Plot summary

Middle aged Ricardo Trogi continues to recount key periods of his formative years. This time, the year is 1991 and he's a twenty-one year old student in the screenwriting program at UQAM. Arguably, the two items foremost on his mind are having to deal with a genetic issue, and being in love with Marie-Ève Bernard, who he met the year before. Although he doesn't see her as being perfect, he does see her as being the mother of his future children. So when Marie-Ève tells him that she is going on an exchange program in Perugia and asks him to go along, he jumps at the chance despite never having traveled without his working class parents, Benito and Claudette Trogi, despite he and his parents not really being able to afford the trip, and despite having no real desire to learn Italian, regardless of the fact of being part Italian himself. Getting safe and sound to Perugia itself ends up not being as straightforward as naive Ricardo would have hoped, which in turn impedes his time with Marie-Ève. As Ricardo ends up out of circumstance spending time with others besides Marie-Ève, Ricardo may have a different perspective of what he wants out of the trip, which leads to an admission about his and Marie-Ève's pre-Italy relationship, and the trip which may be affected by his paternal family's famous mushroom risotto recipe, the dish a contributing factor to women having fallen in love with the Trogi men.—Huggo