The photo shoots had finished late Thursday afternoon, so Nicola was able to join in the preparations for Easter Sunday, including Holy Friday and Holy Saturday visitations to Our Lady of Mount Carmel church with her family.  Easter Sunday blossomed with warm sun and the perfume of lilies at church and at home. People were coming over early for Easter dinner, so everyone pitched in, and Nicola was extremely happy to be making the gnocchi the way her grandmother had shown her. 
         Nicola also cherished the chance to take her grandfather to his wife’s grave at Saint Raymond’s Cemetery not far from where they lived.  There they placed Easter lilies on the fresh grave and Nicola helped her grandfather kneel down at the gravestone, speaking to his wife in Italian as Nicola wept, asking her grandmother to help guide her in the months ahead.
         For in two days Nicola would be back in Milan, back to the dorm and the classrooms, which, after three months had become something of a drudge.  The events of the past week—the family reunion, with the memory of Teresa still fresh, the photo shoots for Willi and the comforting traditions of Easter—had all been special, in many ways unique, but in other ways troubling.  It seemed to Nicola Santini that she now straddled at least two worlds, one very old and very cherished, and one ancient but new with promise.  Adding in her whirlwind modeling experiences and her time with Giancarlo had caused confusion in her long-held plans, which had so recently seemed so direct and dependable.
         She was in contact with Elena on Monday, learning that the photos came out even better than she’d expected. “Nikki,” she said. “I pride myself on getting you to do this shoot for me and the magazine, and I think you have a future with Willi.  So, listen—and I say this because I’ve been around long enough to recognize someone special coming into the industry—you really are a special girl.  And nothing makes me happier than to know how important your studies are to you.  My God, I’ve seen so many girls with just a high school education go off the deep end in modeling, with nothing to fall back on.  But I know a lot of other girls who pursued their education while modeling.  It took them a little longer, but they got their degree.  And meanwhile they put away a lot of money and traveled around the world and, grazie Dio, they avoided the pitfalls of being sucked dry by the sycophants, the parasites and people who wish them bad luck, so that they can be replaced at the snap of their fingers.
        “All I am suggesting is when you come back to New York, you visit an agency and see what they can offer, which I believe will be a lot.  I know what they're looking for right now.  It’s still the American girl, but she’s got to have more of an edge than in the ‘70s.  You look a bit different, you’ve got a real personality, and you're smart as a whip. You’re not a surfer chick.”
         Elena said a lot more and Nicola thanked her for the vote of confidence, promising that when she returned from Italy she would visit an agency and see what happens. They blew kisses through the phone and said goodbye.
         The next day Nicola boarded her overnight flight and, an hour into it fell into a deep sleep, waking only on the announcement that the plane had started its descent into Malpensa.
         When she arrived at her dorm at 9 a.m., Catherine was still asleep but woke up when she heard Nicola come in. “So, how’d it all go?” she asked, stretching her arms.
         “I have to say it really went very well. It was actually a helluva lot of fun.  And of course it was great seeing my family. So, what’d you do?”
         Catherine yawned, fell back onto her pillow and said slowly, “Well ... I met this cool guy.”
         Nicola gasped. “Who? Where? Is he Italian?”       
         Catherine said, “I kinda wish he were.  No, he’s an American guy and our families have known each other for ages, although I’d never met him before.”
         “What's his name?”
         “Tom Skidmore.”
         “Of the Skidmore architectural family?”
         “Yep, that’s the one.  He’s over here studying architecture, and, against all my better instincts, I really like the guy.  He’s crazy intelligent, has good manners and is damn good-looking.”
         “When do I meet him?”
         “Well,” answered Catherine, “How about rounding up your marchese and we’ll double date, I don’t know, this weekend?”
         Nicola lost a bit of her smile and said, “To tell you the truth, I’m a little pissed.  Not worried, just pissed. He never called me before I left.”
         “I thought he didn't have your number?”
         “He could certainly have gotten the dorm’s number.”
