Whimsical | The Roving Locavore

Archive for the ‘Whimsical’ Category

ghetto doughnuts

Posted in Sweet Things, Whimsical, tagged Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, local food, locavore in Rome, Rome locavore on February 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Sunday morning was spectacularly sunny, and warming up quickly. We had our first spring day (followed by more rain today). It was perfect for our walk—with Anna, Jon, Lulu, Jesse, Rena, Nick, and Zoe—down the hill and across the Tiber to the old Jewish ghetto where one special forno makes perfect doughnuts.

When we got to the octagonal tower next to the old Cenci palazzo, we could smell the sweet warm scent of baking dough.

There was a line out the door, as expected.

(Those cakes in the window are ricotta-chocolate chip and ricotta-cherry tortes, with their crumbly, not-too-sweet burnt sugar crusts.)

Jon went in with a handful of change, and came out with the last 4 doughnuts. Just in time! These kids would have been inconsolable.

These are the antithesis of Krispy Kremes: dense, chewy, and just slightly sweet.

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Borromini on a beautiful morning

Posted in Sweet Things, Water, Whimsical on February 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The weather this weekend is Janus-faced: stormy, dark, and wintry yesterday, bright, clear, and spring-like today. A perfect morning for walking around Rome, and for seeing the sunlight stream through the windows of Borromini’s whimsical, symmetrical, magnificent dome of Sant’ Ivo della Sapienza.

I think this space was meant to be seen, and felt, on a clear day in winter, when the light is clean and welcome, as it warms the white dome and flashes off of the pressed gold leaf.

On our way to this gorgeous, idiosyncratic space, we took the time to notice some other, smaller wonders of Rome. The water line of an 1870 flood:

A gigantic basin:

Borromini’s corkscrew steeple:

We stopped at a cafe to warm our hands and revive Jack, who was getting limp with hunger. Like a good little Roman child, he carbo-loaded. In rapid succession, he ate a cornetto (croissant), a mortadella and mozzarella panino, and a chocolate egg with a Hello Kitty surprise in the middle. He washed it all down with some aqua minerale frizzante.

Then, he chilled:

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Saturday’s spices, smoke, and multi-colored snow

Posted in Sweet Things, Whimsical, tagged American Academy in Rome, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, local food, locavore Rome, Rome sustainable food, roving locavore on February 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

It’s cold, rainy, and February. But with a fire in the fireplace, an amazing Indian lunch, and a handful of confetti, we brightened up this dismal day.

Jon and some of the kids went out to the Triangle Garden to gather some dampish wood. It lit… and smoked and hissed… but also blazed, and had the kids alternately staring entranced at its flames and running helter skelter calling out for hot cocoa. Lulu lolled, and Jack fanned the flames.

Mona and the cooks made the best Indian meal I’ve ever had, with curried chicken, dal, spiced rice, papadum, raita, two chutneys, and sauteed greens. Everyone went back for more, and then we noticed the cake—a fluffy almond cake infused with toasted, crushed cardamom seeds. With a dollop of tangy yogurt on the side, and a perfectly pulled esspresso, this dessert went down in history.

What an inspired culinary performance!

And despite the rain, Carnevale goes on. We’re saving most of our confetti for tomorrow, when the sun will shine, but I sprinkled a handful down from the window on Jack, for whom the simple pleasure of watching brightly colored snow fall is close to ecstasy.

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Tempietto and torta mimosa

Posted in Shopping, Sweet Things, Whimsical, tagged American Academy in Rome, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eating locally, locavore in Rome, Rome sustainable food, roving locavore, Tempietto, torta mimosa on January 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I went on a walk this morning, after a doppio cappuccino didn’t help my concentration. Down the steep steps, around the curve of Via Garibaldi, through some narrow Trastevere streets, across Ponte Sisto to Campo di Fiori, where Giordano Bruno presides over the messy mosaic of the open air market. I stopped in some shops with “Saldi” signs—holiday sales still going on. (Found a rust-colored viscose-velvet skirt that has a nice swing to it.) I walked by Roscioli and didn’t go in, for once.

I took lots of pictures of architectural angles that struck me, and found, on my way back up the steps to the Janiculum that the door to the courtyard where the Tempietto stands was open. This is a symmetrical, serene little place. A tiny round temple that somehow feels proportionally perfect inside the plain block of a cloister courtyard, it was designed and built by Donato Bramante around 1502. All of my new architect friends have me thinking about how the treatment of space translates—and translates into—emotions. The dignity and simplicity of the Doric columns, the details, down to the rainwater drain, made me feel a subdued awe, peace, calm, as if the world, for a moment, had some harmony.

