Fagottini a sorpresa: surprise pastry bundles.

È un piatto iniziale veramente indicato per colazione intima, writes Ada. A good starting dish for an intimate breakfast. An intimate breakfast: what a tantalizing thought.

Ada was from a generation of cooks that believed wholeheartedly in deep frying. It is true: if the oil is deep and hot, the food is never greasy and the flavor is incomparable. Today, similar pastry preparations call for baking in a dry oven. Hot fat? No way. It takes confidence and proper technique to successfully deep fry, none of which I adequately have. But I’m willing to give it a go.

What, though, is the surprise? Is it the mystery hidden inside (here, something of a cheese custard)? Or is it--more likely in my case--simply the end result?

FAGOTTINI A SORPRESA:

Place a "fountain" of flour, 150 grams, on the kitchen marble and in the middle put a pinch of salt (un pizzico di sale), two tablespoons of oil and six tablespoons of water. Mix everything into a soft and smooth paste, a process that takes a few minutes. Divide the dough into six equal parts and roll out to get squares of twelve to thirteen centimeters (five inches).

Grate the Parmigiano and Gruyère (la groviera) cheeses, 100 grams each, then divide them into six portions and place in a dome in the center of each square.

At the top of each dome, make (dig!) a dimple (scavate una fossetta*) and put into each dimple a raw egg previously broken in a dish to check its freshness. [Curious. Do I whip the egg first? ] Season with salt and lift the four corners of the dough square and fold them over the egg so that it encloses it perfectly as in a handkerchief (in modo da racchiuderlo perfettamente come in un fazzoletto).

Place a frying pan (una padella) on the stove (sul fuoco) with plenty of oil [yes, but really, how much is “plenty”?] and when it's hot [how hot is "hot"...?], dip the bundles in one at a time with the closed side down. Cook for a few minutes (fate cuocere qualche minuto**) then turn them. When the dough is golden in color, remove from the pan and let drip. Serve warm.

*Una fossa is a trench or a grave. (Fossetta is the diminutive.) Quite a surprising use here of this word often teeming with emotion, even dread.

**This is something I have trouble remembering. In English we say “cook several minutes” with a plural noun. But in Italian the adjective, qualche (several), is always followed by a singular noun.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO I FELL FOR AN OIL PAINTING. It watched me as I wandered into the gallery, seducing me with its splash of yellow: a bright, startling shade of sunflower. As I stepped in closer, I saw it was a market umbrella that possessed the bold, vibrant strokes. There was a flower stand. An intimate piazza. And just off center, a woman holding a single blossom, her skirt swaying slightly. (Was there a breeze?) She stood alone in an opening through which sunlight streamed, her shadow spilling over cobblestones toward the feet of a white-haired woman—the flower seller—sitting among her buckets of color. Lynda had died days before and I was, in a word, unmoored; how I wanted to climb into that scene and swallow that ray of sunshine! I bought “Bologna Flower Stand,” and placed it prominently in my living room. Carry on, it urged. Always. Alone, if you must.

I’d travelled across northern Italy, from Turin to Trieste. I’d visited Rome and Venice several times, spent weeks in Florence, explored the regions of Chianti and Umbria. I was often in Milan and for several years lived an hour north of the city on the Lago Maggiore. But I’d not yet been to Bologna. It was special, I’d heard. Home to an ancient university and endless porticos. And some of the best food in Italy: tagliatelle alla bolognese and real mortadella, thinly sliced, spiced and fatty.

And so when Paul and I planned a trip to spend time with his family in the mountain town of Courmayeur in Italy’s northwest, I thought again about Bologna and made a spontaneous decision. When he continued on to Copenhagen with his daughter, I headed south, an hour on the express from Milano Centrale.

The Airbnb apartment was in Bologna’s historic center, on the top floor, up a winding marble and wrought-iron stair. It was mid-August, hot. When I arrived, I opened the refrigerator and found several bottles of sparkling water and a box—an artistically crafted, corrugated paper treasure. La Borbonata, pasticeria it said in swirling gold on its chocolate-toned lid. It was closed with a series of cardboard twists, an ingenious design. Inside were six miniature pastry bundles—a sweet surprise—almost too beautiful to eat. I savored one, then another. The flavors were intense yet delicate, perfectly bite-sized. I kicked off my shoes and flattened the soles of my feet against the floor’s cool marble. I was home.

The university was closed for summer, and with many Italians at the seaside for Ferragosto (August vacation), the flower stalls were few. But there was music. It poured from apartments and churches and piazzas, and along the streets which meandered in untiring rhythm.

The following afternoon, wandering the perimeter of Bologna’s historic heart, I was coaxed through an unlocked gate by a luminescent glow. What I found was an interior courtyard surrounded on all sides by sun-warmed stucco. In its center, a woman sat alone on the cobblestones, daydreaming. I walked around her, an incredible statue of gray stone, her form gentle, if stone can possibly be. I remembered then my mother telling me that her mother often scolded, insisting that to daydream was to be lazy. There was so much work to be done! But she had that wrong, my mother had said. Daydreaming was important work: imagining the future, a more generous time.

Hoping to find the artist’s signature, I explored the stone up close, snapping photos from various angles. A woman entered through the gate, stopping when she saw me. She stood at the base of a staircase which led to the upper apartments, grasping to her chest a sack of groceries. Her styled white hair, fashionable low heeled pumps, even the way she held that brown bag reminded me of my grandmother on her return from the corner market in Baltimore.

I was a bit sheepish at being caught, expecting to be admonished for wandering into what was clearly a private garden. Instead the woman continued to watch me before taking a couple steps in my direction. Signora, she said, I’ve lived here many years, and don’t believe I ever once looked at that monument. It was her turn to look surprised, seemingly equally baffled by my fervent interest and her complete lack of it. She shook her head and said nothing more, standing with me another moment before turning and mounting the stairs.