I cucchiai (Spoons)

Living in centro is like living in a small town because you can run into friends when you least expect it. Last night as Bill and I were checking out of the Despar (a little grocery store) off the Via Giulia we met some of our students. We had no plans outside of tending to household responsibilities so we decided to get together after dinner for brownies and cards. This was my first foray into baking and I had found some lovely Lindt cocoa at Castroni’s that afternoon, so I decided to make my old standby, brownies. Bill figured the conversion from Farenheit to Celsius (350 becomes 177) and lit the oven (that stills scares me), and I did the rest.

Spoons is a fast-paced game, a card equivalent of musical chairs. After we had feasted on cheese, Italian sugar wafers with a nutella filling, brownies, milk, wine, blood-orange juice, pistascios, and grapes, we cleared away the table for Spoons. There are 2 versions of this game. Jonathan’s version is to deal 4 cards to each player. There were 7 of us—Tiffany, Michelle, Andie, Frances, Jonathan, Bill and myself—so there were 6 spoons on the table. The dealer starts the play by picking up one of the cards, decides whether or not to keep it, and then passes a discarded card to the next player. When someone has accumulated four of a kind, the person grabs a spoon. The other players, having noticed that a spoon has been taken, also reach for a spoon. Sadly, one person is left without a spoon and is eliminated from the next round of play. In addition, one less spoon is laid on the table. The play continues until all players, save the winner, have been eliminated. The version I grew up with uses 3 cards which must total 21. I prefer Jonathan’s version—less thinking. After spoons we played another game called BS. This, too, was fun. Next Jonathan did a magic trick. He lulled me into a complacent frame of mind that he was not going to be successful in identifying my 8 of diamonds and when I least expected it, voilà, he produced the very card I had selected from the deck. We ended the evening with a look at the Tarot cards Bill found in the drawer. We think it is a little creepy that the owner of our apartment has numerous versions of Tarot cards, including a James Bond 007 set. I’m really afraid that Dante is going to send me somewhere in the Inferno for having looked at them.