Tartufo

by Kira Jane Buxton

His heart kicks. Giuseppina. Pina. His Pina. There is no one more alive. She is an astronomical force, all of life helpless to her gravitational pull. A true star. Umberto has cooked for kings and sheiks, presidents and princes, and no one has come close to fascinating him in the way Giuseppina does. She is the rarest of truffles. Changes the air around you. Umberto was doomed to be born in the same village as this treasure. Doomed from the moment he, as a little boy, laid eyes on her. Doomed when, during one of their earliest interactions, she handed him half a bombolone and demanded to date him for one whole hour. Doomed because Giuseppina sees right through him; she always has. She holds a mirror up to the man inside, to everything he has spent a lifetime running away from. Umberto reinvented himself by diverting from classic Italian fare, flinging foie gras in the face of his ancestors. Peppering every delicacy with his irreverent personality. Proving with every adventurous plating that he is not provincial. And he has paid the price for it. And so he disappears further and further down the rabbit hole of experimental cuisine. It’s what pulled him out of the dirt. Made him money. It’s how he runs from his roots. But one smirk from Giuseppina and he is that little boy holding his breath and half a bombolone, hopelessly and utterly in love.