Tempietto seen through the entrance arch.

rainwater drain

Soon, though, I realized that the two guys in easy conversation at the gate, jingling their keys from time to time, were waiting for me to leave. We all laughed when I finally caught their eye and hurried out.

After my brisk communion with commerce, architectural curves, and sacred spaces, I arrived just in time for lunch at the Academy. It was one of those days when everything was good—especially the baked scamorza in a spicy tomato sauce, the farro roasted with lemons and fennel, the ricotta al forno, and the dessert: torta mimosa. This cake would be perfect at a wedding. It is white, fluffy, with citrus hints and intensities in its delicate layers of crumb and buttercream. The frosting on the outside is dusted with crumbly crumbles of the cake’s delicious crumb. Of course I didn’t get a picture, and when I looked for one on google, all I found were these, which are vulgar, garish, impostors of the angelic dessert we ate today.

If you’d like to see my pictures of some architectural history and whimsy that’s at every turn in Rome—like this curvaceous facade—go to my Flickr page.

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fritter, v. & n.

Posted in Poetry, Seafood, Whimsical, tagged Amy Campion, Amy Campion food on January 11, 2010| 3 Comments »

The noun form of fritter—the one that speaks of food—derives from the Latin verb for “fry,” frigere. Although I’m writing a food blog, this is not the form of fritter I’m concerned with today.

The other form, the transitive verb usually followed by “away” derives not from any culinary activity but from the Old English word fitt, meaning “part” or “piece.” When you fritter away your time or money, you disperse it little bit by fragment, almost unconsciously….

What I’m getting at is the reason I haven’t been posting much recently. We have seven months left in Rome, and I’m determined to finish and file my dissertation before those months are up. Therefore, my life must be lived with as little frittering of any sort as possible. I’m sure I’ll find a snatch of time here and there to post some words about some thoughts on food. Just less frequently. And, of course, some forms of frittering can always be justified. As Lord Byron says, “Oh pleasure, you’re indeed a pleasant thing.”

Or, wait! Maybe I can sometimes bring these diverse writing projects together. Byron wrote some funny verses on being a carnivore during the Venetian Carnival:

This feast is named the Carnival, which being
Interpreted, implies ‘farewell to flesh’:
So call’d, because the name and thing agreeing,
Through Lent they live on fish both salt and fresh.
But why they usher Lent with so much glee in,
Is more than I can tell, although I guess
‘Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting,
In the stage-coach or packet, just at starting.

And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes,
And solid meats, and highly spic’d ragouts,
To live for forty days on ill-dress’d fishes,
Because they have no sauces to their stews,
A thing which causes many ‘poohs’ and ‘pishes’,
And several oaths (which would not suit the Muse),
From travellers accustom’d from a boy
To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy;

And therefore humbly I would recommend
‘The curious in fish-sauce’, before they cross
The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or friend,
Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross
(Or if set out beforehand, these may send
By any means least liable to loss),
Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey,
Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye;

That is to say, if your religion’s Roman,
And you at Rome would do as Romans do,
According to the proverb,—although no man,
If foreign, is oblig’d to fast; and you,
If protestant, or sickly, or a woman,
Would rather dine in sin on a ragout—
Dine, and be d—d! I don’t mean to be coarse,
But that’s the penalty, to say no worse.

(From Beppo, 1818)

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flash and boom

Posted in Drinks, Whimsical, Wine, tagged Amy Campion, roving locavore on January 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

On a blue moon!

Was there an eclipse, too? Some thought they saw a shadow on the moon. Or maybe it was just an edge of one of those fast flying clouds.

Romans brought in the new year with a week of crack bang boom, at all hours of the day and night. Boy, do they love fireworks!

Last night, it rained in gusty downpours, and the fireworks competed not only with fog and water but also with thunder and lightning.

Thunder sounds different here than it does anywhere else I’ve lived—as if it’s banging around in a bowl, as if its rumbles bounce off of the Apennines and then bounce hollowly off of the rooftops of Rome with deflected force. It sounds more like fireworks than like the sky breaking.

The other booms last night were the prosecco corks popping! Buon anno!

