On the other hand, Luca thinks it's funny that there's another side of me--this Yoga side--that he's never seen . He can't imagine why I would want to go to India--and to an Ashram, of all places!--when I could just stay in Italy all year, which is obviously where I belong. Whenever he watches me sopping up the leftover gravy from my plate with a hunk of bread and then licking my fingers, he says, "What are you going to eat when you go to India?" Sometimes he calls me Gandhi, in a most ironic tone, generally when I'm opening the second bottle of wine. Luca has traveled a fair amount, though he claims he could never live anywhere but in Rome, near his mother, since he is an Italian man, after all--what can he say? But it's not just his mamma who keeps him around. He's in his early thirties, and has had the same girlfriend since he was a teenager (the lovely Giuliana, whom Luca describes fondly and aptly as acqua e sapone--"soap and water" in her sweet innocence). All his friends are the same friends he's had since childhood, and all from the same neighborhood. They watch the soccer matches together every Sunday--either at the stadium or in a bar (if the Roman teams are playing away)--and then they all return separately to the homes where they grew up hk serviced apartment, in order to eat the big Sunday afternoon meals cooked by their respective mothers and grandmothers. I wouldn't move from Rome, either, if I were Luca Spaghetti. Luca has visited America a few times, though, and likes it. He finds New York City fascinating but thinks that people work too hard there, though he admits they seem to enjoy it. Whereas Romans work hard and resent it massively. What Luca Spaghetti doesn't like is American food, which he says can be described in two words: "Amtrak Pizza." I was with Luca the first time I ever tried eating the intestines of a newborn lamb. This is a Roman specialty. Food-wise, Rome is actually a pretty rough town , known for its coarse traditional fare like guts and tongues--all the parts of the animal the rich people up north throw away. My lamb intestines tasted OK, as long as I didn't think too much about what they were. They were served in a heavy, buttery, savory gravy that itself was terrific, but the intestines had a kind of . . . well . . . intestinal consistency. but mushier. I did well with them until I started trying to think how I would describe this dish, and I thought, It doesn't look like intestines. It actually looks like tapeworms. Then I pushed it aside and asked for a salad.