Asked and Answered: How Much Salami is too Much Salami?

I’m reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” this month but had to take a break once our friends arrived from Florida because it was making me too angry. Basically it turns out that, since corn is the king crop, we are all made up of corn. Think you’re having a steak? That’s corn steak. Having some fruit? There’s corn in that. I was feeling overwhelmed by the fact that I was basically made of corn so I used Italy as a means to combat that, and tried to check my physical makeup to reflect a more balanced diet of gelato, salami, seafood, pesto, wine and cheese. They are probably all made of corn, but at least it is Italian corn. I am proud to say that I am at least 1% not corn now. My big toe is made entirely of salami.

The end of Edinburgh and the week in Italy were lovely and amazing, just as we’d hoped it would be. Of course, having several of your closest friends in a paradise should be a recipe for success. We had a lovely last few days in the U.K. showing our friends our favorite bits of Edinburgh, and taking the train down to York, one of my favorite cities, laden with good memories. We stood in the pouring rain for my THIRD literary pub tour and I still loved it, and said goodbye to Shan on Monday night. We toured Vicenza and got our fill of Palladian architecture, and I cuddled Paul and laughed at Nico, and we sunned at the Cinque Terre, and laid out at the porch of our agriturismo every night under the stars, and toured walled cities and bakeries and wineries, and ate gooey-cheesy pizza, and came up with ridiculous jokes and one very viable business scheme. We got too hot and too tired and a little coldy. We sang the Cornetto song way too much. We adopted the speech patterns of a two-year old (NO! JUICEY! MINE!) and fixed a flat tire at midnight. Katy and I regressed to our eighteen-year-old selves. There was a lot of grabass. Her baby fell asleep in my arms one night which may have been the best moment of the trip for me.

To quote Little Rick, it was “too much special.” To quote Little Rick again, “too much is never enough.”