, eating, sleeping, walking, eating - all under the watchful eye of an eighth pal who has lived here for 25 years and so can say all the hard words like the one for ice – ghiaccio – which when I try to say it sounds like I’m about to spit a wad of chewing tobacco clear across the room and which in any case the bartenders can't understand.Here’s the evidence, with my hand pointing to it like all those funny Renaissance paintings where the St. John character looks right out at the viewer as if to say. "Do you see this?  Do you see what’s about to unfold here?"Suffice to say it's unfolding. As my sister used to say we'll just have to be careful not to let TOO much blood get in our alcohol stream. :-)