“A Soundrack for llaF”

STRAWBERRIES WITH CREAM CORRECT WITH BELLINI
(the recipe is mine)

Ingredients (4 – 5 people):
– strawberries, g 600
-sugar, 60 g
– lemon, 1/2 (the juice)
-liquor, 1 small glass (of the type you prefer)
– fresh whipping cream, 300 ml
– icing sugar, g 40
– 120 ml of peach juice
– 4 glasses of prosecco

Preparation

Quickly wash the strawberries under running water and put them to drain. We remove the stem and cut the strawberries into small pieces.
We put the strawberries in a container, preferably glass, add the sugar, the juice of 1/2 lemon and the liqueur
We mix very gently, then cover the container with a lid or kitchen cling film. We put the strawberries in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
We take 120 ml of peach juice and mix them with the prosecco, then set aside in a cool place.
We whip the fresh cream with the icing sugar.
We distribute the strawberries in the bowls, turn the Bellini over and garnish everything with the whipped cream.
We serve it immediately.

It was November, I was at the house of my mother ‘s friend, I recall it like it was yesterday even if I am talking about fifteen years ago. I was bored, waiting for the two mothers to get tired of chatting in the kitchen over tea, while my brother and his friend played in the bedroom. Although they were totally out of season, mom’s friend had prepared the strawberries with cream *, so the conversation would go on again and again. To keep me she gave me the strawberries and she told me that in the living room I would have found many books and that I could take as many as I wanted, even to take them home.

Those were the magic words, from that moment time lost its importance, indeed it seemed too short when about two and a half hours later, they came to call me to finally go home.

In that library I found a book that still remains one of the most poetic I have read, sitting on the big carpet eating strawberries out of season, I found myself in Vienna, between violins and loves, between music and passion.

I could not finish it, and luckily it was loaned to me, I read it all night long, until my eyes begged for mercy and at the end, when I collapsed exhausted I still remember that I dreamed of the great concert of which it narrates.

When I knew that they had made a film out of it, I ran to watch it, even though as always, I was sure it would not be as good as the book (but I was wrong!), I felt the urgent need to hear that music!!! That Inverse Canon that gives title to the novel and around which the whole tormented story revolves. **

** https://youtu.be/cxJQmvZt5X0

I was so rapt by it that for months I did nothing but listen to Morricone’s soundtracks, and particularly this one.

I had also made up my mind to learn to play the violin, but I was already too old and then, if I had to indulge every passion that comes from reading, by now I would be a witch, an astronaut, a cook, a  detective and a psychiatrist, at least.

The fascinating thing, in addition to the atmospheres, is the alternation of the storytellers, albeit not explicit, who integrate each one in their own way, the various intertwining, enriching them with details and sometimes even slightly confusing the reader. Just as if someone were telling the story verbally and got lost in a personal parenthesis.

The ending left me breathless, with a truly unexpected twist considering that – apart from the historical parts of the advent of Nazism – it is a very light novel. Instead … a slap-up ending that re-evaluates the whole story and forces us to reread it from this new perspective!