Don Genova's Blog

We're back in Canada now, visiting family in Ontario, but over the next few days I'll catch you up on our final days in Italy.Our apartment in Rome was just a few steps from Campo di Fiori, home to a compact and colourful collection of market stalls six days a week.  Because we had a fairly fully-equipped kitchen in the apartment, I couldn’t resist stocking up on some of the best ingredients of the season and making our group of happy ‘campers’ a farewell dinner.

Crossing the street to the Campo in the morning included a pass-by from a guy carrying a whole box of zucchini flowers, so that was a good reminder to put them on the shopping list. In the square, early in the morning, vendors are trimming beans, putting together pre-mixed salads, even a mix of braising vegetables and beans for minestrone. At one stall I bought some gleaming purple artichokes, a bag of freshly shelled peas and a fragrant bunch of mint.  The vendor started singing about mint when I asked for it.  Secretly I think he was singing because I decided to take the whole bag of shelled peas without asking how much they cost:  15 Euros!  Ah well, I cooked them with garlic and prosciutto and tiny chunks of wild boar salami and they were great.

The zucchini flowers were stuffed with cheese, then dipped in egg and rolled in herbed bread crumbs mixed with parmigiano-reggiano cheese.  Fried in olive oil until brown and crisp and oozing cheese, they were a hit.  The artichokes were trimmed, then braised in white wine and vegetable stock and mint until tender. I also quick fried some thin pork chops and made a sweet-sour sauce with sugar and balsamic vinegar.  Throw in one green salad with scrumptious cherry tomatoes and we had a fine meal.  Dessert?  We didn’t need any…looking at our window at the sights and sounds of our Piazza was good enough.  We said goodbye to Rome that night and packed up for our assault on Umbria the next day.

Pic of the day: This one is for all of my friends who said they were going to join us at the apartment in Rome to help us celebrate our fifth anniversary and then for one reason or another never showed up.  Ramona is luxuriating on one of the white leather couches in our spacious accommodation, right on Piazza Navona.  This could have been yours, too!

I first discovered Baladin beer when visiting the massive Eataly store in Turin.  When my friend Dwight Stanford let me know there was a Baladin pub in Rome, we just had to make the pilgrimage.  Baladin is an Italian artisanal brewery.  At the pub/resto, the company has about 40 of its beers on tap, with another 100 by the bottle.  I ordered a Bitter and Twisted and viewed the menu.  I had read conflicting reports about the food online, but the three of us at the pub thoroughly enjoyed the homemade potato chips that had a healthy lashing of paprika dashed over top of the hot chips.  We each ordered burgers as well, mine a medium-done beef burger with bacon, the others went veggie and were quite happy.  I also bought a beer to go, a big bottle of Baladin Isaac, which is spiced with coriander, and it will be an aperitivo for our dinner we are cooking at the apartment tonight. 

Rome has traditions, of course, that go back who knows how long.  One of them is that many restaurants serve gnocchi on Thursdays.  I impressed my fellow travelers by being able to use my Italian to find a restaurant that was serving gnocchi (took two tries) and make a reservation for that evening.  We weren't disappointed.  Well, a little disappointed in the service, which was fairly brusque (not unfriendly, though) and too fast!  Not something you usually complain about in a restaurant.  But we had barely finished our antipasti before our server whisked away the plates and brought our gnocchi. Ramona and I both ordered ours with a sauce of porcini and loved the pillowy bits of dough and the chewy and aromatic mushrooms.  Other plates in our party with pesto, gorgonzola and ragu were all wiped clean.

Pic of the day:  I love how many restaurants are transparent about what they do.  Quite often I have seen crates of artichokes outside in the morning, waiting to be brought in by staff, you know they are fresh!  This week I saw this man out on the patio of his restaurant, calmly trimming the flowers off of zuchinni, the flowers to be used for stuffing.  I bought some flowers in the Campo di Fiori market this morning.  I will stuff some of them with some leftover pistachio pecorino, the others with some leftover taleggio cheese.  These aren't traditional stuffings, but we need to use up the cheese by the time we leave our apartment tomorrow.  After stuffing, the flowers will be rolled in beaten egg, dredged through herbed breadcrumbs, and fried in olive oil.  Pics to follow, if I am successful!  Also on the menu, carciofi alla romana, piselli con prosciutto and cotellata di suino.  Translations and pics in our next post! 

