After several days in Polska, the culinary delights of Rosol and Pierogi were beginning to wear off on the team.The look on Alvaro Gonzales face (the most underrated wing back in the game and also Rio Grandes longest serving player) when presented with yet another plate of pierogi Ruskie said it all. it was obvious that he and the rest of the players were starting to develop culinary home sickness. The next day in training ths became abundantly apparent. Gargagno kept sitting down in the middle of a one touch 6 a side match. He said that he felt to weak to play and that seeing as his stomach was not feeling nourished, he needed his soul to be and pulled out a copy of Seven story Mountain by Thomas Merton from his training bag. He then walked off and found a secluded spot at the other end of the field and spent the rest of the day reading under a lone Chestnut tree. Gonzalo, who had finally awakoken from his valium induced sleep-athon kept kicking youn Acosta in the shins and shouting "risotto" pretty soon the whole squad was shouting this familiar chant "risotto" "risotto per Rio".
I knew what they wanted and needed, the acclaimed dish created by the famoso cheffio Hector Barrivio barbarossa, Carnaroli, Albarinio in honour of Rio Grande's Coppa Del D'oro Boro cup final triumph last season. I turned to the fitness coach José Athletico and said " I will go and find a bello mercato buy some mushrooms, garlicio and shallots and tonight we will dine on Risotto per Rio". The whole team cheered and then renewed their training with a hitherto unseen vigour.
Now I knew we did not need rice as before we left our homeland we had packed two extra suitcases, one had contained 175 packets of De Cecco No6 spaghetti, the other had neatly packed in it 84 kilos of the finest Viale Nanone rice one can find in all of Rio Grande. So i left José to finish up training and went in search of the elusive wild mushrooms that I had heard grew so freely here.
It took me two hours to find the famoso vegetable market "Hala Targova". I walked round and round in circles across the islands that are dotted over the river Odra before I realised that the market had only been 500 metres away from where I had started. When I finally strode through the heavy wooden doors into the "Hala targova" I was greeted with exotic shouts in a strange language, tumbling baskets of fruit and piles of wild mushrooms that seemed to scent the air with the whispers of the coming autumn.
I took some photos of the huge array of wild mushrooms to send home to Mamma, then proceeded to purchase the ingredients for a wonderful "risotto per Rio" that would live long in our collective memories or so I thought.
returning to the hotel laden with red shallots, cepes and girolles, it took a fractious conversation and a bribe to the kitchen to grant me the use of a rusty old gas oven.
I wasted no time getting to work straight away in front of the rather intrigued looking chefs. I sorted through the mushrooms, seperating the less fine ones, those woody mushrooms were dropped into the gently bubbling stock. Now the shallots, garlic and parsley, sliced and chopped olé. I then called up to José to get Aromga to bring me down 4 packets of fabuloso riosotto rice.
A few minutes later there stood Aromga in front of me with the gravest expression on his face.
" I do not know how to tell you this bossio, but a somebody hee deednt pack the rice."
Looking up at the heavens I shouted "Angelo Badalementi how could this have happened."
Turning to the crowd of chefs who had now edged ever closer so they could stare into the bubbling stock, I did my best to explain our predicament. After much shrugging on shoulders, the chef who appeared to be the boss amongst this ragtag crew, nodded his head, grinned then scuttled off.
Seconds later he returned, beaming faced and with a huge plate of uncooked pierogi.
Aromga cried out and fell to the floor with his head in his hands.
The chefs seemed clearly disturbed by this demonstartion of the Latin temperament and could not fathom how their beloved pierogi could have such an effect on a man.
Finally Aromga pulled himself to his feet and wiping the tears from his eyes said "bossio I will go and find some Viale Nanone or Carnaroli and i shall not return until I do." and off he went.
I smiled and thought that is why this brave man is my capitano.
So we waited for him to return, we waited and waited four days to be precise. By midnight on the first day we had started to fear for his safety. I contacted the polizia and the Embassio, Gargagno even rang his mama back in Rio but none of them seemed to know anything about my Capitanos disappearence.
Four days later Aromga finally returned to us at the training ground. His hair was matted and dull, he stood in front of us bruised and bloodies, tightly gripping onto one perfectly formed grain of Carnaroli rice.
The players rushed around their capitano, but he just waved away their concerns about his bruises, then he turned away from us and lifted up his shirt, we looked on in horror at the giant tattoo of a pierogi that covered his entire back. Pulling his shirt back down, Aromga sat down, took a deep breath then told all of us exactly what had happened to him these last four days.
It had taken Aromga several hours, after leaving the hotel to hunt down an Italian ristorante, where at great expense he had managed to purchase a 3kg bag of De la megatorio grade Carnaroli rice. As he was hurrying back to the hotel he had decide to take, what he thought was a shortcut over the Tumski brige. He was halfway across when he was suddenly confronted by a group of shaved headed ape men, he knew what was coming, they asked him to empty out his pockets. Now Aromga had not wanted any trouble and his chief concern was to return to the hotel with all 3kg of rice not a gram less. So he duly emptied out his pockets to the tune of around 2000 zlotys. The apes did not seem to be satistied with this however and the largest of the ape men grabbed Aromga by the neck and said "they were going to take everything this latin ladyboy had on him". Aromga had a dilemma now as he had no intention of relinquishing the rice to these cultural barbarians but the only other item he had on his personage was his venezualen cup winners medal, his most treasured item. With a heavy heart he held out for them to take but one of the apes just snatched it out of his hand and tossed it over the side of the bridge, Aromga winced as he heard it splash into the dark wates of the Odra below. Then the chief ape gestured towards the bag of De la Megatorio rice, now Aromga lost his cool " no fackin way, I weel not give upio the Carnaroli and be forced to eat your cabbage stuffed pastries for a moment more."
The apes took great offence to this smear on their culinary heritage and jumped on top of Aromga, the bag of Carnaroli split in the melee and the rice tumbled out all over Tumski bridge.
Aromga told us how he was on all fours scrabbling about trying to gather up the rice, when he felt a hefty thwack on his head and everything went black.
He thinks he awoke the following morning but cannot be sure. He had found himself in some abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city and as he had brushed the dirt off himself and got to his feet, it was then that the searing pain in his back became noticeable. After a few hours of what seemed like aimless walking he found a public toilet. As he washing his face in the luke warm water, he noticed a mirror and decided to investigate the pain in his back, he gingerly lifted up his shirt and then he saw it, the sore looking monstrosity that now covered his entire back. He turned back to the sink and vomitted and at that very moment he wondered if he would be able to carry on a second longer. It took him two whole days sat outside that public toilet weeping and cursing the gods until his soul had regained another strength to try and find his way back to us, his brothers.
We stood there looking at our capitano, in silence. our eyes wet with tears of sorrow and love for this grande man. Then finally Pastore stepped forward, put his arm around Aromga and tried to console him with the fact, that from a certain angle his new tattoo could be mistaken for a map of his beloved venezuala. Aromga smiled wanly at this. He stood there for a moment as still as the rocks that tower abover rio Grande, then he spoke these words.
"Do you know what kept me going those four day" and he held up that one shiny perfectly formed grain of Carnaroli rice "this, I clung onto this one grain the whole time, this sole piece of rice as for me it embodied the spirit of Rio Grande" "Risotto per Rio" "ole" we all shouted "Ole for Aromga" "ole el capitano"
No comments:
Post a Comment