Tiramisu: Venetian dessert that translates to "pick-me-up"

Walking up the hill Thursday morning to Santa Maria dell' Paradiso, I hear someone call out loudly, "Signora!  Signora!"

We all turn around and see a man and his son, the man coming towards me and telling me, "You left your credit card yesterday!"

In truth, I don't remember whether he spoke English or Italian to me, but I recognized him from Emme Piu, the grocery store I frequent because it's a seven minute walk from our apartment (Lidl is preferable because it's less expensive, but better to go with a car because it's farther away, and despite Daniel's offer again yesterday to teach me on a Sunday afternoon, I just don't want to and I'm good with walking to Emme Piu and his doing the Lidl runs).

This man is often at the register when I go to Emme Piu, and he asks especially after the girls, since Mary and Hannah go to Emme to get baking ingredients together.  I left my credit card at the check-out.  He tells me to go to information to recover it; it's in a box there.

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Friday night I go to Emme.  My new friend isn't there, but I stumble my way through two other Emme employees to recover my credit card.

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Saturday I go back to Emme to buy ingredients to make tiramisu.  (No, I'm not the most efficient shopper.)  Walking down the aisles, I google tiramisu recipes and find one with high reviews from The New York Times.  I search ingredient by ingredient, getting stymied when I come to heavy cream.  I find the fridge with milk, but no cream.  As I'd done to find the ladyfingers and the coffee, I ask another customer for help.  She shows me the mascarpone cheese, which is also on my list.  I already have this, but I still need heavy cream.

She says, "Mascarpone e uova per tiramisu."

I insist that I need crema pesante.

She finds a clerk and asks him for assistance.

He repeats her response, "Mascarpone e uova."

After the third time, I get it: Italians don't put heavy cream in their tiramisu.  The American recipe for tiramisu calls for cream.  An Italian recipe wouldn't.

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I've made one pot of coffee in my life.  When I lived in Berkeley, I made a pot of coffee for my friend Susan and another friend who were coming over for dinner.  It was so bad that Susan dumped the pot and made a fresh one.

I put the package of coffee back on the shelf: we will buy our espresso at a cafe for this Italian dessert.

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At the check-out, the man that I met on the way to Santa Maria dell Paradiso is there.  We smile and laugh when I hand him my now recovered credit card.  He tells us that he lives near Santa Maria.  I don't ask him where his son (who was with him) goes to school even though I'm curious.  He's got an easy, quick smile; a kindness in his eyes; a light humor that makes me want to go through his line.  

Sebastian says to me later, "Is he the one that waited that day that you thought you had your credit card but you didn't, and then we had to keep taking things off the order because you didn't have enough money?  The one who didn't seem annoyed even though you were holding the line up?"

Yep, that's the one.

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Shaker Cafe is less than a block from our house.  Mary tells me that she's embarrassed to go ask for one cup of espresso, knowing that this will be a few espressos; Italians would never bring their measuring cup to a bar: they just make the coffee themselves.  She goes anyway, measuring cup in hand to asks for one cup of espresso.   When I arrive for moral support, there's half a cup of espresso in the measuring cup, the barista is working on another espresso, and Mary is standing at the bar calmly, not looking embarrassed at all.  Mary tells me, "She's already made two, and we're barely at half a cup."

I stand with Mary.  We laugh over our approach to tiramisu.  I order coffees for us while we wait.

Four espressos and now we've got one cup for our recipe.

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We find a new recipe that doesn't call for heavy cream.  Ladyfingers dipped in espresso.  Half-pound of mascarpone cheese measured out.  Three tablespoons of sugar ready to go.

Mary separates the egg whites and yolks.  Beats the egg whites into such stiff peaks that she can hold the glass bowl nearly upside down and the whites stay put.  She mixes the egg yolks with the sugar, adds the mascarpone, mixes in the egg whites.  When the mixture is too liquidy, we add more mascarpone and two more stiff egg whites.  (I'm not the most scientific baker.)

Layer of espresso-dipped ladyfingers, layer of mascarpone and eggs, ladyfingers, mascarpone and eggs, dusting of chocolate powder.

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Pick-me-up in every way.