Sunny’s Gnocchi

Laurie Perez’s Amie Martine: A book, a memory, a taste

A book, a poem, must ignite you, transport you, transform you. Must inspire you to try new things, to go beyond yourself. Occasionally, a novel will prompt you to act on the images the author conjured, the little mannerisms of the characters.

I still tend to fall in love with any woman named Natasha after Leo Tolstoi’s character in War and Peace. I partially blame Hemingway for coming to America, even when his most memorable adventures were in Europe; Chicago to this day still is the only city after which I lust.

Sometimes a book will be a friend, a distraction, a narrator of stories that will bring you back to life.

One such series of books is Laurie Perez’s Amie Martine’s trilogy. The LOOK, the POWER, and the recently released, the COSMOS of Amie Martine.

The story revolves around the main character Amie (friend in French). But also around the sensory world she and the other characters experience.

To me, this wasn’t evident until the second book. How much of her novels are a feast for the senses: We taste, we listen, we savor, we see, we touch.

I think I forgot at some point in the past; how much the act of living is about tasting life.

Sunny

In her second book of the series, The POWER of Amie Martine, I got to know one of her characters a little better. Sunny is a world-class actor who rides motorcycles and flies private jets.

I must confess I didn’t like him much at first. You know, it’s hard to sympathize with a guy who rides superbikes and goes out with the prettiest girl you can think of while you are on the other side of the page, reading.

As the story progressed, Sunny evolved into a more human character. The Hollywood mystique somehow seemed to diminish.

In the book, we often find him cooking gnocchis. As an act of love, or to relieve stress, possibly both.

A book sometimes teases you, dares you, and the consequences are unimagined.

The book comes alive

After reading one of the scenes in which Sunny is cooking gnocchis in the kitchen of a hotel in Amman, Jordan, I found myself carried over by a who-knows-which spirit. I went to the grocery store and bought some potatoes. My teenage daughter, usually picky with food, was surprisingly excited at the idea of me cooking gnocchi.

Cooking, feeding the body, is an act of love. At times, it must be a collaborative endeavor. At times, it is a door across dimensions of time.

Unbeknownst to Sunny, I’m from Argentina, where in the early 20th century was a large influx of Italian immigrants. Gnocchis are a staple food in Argentina.

There is a tradition there in which on the 29th of every month, we are to cook gnocchis. And under the plate, we are to leave a small banknote. Nothing large.

As a child, I grew to anticipate The Gnocchi of the 29th. I would use the money to save for my next LEGO set.

The tradition of The Gnocchi of the 29th in Argentina probably arose from scarcity. For the new immigrant families, it probably meant to spare a few extra pesos until the next paycheck at the beginning of next month. Maybe it was meant to celebrate a surplus of earnings.

But for me, the day Sunny invited me to cook gnocchi with him, it meant to go back in time to try to make the swirl the gnocchi dought with my mom. A time-consuming task I never seemed to get right.

Even farther, to witness my grandmother in her kitchen when I was a little child. As I saw my hands working the dough, my hands were not my hands.

Cooking as an act of love

In The LOOK of Amie Martine, Sunny cooked gnocchi for Amie after they made love. Here I was cooking with my wife for the first time in many years. For a first-timer, her swirls were good. Not exactly the way my grandma would do them. But anyone knows, to compete with grandmothers is an impossible task.

Later, reflecting on the experience of my family sitting together at the table, a not-so-frequent event, I couldn’t escape the thought that Amie’s power seems to be love.

The way she activates her power, love, seems to transcend the pages of a book.

You may want to read Amie’s stories.

Pablo Pereyra 2021. Thank you for reading.