We have been in Rome for five days already.  We decided that we were not going to push ourselves to do too much, especially as it is very hot and humid, so we are living like Romans.  Do a little stuff in the morning, have a leisurely lunch, nap and relax inside cool surroundings for a few hours, go out for dinner, then perform the ‘passeggiata’, the evening stroll around the piazza.

Although we want to live like Romans all of our lives, we realize we have already made a huge mistake:  We don’t live in Rome.

The building that houses our rental apartment occupies prime real estate, fronting the Piazza Navona, one of Rome’s busiest and most visited open areas.  It has three major fountains and is lined with restaurants and shops, as well as being home to buskers, caricaturists, artists, and a saxophone player who has a very limited repetoire…about ten tunes, we think, including ‘Girl From Ipanema’, which I suppose is only appropriate since the Brazilian embassy is also on Piazza Navona.

This was not the apartment we thought we were getting.  But we found ourselves here after a slight glitch with the rental agency, but when we walked in the door we knew we had found something special.

A cardinal looks down at us from one large portrait, (somewhat disapprovingly since we must look like riff-raff to his regular companions) and another painting which is at least 15 feet wide and 10 feet high occupies the upper half of the two-storey tall back wall.  A wooden staircase leads to our master bedroom and bath.  Underneath the staircase we  have a small dining room and well-equipped kitchen with a full-sized fridge and freezer (by European standards) and four burner gas stove.  The giant living area has satellite LCD TV and a large glass dining table.  There is a good sized second bedroom and another bathroom with a washing machine. 

Although the living room windows don’t look out on the piazza, the owner has cleverly affixed a large mirror to one of the window shutters.  When you position the shutter correctly, it reflects the entire goings-on of Piazza Navona to you from a comfy window seat.

Pic of the Day

Each morning in Rome finds us at Bar Farnese, just off the Campo di Fiori, about a 5 minute walk from the apartment.  The two baristas, especially the one you see at the counter in this photo, always greet us with a warm ‘Buongiorno’ and do their best to get our day started right with a cappuccino and a cornetto or pastry of some sort.  This little hole-in-the-wall bar and its baristas have been there for years and years.  It’s nice to go back somewhere and have a constant comfort.  That comfort costs us just 3,40 Euros each morning.  Try getting the same level of value, service and comfort at your neighbourhood Starbucks!

Ah, Roma, the eternal city.  They say all roads lead to Rome.  For us, when we are here, all roads lead to cappuccini and brioches.

We arrived from Palermo without incident, but then had a slight glitch when the car we booked didn't show up and the apartment we had booked wasn't available and the substitute didn't exactly meet our expectations.  But a few phone calls to the apartment agency and a day later they had moved us to a fantastic apartment right on the Piazza Navona.  I have to take some proper pictures of it later to post because it really is quite something….so thanks to the people at Rome Sweet Home for making it right.

Some of our friends are here to help us celebrate our wedding anniversary, they were all at the original ceremony five years ago.  Amanda Goldrick-Jones, my comrade in obscure pop culture references, was sitting enjoying a lovely cappuccino in a piazza near Campo di Fiori the other day and upon seeing a trio of nuns parade by us, asked, "Is there a convent nearby?" I stifled a snort when Ramona said, "No, this is Rome!"  Yes, this is the city where on every corner you can buy photos of the Pope, chalices, gold-embroidered vestments and probably special Papal dispensations.  We're sending Amanda and her husband Herbert to St. Peter's Square tomorrow.

Okay, not too many of you will get excited by a picture of a dish of peas.  But I have always had a soft spot for these delicate green pearls of flavour, especially since as a kid I spent hours and hours shelling them for my mother after she had picked them in our garden.  A Roman specialty is peas with pancetta, or prosciutto, or guanciale, something porky and fat and flavourful.  These peas didn't disappoint.  They were part of our first full meal in Rome at a trattoria near Campo di Fiori.  I also had an excellent osso bucco, with bones loaded with marrow to dig out after savouring the fork-tender veal attached to them. 

In Sicily Ramona explored the world of the eggplant, in caponato, parmigiana, grilled, baked, fried, alla Norma, and so on.  In Rome she will examine the heart of the artichoke. This salad featured an artichoke alla Romana, braised until so tender, gently flavoured with mint leaves and garnished with basil here.  Next up, carciofi alla giudea, a deep-fried artichoke!

Pic of the day:  Ramona is happy…blissful, you could say.  Walking through Campo di Fiori, full of cappuccino and brioche, viewing wonderful flowers, wonderful people, wonderful buildings…wonderful husband. (she told me to write that!)  Ciao for now!