         “Well, come on, Nick, it's only been a week.”
         “That’s what I keep telling myself.”
         “He’ll call, he’ll call. Now how about some breakfast?”
         The two friends went to their favorite café nearby and filled each other in on the past week’s details.  Catherine seemed quite happy, if not ecstatic, about her own developments, as if she was charmed by, but a little apprehensive, about the new man in her life.
         “You know, I think it’d be easier if we just had a fling,” she said, “especially since I’m going back in three weeks and he’s staying on through next year.”
         “Excuse my impertinence, Catherine, but I know both of you have the resources to see each other as often as you wish to.”
         “Yeah, I know, but, much as I’ve adored the last few months—getting away from my family and everything—I also know I’m never going to move over here.  I guess the old ties are stronger than I thought.”
         Nicola said, “It’s kind of ironic, Catherine, but I feel the same way, only in reverse.”
         “What do you mean?”
         “Well, aside from the modeling—and I know there’s nothing long term in that—I’ve been feeling that I really do belong over here.  There was something about being home that was—” she paused to find the right words—“it felt stifling.  I’m sounding like a snob, but even my family seemed so dull and  predictable and my friends back there so complacent, incapable of believing anyone would ever want to enjoy a different life.”
         “But didn’t you say a lot of the Italians have moved out of the neighborhood?”
         “Yes, but it’s the old saying, ‘You can take the guy out of the Bronx but you’ll never take the Bronx out of the guy.’”
         “Well, la-dee-dah, Nicky Santini,”  said Catherine, giggling. “Maybe you are a snob.  It takes one to know one, y’know, and I was baptized in the blood.”
         “But in all the time I’ve known you, Catherine, you’ve seemed so out of step with that, what shall I say, hoity-toity life back home.”
         “Nick, I am and I’m not.  In the end, the same saying applies, `You can take the girl off Park Avenue, but blah blah blah.”
         “Well, then,” said Nicola, lifting her cappuccino cup, “Here’s to us snobs. Cent’anni!”
         With less than a month to go in Italy, Nicola devoted her energies to class and preparing for final exams.  As at Columbia, she had been a high achiever in Milan, and she claimed that a lot of her general knowledge about many subjects, including history, religion and Latin came from her parochial school education, even if viewed through a Catholic kaleidoscope that both distorted and colored the stories behind every subject, except mathematics. 
         In fact, Nicola credited her Catholic education for her knowing those mystical and symbolic meanings of western art that other students had to pick up in advanced courses.  Catholicism had also provided her with a wonder of the spiritual as well as an awe for the agonies that the Church’s saints and martyrs had gone through for Christ.  She was terrified but thrilled by the exquisite passion of Saint Catherine being pierced with an arrow through her heart by an angel, and of Saint Sebastian, turning his eyes rapturously to Heaven as his earthly body was being shot through with arrows. In great works of art, such suffering was always shown as being beautiful and transformative.
         Nicola responded deeply to the tenderness of Raphael’s many depictions of the Madonna and her child,  and to the breathtaking sadness of Michelangelo’s “Pietà” in Rome and the stark rigor mortis of Mantegna’s “Lamentation over the Dead Christ.”  She had surrendered to these emotions through years of attending Mass, holy day celebrations, and receiving the sacraments, all of them with their own radiant symbols and colors—purple for Lent, rose for the third Sunday in Advent,  red for Palm Sunday and white for the most glorious events like Easter, All Saints Day, the sacrament of Matrimony and the Feast of Angels.  
        Most of this was new textbook material for her non-Catholic student colleagues.  For Nicola, it was knowledge that had been passing through her whole being week after week since she was a child, becoming so much an essential part of her that it was embedded there inextricably for the rest of her life.  And now in Milan, she was seeing how the great artists worked those ancient, beloved symbols and colors into their work in statues and on church walls intended to teach the wonders of God to the illiterate people praying beneath the paint and marble.  In Milan,  Nicola could hardly turn a corner without seeing a saint or a holy, haloed angel staring back at her.

