When in Roma . . .

I’ve been shopping the Roma Market, on the corner of North Lake and Mountain Avenues in Pasadena, on and off since I was 8 years old. It’s my neighborhood market.

There are new green awnings, but otherwise, the Roma grocery, as we habitues call it, doesn’t look all that different from the market I remember from the ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s--unassuming, papered with hand-painted sheets advertising the week’s specials.

Inside, it smells like sharp cheese, ripe fruit and fresh bread. There are shelves crammed with every conceivable shape of pasta, with tins of anchovies and olive-oil-packed tuna, with assorted olive oils. At the meat-and-cheese counter, I jockey for position with Italian-speaking housewives and patriarchs. For years, this store has supplied me with good Parmesan, fresh mozzarella, olives, deli meats and decent fresh Italian bread.

The owner, Ross, is a short, tough and shrewd Italian who puts in a good 16-hour day. He is always there, always.

Recently, I asked Ross some direct questions about himself for the first time in 30-some years. He was standing behind the deli counter when I came up. He cut a small crumbly hunk of Danish blue cheese, put it on a sheet of wax paper and pushed it over to me.

“Hey Ross,” I said, “can I ask you a question? How long have you been here?”

“Six months.”

“Uh uh,” I said. “When I was a little girl, I’d come in with my mother, and you were here.”

“Forty years,” he said softly. “I’ve been here 40 years !”

“So how old are you?” This is by far the most personal question I’ve ever asked him.

“Twenty-nine.”

I growled at him.

Again, in a softer voice, “51.”

“No!--You were 11 when you started this store?”

“My uncle, he started this store; I came with him and I stayed.”

My own mother coached me about how to buy cheese, olives and deli meats from Ross. “You want a pound of something?” she says, “Order three-quarters of a pound.”

And it’s true; I can trust Ross to give me a little more than I ask for, a practice that would be far more objectionable if his prices weren’t so darn reasonable. I can also trust him to select a sweet melon for me, or to give me tastes of the latest shipment of pepper cheese or a new dry salami, or provide me with a hint about what I might want to cook for dinner.

“My mother,” Ross might say. “She made stuffed artichokes last night . . .” and suddenly, I’m thinking, now just how would I stuff an artichoke? and the whole creative, gratifying process of putting together a meal swings into motion.

I’ve walked in hungry and devoid of ideas, and left to cook pasta with fresh fava beans, pancetta and rosemary, or risotto with baby artichokes. During the winter, I live on cannellini beans and bitter greens--either dandelions or rapini (Italian broccoli) that I saute with some of Ross’ sweet pancetta . By waiting in line one day and staring into plastic buckets of dried beans, I decided to make bruschetta with pureed fava, bitter broccoli and garlic-scented olive oil.

While Ross’ produce is not always the prettiest, he generally has two or three seasonal items of unsurpassed quality: baby artichokes, young okra, thistle-y cardoons. And there are always a few items that look as if they were picked out of somebody’s back yard within the last few hours, notably fennel bulbs, little baskets of small ripe Mission figs or tough-skinned Concord grapes.

Over the years, Ross and I have developed a fondness and a boldness with each other. If we’re both feeling in pretty good spirits, it’s likely we’ll squabble. He has a more conservative approach to cooking than I, and this fuels our clashes. Once I told him I was making lasagna and ordered Parmesan cheese and provolone.

“Not for lasagne ,” he said, and absolutely refused to give me the cheese. I walked out with Pecorino Romano and mozzarella--and did indeed make one of my best-ever lasagne .

With a new product, Ross becomes a relentless salesman. I’ve learned about ingredients from his sales pitches, but they can also be the sources of our loudest, most vehement exchanges. Indeed, such tiffs constitute a good portion of whatever assertiveness training I’ve had over the years.

“I got something for you,” Ross says. He comes out from behind the meat counter, finds and then holds up a box of tortellini. “You’ll love it.”

“I hate tortellini ,” I tell him.

“You’ll like this.”

“I’m not going to buy it,” I say. “I hate tortellini. “

“You hate it because you never tasted good tortellini in your life until you taste this,” he shakes the box. “Try some, then tell me if you hate it.”

“You are not going to sell me any tortellini , not now, not ever.”

He gives up, disgusted. I sulk, over by the dried porcini . How is it that when I don’t buy something I don’t want to buy, he can still manage to make me feel, well, a little regretful?

On days when I’m a little blue, however, he’ll wordlessly attempt to revive my interest in life with a slice of pepper cheese or Parma ham. If he is a little downcast, I’ll chat for a few minutes. Better yet, I let him sell me something.

I’m always reading and hearing good cooks say that they don’t plan a menu, they go to the market to see what looks good. The problem with a supermarket is that everything looks . . . well, pretty good . . . or at least pretty much the same. That’s what all the packaging and marketing and grading of fruits and vegetables is all about. What I get in my little Italian market, which I don’t get in supermarkets, is ideas. From the tastes and smells of the food, from the cluttered, often slapdash displays, from the limited selection of a few good ingredients, from hearing people talk about food, from touching it and looking at it, something gets set off in my imagination. I start asking questions. What can I do with such lovely beets? What would taste good with peppercorn cheese? What could I put on such adorable, rough-surfaced little orecchiette? Ingredients start assembling into interesting combinations, then dishes form, then whole meals take shape. I never know what a visit to Roma will produce. Anything is possible. Except, perhaps, tortellini .

Roma Italian Deli and Grocery, 918 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena. (818) 797-7748.