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flurry

Posted in Beer, Fungi, Meat, Pasta, Restaurants, Whimsical, Wine, tagged Amy Campion food, eat locally, local food, locavore Rome, Pizzeria da Simone Rome, Villa Pamphili on December 20, 2009| 1 Comment »

Of activity, that is. (The real flurries are more like blizzards, falling on friends and relatives all up and down the east coast.)

But life here has been moving so fast, and what do I have to show for it? No photos of food, anyway. The food has disappeared before the camera reached it. Friday night they served latkes with dinner, and many of us ate three or more. They were just so good! Crispy crunchy on the outside, soft and hot on the inside, potato goodness throughout. Our Saturday lunch was another bonanza of flavors. The risotto, in particular, was impossibly delicious. Lemony, smooth, perfectly toothsome. That evening, yesterday, we hosted a pizza party. Twenty or so friends filled our living room, bringing beer, wine, chocolate, good stories and loud laughs, and I somehow managed to keep serving hot pizza in defiance of the size of our oven.

(I’ve actually done some roasting, baking, and pizza making in it. My grandma used just a toaster oven for years….)

The pizza came from our local favorite, Pizzeria da Simone. People are constantly coming in and out of this pizzeria on Via Carini, at all hours of the day. Pizza rossa for breakfast? No problem. We got a whole range of toppings last night: zucchini blossoms and anchovies, sausage with cheese, sausage with mushrooms, spicy sausage with tomato sauce, mushrooms with tomato sauce, prosciutto with cheese, mortadella with artichoke hearts. It was all devoured before I thought to take a picture. I love Roman style pizza. The crust is like what we’d call flatbread, but isn’t completely flat, and the toppings are combined in moderate twosomes or threesomes. None of this deep dish everything nonsense. (How will we ever reacclimate?)

This morning, Peter and I, along with Ramie, Rena, and Lisa, ran the 10K “Christmas Run” in Villa Pamphili. The scene was a fascinating cultural tableau. We were some of the only Americans in the crowd of 400. The race was set to begin at 9:30, but the organizers and pace-setters lingered in the cafe adjacent to the “Punto Jogging” for an extra 15 minutes of leisurely cappuccino sipping. Finally, after we had been jumping up and down in the 28-degree air (that’s Farhenheit!) waiting, the pace-setters, who wore color-coded balloons, took their places and the race got off to a silly, stumbling, good-hearted start. Some of the runners, being typical Italians, talked the whole while. Except on the uphills. The course, like the balloon-following, was whimsical, winding through forest on narrow, muddy trails, and up grassy hillsides sparkling with frost, past fountains and the chestnut-lined avenue on this awesome piece of land that until recently was a massive chunk of private property on one of the prettiest hills in Rome. I ended up running in a pack of middle-aged men, who were yelling and laughing to each other the whole time, (Ciao, bello! Buon Natale! Attenzione! along with much commentary on the mud puddles) and one other woman, who wore a set of red antlers. Some people were dressed up as Babbo Natale (that’s Santa to you) and many wore the elf hats they gave us at registration. It was a fun-run with decidedly Italian inflections of the good life: the cafe at the finish was mobbed with sweaty people sipping espresso, talking loudly, and gesticulating heartily. The men wore tights, and the women’s black eyeliner was unmussed.

Back home, Peter and I polished off the leftover pizza, and I cooked some pasta for these elves:

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turtles and men in trees

Posted in Baking, Shopping, Sweet Things, Whimsical, tagged Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, locavore Rome, roving locavore on November 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Another winding walk today—this time down the stairs rather than up to the park. I had a few various goals: to see the turtle fountain Jim Ackerman told us about the other night; to buy some whole-grain flour and some nuts at Canestro; to see some new narrow streets; and, if possible, to find chocolate chips for cookies.

When I stepped out onto Via Angelo Masina, our street, I saw a bunch of men way up high in the trees. It was a tree-trimming class! (Later, all fifteen or so of them were packed into the little Academy bar smelling of beer and sweat and sap—quite a different crowd from the usual.)

I walked the now-familiar route down the two sets of steps to Trastevere, and then across Ponte Garibaldi and off to the right, into the Ghetto. I found the turtle fountain—a beautiful, delicate image of humans helping animals—or doing something balletic with them, anyway.

Here was a little, covered-over door. Why was it made so small?

There are mysteries here in this city. Often, there are explanations, but often, those explanations present more mysteries, or at least curiosities.

I never found any chocolate chips—after looking and asking in four stores!

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expatiate, v.