      The difference between a true hunter and a weekend amateur is that the former only kills what he wants to eat and the latter only eats what he hasn’t hunted.  In the same way, the true wine lover is one who matches the wine to the food, not the other way around. 
     So, when it comes to serving game, the choice of wine is as important as the sauce and side dishes served with the food, and, although there are no longer any hard-and-fast rules about such things (white with fish, red with meat), there are certain affinities between game and wines that can make an enormous difference in the outcome of a meal. 
     I have, therefore, chosen five varieties of game and matched them to wines that bring out the best in them and enhance everything about their essential flavors.  And, I might add, vice-versa.  Depending on the sauce, of course, which might be very spicy or Asian or sweet, as in a classic duck à l’orange, I might alter my picks.  But for the average cook who’s going to serve game simply so as to retain those flavors that make it special, here are my most ardent suggestions.

Venison—The flavor of wild venison—with its satiny, lean meat and deep red color—is among the great pleasures of gastronomy, and nothing but a fine red wine with some good fruit and tannin components will do.  Even farm-raised venison, though lacking the desirable gaminess of wild deer, needs a robust red wine.  I find pinot noirs too delicate and California cabernets too big.  Instead I love Tuscan wines, which can range from a medium-bodied, juicy Chianti up to a very expensive so-called  “Super Tuscan” like Tignanello.  Somewhere in the middle are the IGT wines “typical of their region,” like Gagliole’s Pecchia 2015 ($190) made from 100% Sangiovese only in the best vintages in the Colli della Toscana Centrale. At this price, it’s a good holiday gift wine.

Duck—Whether you serve sliced duck breast rare, as is the French style, or the whole bird roasted crisp, duck has a flavor finer than chicken’s dark meat and the succulence that comes from the enormous amount of fat the bird possesses in it skin.  The red wines of Piedmont seem heaven-made for duck, especially Barbarescos, and I love Martinenga’s 2014 vintage ($65) by the Marchesi di Gresy for its brilliance, richness tempered with soft tannins and an overall classic structure. No white wine is as good as a good red wine with duck.

Pheasant—I don’t find much farm-raised pheasant worth the money, but a freshly caught bird, even if it doesn’t have much fat on it, makes for wonderful eating.  The mild gaminess and the texture of the flesh make it ideal for a lighter red wine.  (You will probably want to bard a wild bird with bacon, which provides the fat and keeps the flesh from drying out.)  You don’t want a big Cabernet, which will overpower the bird’s flavor.  Here a pinot noir is my prime choice, like Bryn Mawr Vineyards Estate Pinot Noir 2016 ($40) from Oregon’s Willamette Valley,  with rocky soil and lower temperatures than those of lower elevations. The label says “High Hill. High Risk. High Rewards” (Bryn Mawr means “high hill” in Welsh).  The grapes have to struggle, and winemaker Rachel Rose knows just how to bring out the best in them. I also recommend Ram’s Gate Pinot Noir 2017 ($58) at a pleasant 13.8% alcohol, with 18 months in oak to round it all off to go with the pheasant’s white meat.  

Trout—The two classic ways to treat trout are either to pan-fry it in butter or bacon fat or to cook it in a court-bouillon, whose added vinegar turns the skin a delightful blue color.  In either case trout takes well to white wines with an edge and enough acid to enhance the marvelous freshwater flavor of the fish.  With its apple-like fruitiness and its tangy finish, riesling makes a great match.  German rieslings that are labeled “trocken,” meaning dry, are delicious with trout.  Nik Weis makes two excellent rieslings in the Mosel region at very good  prices: the Urban Riesling 2019 ($13.99) and St. Urbans-Hof Wiltinger Kabinett 2018 ($19.99).Founded right after the World War II, Nik Weis toes a classic line and avoids trendiness. Easy to drink, with good intensity, they go with all seafood. Alsace makes first-rate rieslings, a bit spicier, and at 12.5% alcohol they can be had as a first wine of the evening with an appetizer but go on from there with the trout, even smoked trout. My pick is Gustave Lorentz Réserve 2017 ($26), which even five or more years old has vibrancy (I recently had a ten-year-old bottle that was just beginning to show oxidation), but the fresh fruit and acid of current vintages go best with trout.

Striped bass—A great fish deserves a great white wine, and striped bass, especially those taken from waters off Cape Cod down to South Carolina, is one of the finest of all fish for a feast.  It can be used for sushi, because its flesh has such meaty firmness and enough fat to demand an equally fat wine like chardonnay.  France’s Burgundy region produces the most delicate and most expensive, but California makes the biggest-bodied, with plenty of buttery, vanilla flavors.  If allowed too much time in oak, however, the wine tastes more like wood than fruit.  A good balance is achieved by Dutton Goldfield’s Devil’s Gulch Vineyard 2018 ($55), made in Marin County. They gave the grapes a long hang time, but the alcohol is at a good level of 13.8%. Also, while I don’t believe Champagne goes with everything, Lauren-Perrier’s Millésime Brut 2008 ($70) is a well-priced blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that would be splendid with striped bass.