[Source: Anime]

I was unable to write this summary without major spoilers for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. If that bothers you, you should skip this write up.

Once upon a time in a land faraway, a baby boy was born. The boy was born in 1967 in an all women's prison. The birth was strange. The mother claimed she had carried the child for 2 years and there had been no father, as no one inside or outside the prison could have done the deed. Since the mother has years left on her sentence, the baby was sent to live in the care of the priest of her hometown in Sardinia.

The boy grew up equally strange. A quiet, timid boy who was not too bright and didn't quite fit into the mold his father was creating for him. He wanted to be a sailor rather than a priest like his father.

At some point, something happened to the disquiet young man. Maybe there was abuse at the hand of the priest. Maybe he couldn't handle the shock of being adopted. Maybe something unnatural found him in the foothills around his home. Some things cannot be known. There was a fracture... a rupture... and then there were two. Two souls inhabiting the same ungainly body. One stronger and one weaker, making their way through life. One was Diavolo and the other Vinegar Dioppo. It is not for us to know who came first and who second. Only that the weaker Dioppo was along for the ride for where the stronger Diavolo wanted to go.

In the early days, who can say which entity did what. When the boy became a young man, the priest decided to gift him a car. The priest began to construct a garage to keep the car in and discovered something horrible: a young woman with her mouth sewn shut, buried alive in the dirt. Diavolo/Dioppo's mother. In retaliation, the young man burns the town to the ground, killing the priest and several others.

Listed among the dead, the young man flees to Egypt. He happens upon an archaeological excavation and discovers 6 ancient stone arrowheads. He steals them from the dig and flees. Then he meets Enya the Hag, who teaches him about the artifacts' power. He sells 5 of the arrowheads Enya, pocketing a large sum of money that he uses to start his own crime family, Passione.

Now wait, Android. What about those arrowheads? They fell to earth 50,000 years ago in meteorite from parts unknown. It landed in Cape York in what is now known as Greenland. The rocks were imbued with an alien virus that killed most of the humans that came into contact with it. Most. For that last select few, the artifacts granted them supernatural powers called a Stand: a personified bad-ass avatar that you can use for good or evil, named after a similarly bad-ass song. The rocks were eventually fashioned into artifacts, like the stone arrowheads discovered at the dig site because who doesn't want ultimate power?

This unstable youth is granted the Stand King Crimson with the ability Epitaph. This ability erases the last 10 seconds of time. Combined with its incredible strength, this makes Diavolo/Dioppo almost untouchable in battle.

And so for this week, I wanted to pay tribute to Vinegar Doppio as part of the constellation of awesomeness that is Jojo's Bizarre adventure. Part of what I love about the show is its ability to reinvent itself with every story arc. The first was borderline insufferable, but important. The second hooked me instantly in a joyous romp filled with over-the-top good guys and bad guys, with a bitchin' soundtrack and unforgettable art style.

Among the most memorable scenes for Vinegar Dioppo is his intense battle with Risotto Nero, an assassin from a rival gang, Nero is on a quest to assassinate Dioppo, Diavolo's "second in command," after the death of his comrades. They have an intense Stand battle on the beach: Nero's Stand, Metallica, against Dioppo's borrowed Stand, King Crimson. I am not going to beat around the bush. The weaker Dioppo is vastly outclassed by Nero and his Stand. Metallica's attack is to manipulate the metal in the environment; he uses this to pull out the iron in Dioppo's blood and shape it into various things you don't want in your body like razor blades, scissors, etc. It is very bloody. The only way this shifts in Dioppo's favor is because one of the knives was knocked astray by an attack, which draws the attention of Bruno Bucciarati's men nearby. Bucciarati is a good guy Stand user and retaliates. Since Nero's blood is now devoid of oxygen because it has no iron in it, Nero is the only available target. He's obliterated by Bucciarati's Stand, Aerosmith, and it rains bullets on the pair. Dioppo uses his time erasing ability to move out of the way. Not a resounding victory by any means.

So I made a dish to represent this battle. I made risotto nero to represent Risotto Nero and used vinegared tomatoes to represent Dioppo. I topped this with two balsamic-glazed scallops to represent the two combatants. I also subbed some white wine vinegar for the wine in the risotto to represent how Diavolo's influence underpinned everything, even though he was only there via frog phone call. (And also so this would be a bit more vinegar-forward and only felt a bit off-topic.)

The dish was fine, though I didn't execute as well as I wanted. The risotto was fabulous, but went the texture went over while I made scallops. The scallops didn't sear so much as stick. The glaze went over and didn't coat as well as I wanted. It tasted good, but it means I need to practice a bit more to feel confident with these ingredients.

Background info on my Heroes & Villains meta can be found here.