This week, emotions are on the menu. We also welcome Guest Gulletier Lauren Holmes to the table.
Ravioli Revelation
by Lauren Holmes1
When I sat down at the restaurant, I was probably a sight: a sweaty, sunburned, 20-year-old, unkempt after a full day wandering Modena. It was my first week in Italy as a researcher-writer for a student-run travel guidebook. Updating all the info on museums. Traveling by public transportation. Sleeping in hostels. The best part: checking in on the food options. They were usually budget-conscious spots, but in Italy, a nice meal won’t set you back too far. This place was nice. It had tablecloths and silverware. It was dark. The waiter was friendly and patient with my bad Italian. Most importantly, it had air conditioning.
I ordered the pumpkin ravioli in pistachio cream sauce. I don’t know why. Probably because I like pumpkin pie. And then duck in a compote of wild berries. It’s not like either were a specialty of Modena or anything like that — that’s balsamic vinegar.
I had never been to Italy before. It’s a wonder that I was hired to do this job. One semester of Italian, passable copywriting skills, and foolhardiness were enough to land me the gig.
Up to that point in my life, my palate was that of the typical American suburbanite. Burgers were well done. Cheese was orange. Salads were iceberg lettuce and flavorless tomatoes. I was an aspiring aesthete with a vague sense of America’s culinary depravity. But I had no idea how uneducated I really was.
I put that first ravioli in my mouth. I won’t bother describing the flavor. There’s no point. In my entire existence, I had never known food to be a source of deep sensory pleasure. I shivered. My eyes started to water. I was…crying? I was crying. And eating. And wiping at my eyes with a napkin. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the loneliness. Or maybe it was the single greatest combination of flavors I had ever tasted. It was an abyss. I’m wiping up the sauce with bread. The joy. I’m asking for more bread. I’m slowing down as I approach the last ravioli, dividing it into ever smaller halves until it’s gone. The sadness and anger that I had never experienced food like that before.
There’s no way the next course could measure up, I thought. I was wrong. The duck came. I cut through the dark flesh, smothered in the dark purple of the myrtle berry compote. My first bite of duck, ever, but maybe also my first taste of meat that tasted like meat? I’m not sure how to describe my surprise at the flavor, the duck’s earthiness cut with the sweet acidity of the berries. It was thrilling. I teared up again.
Since that first trip to Italy, I’ve returned many times, to spend weeks but preferably months and years there. I became insufferable in my food snobbery back home. But then I grew up, and learned about the systemic forces that prevented Americans from having the same access to good food and rich cultural food traditions. Nonetheless, every time I return to Italy there’s a part of me still searching for the next meal that could replicate that out-of-body experience, that could uncover a new level of pleasure from taste.
Where the fuck was that restaurant? I’ve spent hours on Google Street View trying to jog my memory to no avail. I thought I’d never find it again.
At least, that’s what I believed for years until I uncovered the old guidebook. I looked up the restaurants I covered in Modena. It’s in there, highlighted with the special thumbs-up icon.
“The pumpkin ravioli with pistachio cream (€11) will bring tears to your eyes.”
Name Drops: Ristorante Uva d’Oro
The Donut That Made Me Cry
by Greg
This weekend I remembered that Sea & Soil, one of my new favorite places, offers donuts on Sundays. I had an Amtrak to catch at ten-twenty, and the clock showed ten past eight—time to put my gay walking speeds to the test. I had forgotten to charge my phone the night before and it was on eight percent. To conserve battery, I forwent Spotify and let the natural soundscape of the city wash over me. It was a stunning spring day—café doors were open, birds were warbling, and the usual din of construction around 4th Avenue was at rest. At one point, right before walking over the Union Street Bridge, I was hit so strongly by the scent of a lavender bush that it made me forget I was mere feet from a Superfund site. In Carroll Gardens, I peeped several tulips that looked like they could be contestants on Drag Race. On the right day, New York can turn it out.
I reached Sea and Soil to find the owners, Gaby and Noah, in the process of glazing the day’s special donut: Piña Colada. Seeing kind, familiar faces and inhaling the smell of just-out-of-the-fryer donuts filled me with joy. I ordered a box full of the featured flavor, a few vanilla bean donuts, and of course, a couple of chocolate pretzel croissants. After some lovely chatter and waiting for the Piña Colada to set, I saw that it was almost nine o’clock. Fuck. If I didn’t take a Lyft back to my apartment to gather my bags, there was no way in hell I was going to board the Maple Leaf.
When Efrain pulled up, I piled in with my confections, the fresh-baked fragrance hot-boxing his car. After a minute, the aroma proved too tempting, and I knew I had to sample one right then and there. I tore off a piece of a vanilla bean donut and popped it in my piehole. It was unreal. The texture was unlike any dunker I’d ever enjoyed eating: soft and supple, not cake but not dough—hotel pillow soft. The icing got me good, too. Light and slightly tangy, the delicate complexities of this vanilla bean glaze recipe reenergized a classic flavor.
Before I knew it, I felt liquid welling in my eyes. What was happening? Had a morning stroll and a pastry made me lose it?
I caught a glance of myself in the rearview mirror. My face was flush and tear-streaked. Efrain must have felt my confounded gaze and looked up. We locked eyes for a moment. With icing all over my mouth, I asked if he wanted one. Silence. I probably wasn't the first crying stranger he'd had in the back seat, but it’s possible I was the only one leaking tears of food-induced joy. Whether or not he heard my offer or chose to ignore it, there was no denying the perfume of warm donuts in the air. I can only hope that after dropping me off, he looped his CRV around the block and drove back to Sea & Soil to snag one for himself.
The Verdict: Always brake for donuts.
Name Drops: Sea & Soil
A special thank you to this week’s illustrator, Andrew Introna2! See more of his work here.
If you’d like to be a Guest Gulletier or illustrator, drop us a note at putitinthegullet@gmail.com
Lauren Holmes is a playwright in NYC. She also runs a digital agency. In her free time, she plans trips back to Italy, visits family in Boston, and naps.
Andrew Introna is an illustrator and educator from NYC. His work highlights the small mundanities of life and illustrates them in new and strange ways. When he’s not drawing, he can be found hiking trails with his beagle, Blue.