Erica De Mane

Here’s what the Covid 50 looks like. It didn’t happen by eating just fish, I can tell you that. The pasta and pizza diet I’ve been on since April is catching up with me. Pasta with seafood, pizza with seafood, those are two of my most favorite things. During the lockdown I decided to go with it, all cooked at home, with love. I made pizza with clams and tomatoes, pizza with clams and no tomatoes, pizza with anchovies and mozzarella, orecchiette with clams and escarole, penne with shrimp and escarole, cavatelli with braised squid and peas, penne with seared squid and peas, busiate with swordfish and eggplant, busiate with swordfish and almonds, rigatoni with fresh tuna and pistachios, pappardelle with quinine and crab, ziti with canned tuna, capers, and olives, bucatini with sardines and wild fennel, spaghetti moscardini with a red wine reduction, spaghetti with bottarga and butter, spaghetti with sea urchin and orange, spaghetti with colatura and orange, penne puttanesca with monkfish and grief, gemelli with grilled shrimp and radicchio, fettuccine with piss, vinegar, and scallops,  ravioli filled with shrimp, ravioli filled with branzino, ravioli filled with tears, lasagnette with artichokes and octopus, pizza with artichokes and eel, pizza with mussels still in their shells, fusilli with mussels out of their shells. I also cooked a bunch of things with salt cod. And I could go on.

My signature striped boatneck doesn’t have the same boho impact when pulled over all this fat. So now I’ve decided to go on the famous Keats diet, prescribed by his doctor to treat his tuberculosis. It consisted of one anchovy a day and never leaving his apartment overlooking the Spanish Steps. The never leaving the apartment part I’ve got down, although I’m pretty sure he had a better view.