Hibernation — not

I did not withdraw into my shell for well nigh a pair of months; rather, before I left, I was insanely busy until common sense prevailed miraculously and the whole thing went beautifully away, just like that, just before I left. I left for Europe and stayed a month and ate things in shells, like the pictured Venetian bovoletti (sea snails). The waiter at the restaurant I think I liked best in my month of eating was busy trying to dissuade me. Culinary adventurism had me seeing red and I insisted. I’m glad I did: I conquered my culinary snail phobia (a bad experience in an Andalucian tapas bar a decade ago) having previously made the first inroads into my reluctant disgust at all things innard except livers (so not Stephanie Alexander, so not Roman, so definitely not cool) with a lovely dish of trippa alla Fiorentina (that’s cow’s stomach in a red sauce). Once I’d read it, I gave Peter Carey’s new book, Theft, to a Dutchman embarking on a mid-life change of career as an art dealer who took me to his Islamic butcher. I called a friend whilst drying on a small rock in the middle of a small stream I had half fallen into in an attempt to get my cycling-parched mouth to the cool water, in the countryside around Sant’Anna in Comprena, a moment of ridiculous idyll. I got a tour of the FAO in Rome. And in KL, I discovered soursop, now a favourite flavour right up there with mangosteen, but without good excuse failed despite opportunity to put the first hunk of fresh durian ever into my mouth. I saw a Modigliani exhibition and now realise I concur with The Guardian‘s critic’s views, marvelling that what I was wandering by seem to be worth $40 million each these days. For a few hours, I was convinced that Keith Jarrett was going to be playing that night at La Fenice, and I had determined to go at a cost of some hundreds of dollars, leaving Miss K at home, alone, in the apartment we had rented. But I had mixed up Giugno and Luglio. I went to Da Michele in Naples — I stumbled across it, and knew it to be perhaps the most famous pizzeria in the world — ate a Margherita, drank a beer which was the same price as a coke, and sat awkardly silent when the Mamma and her sultry Neapolitan daughter at whose small table I was ordered to sit realised the futility of directing mile a minute Italian in my direction. There are limits to my willingness to take photos in restaurants, so it is lucky that this person took this photo: