The show the next morning went splendidly and the audience, though not as large as that in Milan, applauded the clothes with obvious enthusiasm.  This time Nicola was accorded no more nor less the applause of the other girls. 
    Signora Palma profusely thanked the crowd, brought out her girls for a last look then went back and collapsed on a sofa. “And now,” she said, “we wait for the orders to come in, then I sleep  like a big bear. Then, I start designing the fall collection!”
        She shoo-ed the models away, telling them to go have a good time, and reminded Nicola dinner was at eight-thirty. “We go over together,” said Signora Palma. “Is a little trattoria not too well known by the tourists.”
        At eight-thirty—more or less—Signora Palma, Nicola, and a few of her staff met in the hotel lobby, had taxis hailed, and drove off to Trattoria Benedetto, named after the patron saint of the province.  From the outside it was fairly typical of many trattorias on Capri—stucco outside and in, grapevines growing up the exterior walls, a small dining room with rustic furniture, shelves holding wine bottles and an antipasti table crammed with marinated vegetables, local cheeses and salumi, and bowls of big, bumpy bright yellow Campanian lemons.  The kitchen was half open, at waist level, and the owner and his wife did all the ordering, wine opening, and serving, with the help of their bored-looking teenage son.
        Signora Palma’s dozen guests took up most of the dining room, with tables pushed together, and she told everyone to sit anywhere they’d like.  Champagne was opened and poured and everyone went to the antipasti table to help themselves (left).  After the meager meal of the night before and with no further modeling for the week ahead, Nicola was good to herself, putting a little of everything on her plate—the thinly sliced zucchini in olive oil, caramelized onions, thin fingers of fried eggplant, warm buffalo mozzarella that had been made just moments before they arrived, and various salumi.
        Back at her seat, Nicola ate with gusto, finding the food unusually delicious, perhaps because she was so hungry.  But then, these antipasti—examples of which she’d had many times both in Italy and at home—possessed flavors that seemed not just fresh but elemental.  The flavors burst upon her palate as she sipped her Champagne.
        At that point individual plates of an appetizer were set before the guests.  It was a rendering of the quintessential Neapolitan ingredients—tomato, ricotta, basil and olive oil—yet the chef had taken a small tomato at the peak of its ripeness, scooped out the insides, replaced it with housemade ricotta laced with Parmigiano, set a small piece of basil across it, then topped it with the cut-off cap of the tomato.  The confection had then been placed very briefly in the oven so that everything warmed and the flavors melded. Then the stuffed tomato was placed on a bed of arugula and dotted with aged balsamic vinegar. Everyone at the table expressed their pleasure by variations on a swoon, saying the dish was fantastico! superba! grande!
        Next came the chef’s take on ziti alla sorrentina (above), which meant it would have a tomato and eggplant sauce.  But again, when Nicola tasted the result, it was as if she’d never had the dish before, or at least not with this refinement.  The spaghetti itself, made in the kitchen, was tender and its strands entwined in a kind of hive, each coated with a sauce whose sweetness was pure and natural, the eggplant just soft enough to add a creamy element to the dish, which was lightly sprinkled with local pecorino.
        When that dish was cleared, a glorious risotto was served, cooked in tomato water, not sauce, so that it had a tang to it that Nicola almost thought was lemon.  The seasonings were subtle, absorbed into the fat rice kernels through careful, long stirring.
        The main course was kept very simple: each guest received a cut of barely cooked swordfish—pesce spada (left)—on top of which were quickly caramelized onions that had softened then acquired a little crispness for texture.  Minced basil looking like confetti adorned the fish, which was given a benediction of olive oil in which a clove of garlic had been crushed. With the food, the guests had switched to a wine called Taurasi from the region.
        The guests were raving about the food and Signora Palma could not have been happier. “You see,” she said, “I told you the chef was un genio. And he is also very handsome.”  Turning to the owner, she asked—well, more or less demanded—to have the chef brought out.
        A few minutes later he appeared, having changed into a clean white chef’s jacket with the trattoria’s name on it.  The guests applauded and Signora Palma introduced the chef.  “Signore e signori, mi presente il maestro—Marco di Noè!” More applause, then the young chef, who was indeed very handsome, with blue-gray eyes and thick hair as dark as Nicola’s.  He humbly thanked everyone, saying that it was an honor to cook for Signora Palma, who demanded he sit down at her table, moving a chair in next to Nicola.
        Nicola congratulated him on a meal that seemed so simple yet so remarkably different, asking how he did it. The young chef shrugged, ran his fingers through his dark hair and said “Senza l’ultimo ingredienti, c’e niente.” Without the best ingredients it is nothing.
        Then, sensing Nicola was not Italian asked, “You are American, yes?”
        “I’m Italian-American,” she replied.  “I was born and raised in New York.”
        “But your parents were Neapolitan, no? I hear it in your accent.”
         Nicola remembered the last time she had a meal at which this topic had proven a harbinger of disappointment.  She told Marco her father’s side of the family was from Abruzzo, though his mother was from Emilia-Romagna, and her mother’s side was strictly Neapolitan, which is how Nicola had picked up the accent.
         “Plus,” she said, “most of the people in my neighborhood in the Bronx came from Campania, so I hear it a lot.”
         “I speak the true dialect a lot around here—I was born in Naples—though on Capri I speak more Italian, French, Spanish, German.”
         “You speak all those languages?”
         “Yes, I find it easy to pick them up.  Spanish and French are very easy for an Italian.”
         Marco accepted Signora Palma’s invitation to have a glass of Taurasi.  He thanked her for it and said, “This is the best producer of this wine—Mastroberardino, in Atripalda.  The family has brought back a lot of the grape varieties that were thought to be lost.”
         Nicola truly was amazed by Marco’s fluency in English, which sounded as though he’d learned from British teachers. The two young people kept talking together, getting the usual details on their backgrounds, and Marco seemed delighted that Nicola had Neapolitan blood running through her veins.
         “So, you are a model?” he asked, not hinting if he was impressed by or disdainful of the profession.
         “I do a little modeling, yes, but I came to Italy last spring as part of a semester abroad in Milan.”
         “Where do you go to school?”
         “Columbia University in New York.”
         “Ah, I understand it is a very good school.  And what do you study?”
         “Art history, specifically the art of the Italian Renaissance,” she said, feeling quite at ease.  “I hope to go on for my PhD next fall.”
         “Really? And how do you find the time to model?”
         “Whenever I have time, I try to take a job.”
         Marco nodded, as if to say, this seems like a smart American girl.  “Who, may I ask, are some of your favorite Renaissance artists?”
         “Well,” said Nicola, never having been quizzed on the subject by a cook, “the usual great ones, da Vinci, Raphael, Donatello, but I find I’m particularly drawn to the Venetian artists.”
         Marco continued nodding, this time somewhat wearily. “Bellini, Carpaccio, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese,” he said, “and the rest.”
         “Absolutely! You know the subject well.”
        “But, about these Venetians.  What do you like about them?”
         “Well, their coloring, the high drama, the psychology they show in their portraits.”
         Marco put up his hands and said, “You know what Michelangelo said about the Venetians?”
         “No, what?”
         “He said they’d be much better artists if they’d learn how to draw.”
         Nicola was shocked. “Michelangelo said that?”
         Marco then launched into a well-informed discussion of why he thought the Venetians were inferior to the other schools of the Renaissance, contending that it was the Neapolitan baroque artists who had been underrated and underappreciated.
         “Like who?” asked Nicola, riffling through her brain to think of any famous Neapolitan artists.
         “Ah, so many: Caracciolo, Rosa, Cavallino, Sellitto, Stanzione, so many you have probably never heard of.”
         Indeed, Nicola had not, even though the Neapolitan School was an important part of the Italian Baroque, and she wondered at how much Chef Marco di Noè seemed to know about it.  She was also intrigued by Marco’s being the first man in Italy who id not immediately comment on how beautiful she was.
         “How do you know so much about these artists?” she asked.
         “Because I am not just a chef, Signorina, I am also a painter.  Not a very good painter, but I work as a chef for the season on Capri, then work on my painting the rest of the time.”
         “So you have a studio here on the island? I’d love to see some of your work.”
         “No, I live in Naples when I’m not here.  Perhaps you would like to visit the Museo di Capodimonte to see the Neapolitan School, and if you have time, some of my work.  I have some hanging in galleries in the city.”
      

Salvator Rosa, "Self-Portrait."

      Nicola would have loved at least to see the museum but told Marco, “That would be wonderful but I have to leave on Tuesday.”
         “So,” he countered, “tomorrow is Sunday. I can take the day off—I’ve been working seven days a week since April and now the season is almost over and there’s not much business. We can take the fast ferry over, I’ll show you the city, and we can be back in Capri in the evening.”
         Nicola gave the matter about five seconds’ thought and said, “Marco, let’s do it.  What time?”
         “Signorina Santini—“
         “Please call me Nicola.”
         “Ah, prego, Nicola. Okay, we get an early ferry out tomorrow morning and will be in Napoli by the time the museum opens.”
         They settled on a time, and Marco said he’d pick her up at her hotel, then taxi down to the dock.  Meanwhile Signora Palma’s guests were getting up and thanking both their host and the trattoria’s owners.
         “A domani, Nicola,” said Marco.
         “A domani,” and with that Marco shook Nicola’s hand and said goodnight.
         When Nicola got back to her room, she turned the evening over in her mind, trying to figure out this chef-painter with the deferential manners.  He was obviously a superb cook and knew much more about Neapolitan art than she did, and he seemed to be a good enough artist to be in galleries.  And he was very handsome, to boot.  A very nice piece of work, Marco was.  And with just two days left in Italy, she was determined to make the most of it.

                                                                        Massimo Stanzione, "Judith and Holofernes."

Eating Las Vegas JOHN CURTAS has been covering the Las Vegas food and restaurant scene since 1995. He is the co-author of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants (as well as the author of the Eating Las Vegas web site: www.eatinglasvegas. He can also be seen every Friday morning as the “resident foodie” for Wake Up With the Wagners on KSNV TV (NBC) Channel 3  in Las Vegas.