Benedetta, in a list

Things to read, eat, remember, believe in and apparently order if you want to understand Benedetta a little better.

1. Call it movement, not working out.
   Run because your body needs it. Do Pilates slowly. Do something aerobic enough to make your heart work. Muscles are there to be used.

2. Eat the protein.
   Your muscles have work to do. Feed them accordingly.

3. Put your own oxygen mask on first.
   Especially if you are responsible for another person, or a small furry creature.

4. Elegance has nothing to do with money.
   It is how you speak to the cashier. How you treat people. How you treat yourself. Attention to detail without becoming stuck-up.

5. Old money TikTok is not elegance.

6. Simplicity + attention to detail.
   Apparently this is the formula.

7. Sage.
   Favourite herb. Favourite smell. Put it in chicken rolls with prosciutto if you have a Riccardo available to cook them for you.

8. Short penne.
   No discussion.

9. Espresso.
   Oat milk generally. Coconut milk if iced latte.

10. The Late Mattia Pascal, Luigi Pirandello.
    For discovering that wanting to escape your life and invent another one is not, unfortunately, an experience unique to you.

11. The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller.
    A more recent attachment.

12. Gleneagles, Scotland.
    Where she rode her first horse and learned to ride a bike. Later, where her sister went on honeymoon.

13. Milan:
    Breakfast: a tiny unnamed pastry shop near Wagner with the best cream brioche.
    Lunch: a club sandwich at God Save the Food.
    Dinner: Trattoria della Pesa.
    Cotoletta: Consorzio Stoppani, with orange zest.

14. Primary colours. Green. White. Cotton. Flowers. New.

15. Dinner for two.

16. London. Milan.
    She was asked to choose one. She declined to respect the rules.

17. Coquelicot.
    Favourite French word.

18. Splendido.
    A contender in Italian.

19. You do not have to love the place that shapes you.
    Padua did something to her, even if part of what it taught her was simply what she did not want.

20. A childhood dream can disappear without completely leaving you.
    At four: cardiac surgeon. Later: trauma surgeon, military doctor, Red Cross. Eventually: human rights. Somehow, the two worlds found their way back to each other anyway.