One day, the general’s wife suddenly decides to amaze the imagination of the provincial intelligentsia with a breadth of scope comparable only to Natasha Rostova’s ball. To do this, urgently establish contact with an Italian chef deported from North Korea, a passionate admirer of oriental cuisine, who is either in the Kuril Islands or on one of the Japanese islands in search of ultra-modern recipes.
From the conversation in Russian-Italian-English Surzhik, the general’s wife clearly understood only the word “Pampamita.”
For the uninitiated, I’ll explain that pampanita is a type of fish that has not yet reached the level of Japanese fugu, but is already significantly ahead of our proletarian sprat in tomato sauce, both in terms of taste and price. In addition, this fish has one important dietary advantage, which for some time now the general’s wife has completely refused to remember, even in vain.
And then, one fine day, my friend receives a message in messenger from a general’s friend, who invites her to have dinner in the company of the creative intelligentsia, consisting mainly of little-known writers, forgotten composers and unrecognized musicians from the local philharmonic.
At the end of the message, the general’s wife hints that a special dish will be served at the table, the recipe for which was recently sent from Japan itself by some famous but little-known Italian chef.
This is the time for my friend to be wary of a fish dish based on an Italian recipe from Japan, but the general’s wife, without giving her time to come to her senses, enthusiastically reports that she has finally been installed with that unique shower toilet from the Japanese company TOTO, which costs the equivalent of a small car , and promises to show how it smoothly and gently performs its toilet functions, according to a unique algorithm incorporated into the device by Japanese scientists and nutritionists, while consuming almost no electricity to recharge the built-in lithium-polymer batteries.
And so this whole creative crowd sits down at the table and begins to have conversations about the lofty, spiritual and eternal, at the same time sipping their nostrils towards the kitchen. Few people ate a vegetable salad, sliced Parmesan cheese and tender pork with vintage Sherry in anticipation of the widely announced main course of the evening.
Finally, the hostess brings out a huge tray to the guests, on which a shapeless heap bulges clumsily under the promising name “Pampanita soaked in cherry sake under a young branch of cherry blossoms in the rays of the rising Sicilian sun.”
Guests greedily swoop down on the main dish of the creative evening and leave him no chance of survival. Conversations about art instantly move to a higher intellectual level accompanied by vintage wine, toothpicks and light jazz.
After some time, my friend suddenly notices a mysterious rumbling in the very center of her stomach, groundlessly blaming the morning office donuts with jam for this and asks the hostess to finally show her that same Japanese miracle toilet as soon as possible.
The friends fluttered to the combined bathroom, where the general’s wife, with a touch-screen remote control in her hands, began to paint the shower toilet in every possible way and at the same time praise the Japanese craftsmen who built such beauty.
An acquaintance, crossing her legs three and a half turns diagonally, diligently nodded her head, agreeing with all the organizational conclusions about the wretched domestic and Slovenian plumbing until a terrible cry in the fourth octave of an unrecognized violin virtuoso was heard in the dining room: “Where is the latrine! !!???" and a musician flew into the corridor, who just a few minutes ago had been impressively telling everyone present about the genius of Stravinsky.
My friend grabbed the remote control from her friend and shouted:
– How does the lid open here?!
The hostess, with a smooth gesture using the sensors, forced the shower toilet to smoothly open the visor to the casual chirping of a nightingale. My friend, without waiting for the magical trill to die down and the hostess to come out of the bathroom, fell with all her desire on the Japanese ceramic miracle, which immediately joyfully played the hogaku and illuminated the unfolding tragedy from below with a gentle blue LED glow.
And half a minute later there was a loud knock on the door, and the plaintive voice of the hostess of the evening party was heard:
– Alyunya, are you coming soon? This is what’s going on here, I can’t breathe anymore... I wish I had gotten in touch with these Italian recipes - pampanita... It was much better at our picnics with beer...