Ed always overwhelmed me a little bit...with the number of words he could find to describe perfect garlic, with the mind-numbing detail he could offer in stepping through the making of his latest batch of wine...starting with the stomping of his own grapes. These conversations were had almost always at Easter or an occasional Thanksgiving. A group of nine or ten of us have gathered for better than fifteen years now on these two holidays in a strange, unspoken tradition. On those days a hodge-podge of friendships and connections somehow solidifies into a family.
Ed would find me in a corner, hand me a glass of his wine, and launch..."Michelle, taste this. I made it with muscadine grapes this time, thirty pounds..you know the muscadine grape is a wild grape - different than a wine grape like a Merlot...". It was the same with garlic, with tomatoes, with the perfect tiramisu recipe. It wasn't that I wasn't interested, I just could not physically take it all in - my God, it was so much. My mistake was that I was listening to the wrong thing. I listened to his words...I did not listen to his heart. Ed didn't care whether I understood the merits of muscadine grape over a Merlot grape. He was trying to give me who he was.
In many of those conversations, Ed would also tell me about his favorite restaurant, Savarino's, and tell me of his 'club'. He had recruited several fellow lovers of all things Italian and begun a Nashville chapter of the Amerigo Vespucci Society. The Society describes itself this way: "This society is one of the oldest Italian Societies. We respect and obey all laws and strive for equality for all brothers. We enjoy the happiness and the sorrow of our adopted AMERICA. We honor our Italian heritage." Now, the only thing that Ed may have loved as much as food was his Italian heritage. He and his friends spent countless hours at this 'little restaurant' he would tell me about. "You have to come by, Michelle, it will be the best food, the best you will find in Nashville. Anywhere in Nashville. They named a sandwich after me, you know, it has a kick, a little kick - you have to come by." After meeting the Amerigo Vespucci, virtually all of whom were at St. Joseph's the day of Ed's funeral, I understood. At Savarino's, surrounded by his people, Ed's heart was heard.
Savarino's is no more than a mile from my front door - a twenty minute walk I could have made a hundred times to sit with him, share an Ed Pontier sandwich and a glass of his wine, allow him to introduce me to his Italian friends, tell me about the pasta, the imported garlic, the secret ingredients. I could have laughed, and listened, very closely, to the man's heart.
I should have paid way more attention.
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