While we’re at it let’s talk about the menu choices in your particular establishment – and I am dying to know your opinion. It’s not that I don’t enjoy experimenting with food, for that would make me rather boring, but doesn’t it ever grate on you, as an Italian, our peculiar British habit of inventing our own version of things? It’s become a bit of a mania, hasn’t it? We always have to make it pop-up or fusion or I don’t know … a molecular version of a perfectly nice home-made dish … just to make up for the fact that we have no culinary tradition of our own. No one cares about authenticity these days. It seems so demeaning to your rich, nuanced food culture, which I learnt much about when I lived in Rome years ago. Don’t worry, I do remember you ‘manage that shit’, as you so eloquently put it. But I also know that Fasta is a franchise, so I assume you have limited freedom in making executive choices with regards to the menu, let alone the décor. If only you managed the whole thing! I’d sign a petition to have Lili as CEO of Fasta in a heartbeat. Am I right in assuming you would have long shed the chequered tablecloths and those syphilitic basil shoots stuffed in mason jars? There is nothing about you that is caricature. And this is what I love about you: the simplicity of your southern beauty, your humble Mediterranean charm, with all the temper and wisdom of your own sun-beaten land. Lili, I know you want something more from me, but I’m not ready to reveal myself fully, not yet. What I can give you, right now, is a confession, which I hope you’ll accept as a token of my good faith: I’ve been listening to the song you were named after endlessly, on repeat. I’ve found the Italian version on YouTube and it is so beautiful. I think I am falling for you, my charming girl, my little Lili Marlene.

Your Clay

kittenwithasledgehammer

Sent: 21/11/2015 – 19:40

knock knock

whos there?

no one bc youre a loser Lili and no one wants to hang out with you