Forbici per favore camerier

For an American (especially one brought up in the semi-arid cultural desert of Utah) and without Italian grandparents, eating spaghetti, fettuccine, linguini etc. is not easily done with grace and aplomb. One grasps a forkful, wraps it around a spoon and behold pasta …..yet with pesky little embarrassing strings hanging down from the spoon.

Like all great invetions, this one came to me quite by accident.  Eating a dish of spaghetti in our library, waiting for Rachael Maddow to finish her story,  already,  There happened to be a pair of scissors on the coffee table.  Why not, I thought, grabbed the scissors, snapped the offending remainder and with a total absence of mess neatly gobbled down the alluring pasta.

However, I realize that such a solution would be heresy to any proud Italian.

It so happens that the Italian word for scissors is  forbici, a word ringing with gusto and charm.  I can imagine, with with a boost from the new food editor of the Chronicle wandering into Seven Hils or Frascati and requesting forbici  with no lack of cool or sophistication.