Rewriting the List in the Order I Actually Walk

The morning came overcast and mild, warm enough that I left the house without the heavier sweater and then regretted it for exactly four minutes, which is the usual arrangement. I walked down to the market with the list folded in my coat pocket, and it wasn’t until I was standing at the fruit stall, bag already half full, that I realized I had forgotten the one thing I actually went out for: the coffee. Everything else was on the list. Coffee was in my head, and my head is where things go to be forgotten.

So I stood at the corner by the crates and rewrote the whole thing, and that is when I saw the mistake I’ve been making for years. My list gets written in the order things occur to me during the week — oil, tomatoes, coffee, soap, bread — and that is not the order I walk the market. I pass the bread first, then the vegetables, then the shop with the coffee, and by the time I reach it I’m carrying four bags and thinking about lunch. Now the list gets written in the order of the walk. It sounds like nothing. It has already saved me twice. I also keep one list, the same paper, instead of starting a fresh one every time, so things get added when they run low rather than remembered at the last minute.

The other small project was yesterday’s bread, which had gone properly hard — the loaf from Sunday, honest but stale. I don’t throw bread away. I’ve tried the revival trick on it (a quick sprinkle of water, a few minutes in a hot oven, which genuinely does bring a tired loaf back for toast), but one this far gone wants to be cooked into something. So: pappa al pomodoro, which is a soup that is really just bread, tomatoes, garlic, and oil arguing until they agree. The bread has to be stale — fresh bread turns to glue in there — and you stir it in the pot until it collapses into the tomatoes and the whole thing thickens by itself. No cream, no flour, nothing to hide behind. It exists because somebody’s grandmother refused to waste a loaf, and it is better than most things I make on purpose.

I ate it warm with a thread of raw oil and too much pepper, and there’s a bowl left for tomorrow. Tomorrow also has no coffee in the house, which is a problem for tomorrow’s Cetta, and I’ve decided she can walk down and get it. Her list will be in the right order this time.

Recipe: Pappa al Pomodoro

Ingredients

• 300 g stale country bread, crusts left on
• 800 g ripe tomatoes, or a jar of good passata
• 3 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to finish
• a pinch of dried peperoncino
• a handful of basil leaves
• about 700 ml light stock or water
• salt and black pepper

Preparation

1. Tear the bread into rough chunks. If it is rock hard, sprinkle it with a little water or stock and leave it to soften while you start the pot.
2. Warm the olive oil in a heavy pot over medium heat, add the garlic and peperoncino, and cook just until fragrant — do not let the garlic brown. Add the tomatoes (chopped, or passata) and a good pinch of salt, and simmer 15 minutes until they have collapsed into a sauce.
3. Add the bread and the stock or water, and simmer gently 20–25 minutes, stirring and pressing the bread against the side of the pot until it breaks down into a thick, porridge-like soup. Stir in the basil in the last few minutes.
4. Take it off the heat and let it rest 10 minutes — it firms up as it sits. Taste for salt, and serve warm or at room temperature with a thread of raw olive oil and plenty of black pepper.