Posted in Drinks, Restaurants, Whimsical, tagged American Academy in Rome, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, locavore in Rome, roving locavore on November 10, 2009| 1 Comment »

1. To walk about at large, to roam without restraint; to move about freely in space, wander at will.

2. To speak or write at some length; to enlarge; to be copious in description or discussion.

I spent the morning expatiating, in both senses of the word, with my friend Camilla in the Villa Pamphili park. We wandered through sun and shade, stepped around puddles, paused and gestured for emphasis, and covered all of the topics new friends find themselves covering: life, plans, confusions, kids, other new friends, grandparents, religion, food, tea or coffee, sisters, blogs, books, jobs, husbands, hometowns, the past, cooking, friends, writing, childhood, life in Rome. She’s come to Rome from Oslo with her husband and two little boys, and will be here for four years while her husband works at the Norwegian Institute. We walked slowly while the Roman joggers passed us, listening to their i-pods, talking on their mobiles. Vivi Bistrot had just opened for the day, so we sat in the sun on their patio for a good hour, eating cornetti integrale with bitter honey and sipping tea (Camilla) and cafe latte (me).

New friendship is like getting to know a new place in a particular season. You think you have a good idea of what a landscape or city looks like, in the fall, say. The light slants a certain way, the trees and flowers have certain aromas, it’s cool in the shade and warm in the sun. We met each other two months ago. We’re both 34 and living temporarily in Rome. Our lives exist as they do here and now in the particularity of these circumstances. But as we walk and talk, through the seasons, we’ll get to know each other in different air, light, and seasons.

Thinking about this brings to mind my good friend Liz. When we met, I was pregnant with Jack, just on the cusp of the biggest change I’ve ever gone through. We know each other well, but she’s always known me as a mother. I’m the same person, but also very different. I wonder what she’s doing, now. Still working on that community garden? I don’t want to say we’ve lost touch, but the lines of communication have stretched thin. I miss her….

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Fall and Rainbows in Rome

Posted in Baking, Cheese, Dairy, Shopping, Sweet Things, Whimsical, tagged American Academy in Rome, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, Antica Caciari Rome, Antico Forno Roscioli Rome, Canestro Rome, eat locally, eating locally, local eating, local food, locavore, locavore in Rome, locavore Rome, Rome locavore, Rome sustainable food, roving locavore on October 13, 2009| 2 Comments »

Fall fell in a swirl of branches, leaves, and whole trees. Yesterday afternoon, we watched the pines and bamboo swaying in circles as the wind picked up. Rain fell hard, and stopped quickly. And then, the most magnificent double rainbow I’ve ever seen arched across the Rome skyline, and the mountains, free from the haze after a long hot summer, seemed etched into the sky. This morning, the air was crisp, about 15 degrees cooler than yesterday’s, and smoke from burning piles of brush signaled the arrival of autumn. We rode the bus to our usual stop, just past Piazza Ottavilla, where we saw a huge pile of downed trees and branches. Later, I ran through the park at Villa Pamphili, and saw huge old pines and palms lying broken on the grass.

I had spent the morning on a long market circuit in Trastevere, stopping at my favorite shops: Antica Caciari for fresh ricotta, Canestro for organic cereals, grains, lentils, and peanut butter, and Antico Forno Roscioli for delicious bread and un cornetto integrale–a whole wheat croissant with bitter honey inside. I knew I’d found an amazing baker when I saw the impossible combination of whole wheat flecks and buttery thin flaky pastry. How do they do it?

I love walking around Trastevere because of its spider web of narrow off-angle streets that open onto beautiful architectural surprises.

Trast. arch

Rena sent me on a hunt for this place, which carries organic milk in a little fridge near the door.

checco

nut tart

Wow! It looks pretty, but what would it be like actually to eat this nutty tart?

The Fontana d’Acqua Paolo, seen from the pedestrian bridge, Ponte Sisto, jutting up at the top of the hill, marked the line I’d need to walk to find the steep set of stairs that would lead me up the hill back home.

Ponte sisto

And now, the pictures we’ve all been waiting for…

Il Arcobaleno!

I’d been cooking dinner, when Jack, sitting at the high counter in the kitchen, said, “there’s a huge rainbow in the sky.” Uh huh. I was busy. But then, I decided to look, and couldn’t believe it. We ran down the stairs, but not before Jack resourcefully thought to pull on his puddle boots. We buzzed Lulu and Jesse’s apartment, and ran outside with them to stand in the street. The rainbow made a full half-circle. And then we realized it was doubled by a fainter, inverted rainbow above:

double bow