Lemons

I was sitting with my friend, food and music writer Fred Plotkin, at a trattoria in Otranto, Italy. It was a blazing-hot summer afternoon and I was very excited because I was finally going to taste fava e cicorie (mashed fava beans and steamed bitter greens), a traditional country dish of the area. The fava e cicorie arrived warm, drizzled with fragrant green olive oil, and sprinkled with coarsely ground black pepper.