When I moved into my apartment, my mother came to visit and brought the bare essentials for survival: half a bottle of gin, four cans of tonic water and two lemons. This happened in October. The sole survivor is a single lemon, which for the best part of the last eight months has been my fridge’s only inhabitant. The spectacular thing is that it looks perfectly fine, as if it was freshly picked. So much for biological growth methods.

Today I opened my fridge hoping that someone had secretly gone to the supermarket in my stead, but of course only the lemon stared helplessly back at me. I won’t be surprised the day it sprouts legs and makes a run for the front door, the poor thing.

I hate grocery shopping. I always buy the same three things and they usually suffice for a day and a half, tops. Not to mention that the supermarkets in Milan are famous meeting points and one of the best spots for putting in some extra PR work, which entails trying to make myself look respectable.

This dire situation is often reminded to me by David Guetta’s “Atomic Food” (and alas, I play it often) – it dates back to when Guetta still wasn’t a worldwide sensation (i.e. could still afford to have a sense of humour) and is, to this day, my favourite track by him . I always laugh at “broccoli” and I always ignore all references to fruit. They remind me of my mother.

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Written by Andrea Ratti