El ñoqui y el vino

My junior year of college, I lived with a red-wine guzzling, fresh pasta-making Italian family in Buenos Aires. Each afternoon, my surrogate father Rolo would don a chef’s hat, unbutton his shirt to reveal manicured chest hair, turn on Beethoven’s Ninth and cook, both championing and disrupting gender stereotypes with his own particular brand of machismo. He also deigned to wear pants (one of the few things we had in common). On the 29^th of every month, Rolo rose before noon to prepare homemade Gnocchi.

Gnocchi is a bit of a food anomaly. It defies categorization and transcends the typical, yet it is deliciously no-frills. Gnocchi is dense and absorbs any sauce like a starchy sponge. Half pasta, half potato, these bite-size Italian dumplings have provided much-needed consistency—both texturally and emotionally—to my life ever since.

Like my host family the Frangellas, Gnocchi immigrated from Italy’s boot to the southern cone of South America during the 20^th century, unsure of what it would find in the land of gauchos, tango, vino y carne.

In Argentina, where superstition and tradition are life, Gnocchi is religiously consumed on the 29^th of each month. While this gastronomic tradition provides unity to the polarized nation, its origins defy continuity; every Argentine has a different story. Rolo’s explanation for the monthly ritual involved a wealthy Italian prince and a tragic famine. My host mom Rosario’s story was all Italian perfume and the unstable Argentine economy. Granted, my Spanish was still evolving, but these two clashing tales provided me with inconclusive insight into the tradition’s origins.

Underneath your plate, you place pesos—for prosperity, good luck, happiness and/or good sex. The more pesos you put, the more gnocchi you eat, the more _____ you get. Whatever it is, I can dig it. Every month on the 29^th my multi-generational host family gathered in their tiny apartment to consume plate after plate of Gnocchi—smothered in red sauce, meat sauce, cream sauce, green sauce, brain sauce or plain butter for purists. And skeptical vegetarians.

From February to July, Gnocchi on the 29^th marked my time in Argentina. In February, I consumed Gnocchi nervously, my Spanish abysmal and my comfort level low. In July, I ate Gnocchi confidently but nostalgically, knowing this 29^th would be my last in Buenos Aires and hoping that the coins beneath my plate would bring me much of, well, something.

Returning to the States from Argentina was hard. I missed the beat of Buenos Aires, the sexy roll of ñ on my tongue, the steamy Latin-ness of it all, and my not-quite-family family. And out of this longing for the foreign-turned-familiar, Gnocchi Night se nació. For a year, three Claremont friends who also lived in Buenos Aires came over each month on the 29^th, and we recreated an Americanized Gnocchi night in my minuscule California kitchen. And, like it did in Argentina, the evolution of the year was marked in Gnocchi.

At first, Gnocchi night was sentimental. We ate late and talked long—pretending our workload was as beautifully non-existent as it was in Argentina. We peppered our language with Argentine slang and greeted one another with the saucy Argentine beso. We rehashed the city: our favorite bars, sultry bottles of red wine, and unsavory but memorable city scents. Time zones away from our beloved South American city, we became a cult of Gnocchi

We bought the Gnocchi in $1.99 packages from Trader Joe’s. Though Rolo would disown me as his not-daughter daughter if he knew, these prefab Gnocchi served our purpose and fit our budget. We drank a $3 bottle of Malbec and chose two sauces for variety. The night ran for less than $15.

Victor takes charge of the Gnocchi preparation. He personifies them as holy and sacred, wondering why we must kill so many innocent Gnocchi just to fill our stomachs. He hovers above the pot of boiling Gnocchi, enraptured by their quiet simmering. When Gnocchi are ready, they announce their maturation by rising to the top of the pot, one brave soul poking its head out to test the not-so-proverbial waters. Then the rest climb, bubbling up from their watery depths with a triumphant gurgle. Victor sounds the alarm, and we gather to watch the rising of the Gnocchi—a deeply religious experience, better observed in silence. We fill our plates and clink glasses to this culinary wonder. Then we eat—respectfully, savoring each fallen soldier.

One month, when we discovered that raw Gnocchi bounce, we invented Gnocchi ball, developing our skill—a quick flick of the wrist, a firm bounce to avoid backlash. Cleaning up my house after college graduation, I found hardened Gnocchi hiding behind the coffee machine and in kitchen drawers that were foolishly left open during a match.

We tasted Gnocchi raw, surveying its uncooked properties, and we poached Gnocchi in red wine (by accident, when one bounced in a glass during Gnocchi ball, but aren’t great ideas born from mishap?). We debated homemade and regretted the busy schedules that prevented it.

“What if we ate Gnocchi cereal with milk?” Victor pondered one night at the Gnocchi table as we scraped oily pesto from our plates and polished off our last bottle of wine. In our Gnocchi haze, we all nodded like this was a perfectly normal suggestion, so he kept going. “Or, what if we wore Gnocchi as earrings?” he postulated in all seriousness.

In January, Victor posed a serious problem: “Guys,” he said, “There’s no 29^th in February. It’s a leap-year.”

We went to San Diego for a week of debauchery before graduation, which happened to fall over May 29^th. In my rented beach condo, we celebrated our last Gnocchi night before the clan parted ways for post-collegiate adventures. No one knew what the future would old (in Gnocchi-terms or otherwise), but the evening was heavy with finality. Sitting on a long stone wall looking at the Pacific, Victor had an idea: “guys,” he said urgently, “we have to let one gnocchi escape to sea.” And so we did. Together, we unleashed a brave, marinara-covered Gnocchi into the gurgling Pacific. We may have held hands and we may have chanted, but I’d been drinking for five days straight, so it’s hard to say. Becky traveled to Southeast Asia that following summer, and emailed to say she thought she saw our little traveler wash off on the tropical shores of Bali. I also think I spotted it on the sunny shores of the Charles River in Boston.

Last year in Boston was Gnocci-free. My life there was too crazy; I barely knew what day it was at any given moment. My kitchen was a permanent wreck, and I felt like cooking Gnocchi amidst the squalor would be sacrilegious. Once, I cooked Gnocchi on the 29^th and ate it alone; it was as depressing as it sounds. The 29^th passed like the 28^th and the 30th, and my Gnocchi intake was tragically low. I felt the Gnocchi-ball skill I’d developed fading from my muscle memory. On most 29ths, one of the original Claremont crew would send a Happy Gnocchi Day text or email, but the gesture was small without the food to vouch for it.

In August I moved from Boston to Brooklyn—a city that boasted food-fascinated friends, a more grounded lifestyle and a big dining room table that creaked longingly for dinner parties. As I settled in to my new digs, I realized I wanted Gnocchi back in my life—I wanted to mark the months of my first year teaching in something other than demerits and gradebooks. With willing friends and a Trader Joe’s two blocks away (how else would I have picked an apartment?), I revitalized Gnocchi night. We’ve done homemade sweet potato and Mark Bittman’s ricotta recipe. We’ve done lots and lots of bottles of Argentine red wine. After a brief hiatus in life, Gnocchi’s returned, and I like to think it’s here to stay. There’s very little I don’t like about a tradition that involves friends, food and wine.

If you’re in New York on July 29^th, consider yourself invited. No bottles of wine over ten bucks allowed. Must be red.