THERE WILL BE FRIES

I wish I hadn’t forgotten the saltiness of anchovy paste spread on crackers.
In retrospect, I must admit it was an arguable choice for an afternoon snack.
I was by myself most of the time that year, and most of the times the fridge was empty.
That day there were maybe a couple of yoghurts, a plate of pineapple cut in long chunks, with no cling film to protect it, some slice of pizza in a cardboard, maybe a ball of lettuce (the kind I don’t eat anymore because I find too watery) and a tube of anchovy paste. It was the first time I invited him to my place, my family was out, as they always were that Summer, and he looked so tall next to my fridge, eating anchovy paste on crackers. It was a hot July night in Rome and from what I remember, I had always loved anchovy paste, so it came as a surprise he had picked it out of all the unappealing foods in my fridge.
My grandma used to spread anchovy paste on buttered toast when I was a kid. The butter was never evenly spread but left in chunks so that you could dip your teeth in its softness when you would come to the buttery bit. In retrospect, anchovy paste looks even more like an arguable choice as an afternoon snack for a 5 years old, but I guess my grandma always had a tooth for those weird things no one really likes, (some that I grew to like myself) like dark chocolate, grapefruits, anchovies and chicory.
And so did him, it seemed.

I wish I never forget the bitterness of the beer I had that night in Bushwick when I entered a bodega and bought a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon (how cliche?). I didn’t even like beer, until then.
My liking of beer started that hot June night on Wyckoff Avenue. The man behind the counter handed it to me in a small brown paper bag, just big enough to fit the can. When I stepped out on the hot pavement again,
I realised the tiny bag also contained a straw. How sweet, I thought. He would have thought this was sweet.
I then realised it was probably against some law to drink alcohol on the streets past a certain hour, and that the brown paper bag, and the straw, were both meant to disguise the beer.
I drank it nonetheless, with the straw, leaving the can in the paper bag. I thought it was sweet.
He would love all of this, I thought. The beer-in-disguise, the warm Summer air, the hot pavement, walking back home in shorts and slides.
Maybe he would love me (still), too.

I wish I hadn’t forgotten the taste of those crinkle cut fries I ordered that night in Covent Garden.
The Apple Market was emptied of all the tourists, all the restaurants were closing down, and we were hungry after a couple of drinks we had at a nearby pub. Had I not been hungry, I would have followed him to the burger place anyway, just to buy some more time together that warm night in May.
We were not together at the time. We finished the fries and walked to the station, we said goodbye.
I hoped there would have been more fries.

I wish I never forget the taste of those spaghetti aglio e olio I had that morning in September in Nunhead. It was dawn, the birds singing had accompanied us all the way back from the club, while we were walking uphill, our breaths short, towards his place.
It must have been one of the first times he invited me back to his place.
The air was humid and chilly from that pleasant breeze that starts whispering through the trees in the early hours of the day, when the streets have just stopped releasing the heat from the day and your body just starts cooling off after a night of dancing and drinking. We stepped out of our shoes and climbed the three steps that would lead to the linoleum-floored kitchen. I sat on a stool (the only seat there were), while he put the pan on the hob and dripped it with a spoon of tomato concentrate and one of anchovy paste, oil, a clove of garlic, and lit up the hob with a lighter. We had the pasta in the kitchen, him standing, myself on the stool. I think I must have drunkenly said it was the best pasta I ever had. That it was my favourite pasta ever.
That Patti Smith once wrote that her last meal request, had she ever found herself in the unlikely case of being sentenced to death, would be spaghetti aglio e oglio and a slice of bread drizzled with olive oil, with a cup of black coffee. And I would ask the same, you know, I said. Patti Smith and I are the same.
I am not sure I said all of this actually, but I must have certainly thought the Patti Smith bit.

I wish I never forget the taste of that improvised ratatouille (or was it peperonata?) I had that 15th of August in the garden in Brockley. It was a Monday, a normal working day in London, but not for us.
Had we been in Italy, it would have been Ferragosto, the best bank holiday of them all.
I had taken the day off partly because I wanted to honour that, but really because it had been his birthday the day before. It was the end of my Summer holidays, I had come back two days earlier.
That previous Saturday, we had met for the first time after the holidays.
I had a golden tan and was wearing a pastel yellow shirt, rolled up to the elbows, and a short white skirt.
It was abnormally hot for an August day in London, and we had walked up to the park, then lied on the grass until the Sun was gone. Then it was Sunday and it was his birthday, then this glorious Monday came, and I called in sick. We had slept in late and woke up to an empty house, he cooked some peppers and aubergines, which we decided to eat outside in the garden, setting up an impromptu picnic. We had eaten the ratatouille with a rather stale baguette, which I had heated in the oven. He was wearing my green Kim Gordon t-shirt, I was wearing his tiny blue sunglasses, which I had given him for his birthday.
We took selfies.

I wish I never forget the taste of Morley’s fries.
The ones we order now almost every time after a night out. We step into the neon-lighted chippie, our faced flushed, our eyes tired, looking even more so in the mirror on the wall (I will never comprehend why they would have mirrors in there, who wants to look at himself while eating fried chicken?) and slide a pound one coin on the counter, in exchange for a rectangular box of fries.
The box generally features some arguable art-directed graphic, often flames and a drawing of a chicken looking rather happy, randomly juxtaposed on a photo of some fries. The fries are usually very salty and probably very bad for the both of us, but we have them anyway, balancing ourselves on the high stools.
Every time I reach to the next one in the paper box and dip it in the mayo in the corner I find myself thinking: there were other fries, after all.

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Words by Gaia De Siena
Illustrations by Emma Allegretti