Saturday 28 June 2014

Rome, you've been wonderful.




You just start getting to know somewhere, and then you gotta leave.




 I arrived in Rome exactly a week ago and was welcomed with a homemade spaghetti alle vongole.


Over dinner, we talked about Rome and Sicily where house mates Alessandro and Felice and Maria Vittoria are from.  

Alessandro is a passionate foodie. His taste buds are adapted to only the freshest and finest ingredients.  Even his mineral water was transported with him from his village to Rome.  


I walked out onto the patio and breathed the Roman air.  It was an air of comfort and welcoming.  



I'd really missed the words buonissimo and bellissimo.




I got lost in Rome.  And found again. I learned that it is only when you get truly lost in a city that you begin to understand it. You wander down roads, insisting that the gelateria with the insanely good walnut gelato was to the left of the corner, only to look to the left of that corner and to see that it is not there anymore. 




I moved in with my host family after a few days, a family that had accepted on hosting an English teacher/ animator in a summer camp in Monteverde.


And English camp happened.  We danced and sang like lunatics.  We made plays about James Bonds. Kids died. Kids were revived. 

Roman artichoke salad with ricotta and hazelnuts was had.


On Friday I had a nutella croissant for breakfast. I had a nutella pizza for lunch.  I had nutella ice cream for five o'clocks.  If you asked me my name I'd say Nutella.

(nutella mille feuille) 

Croissant are somewhere between brioche and croissant in Italy.  They have a lot less butter and are more dense. Often they are lightly flavoured with lemon which makes me keener on french croissants but they are more dense which means after one, you're good. 





I write this blog post and reminice about my week with this family.  How the mother took me to a Brazilian street dance show at Hadrians Villa.  The beauty of this archaeological site was  breathtaking. 





I asked about pastry in Rome.  My host father went to talk to the pastry chef of his favourite coffee bar/ pastry shop.  Today I walked there. I saw the pastry chef making apricot filled croissants and raisin brioche.  I talked to the owner and told her why I was taking so many photos of everything. I told her I was tasting. And I was thinking. I said my chef will want a recap of everything I ate when I get back to Paris.  The owner asked me if I could teach them to make macarons when I'm next in the area.. 


Nutella and whipped cream tartlet with nougat. 

Sacher torte with dark chocolate cake, apricot jam.(pasticceria Fiorini)

I said I'd be back.  Not in the terminator voice though. Rome has been good to me. It's fast but not too fast, its friendly but with a little distance, its warm but not stifling.  It's just right. 





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