Job Description: Pasta roller in window

I'm trying to decide how I feel about this woman (the one in white) who rolls pasta for hours and hours each evening, in the window of Osteria da Fortunata, just off Campo de' Fiori in central Rome.  

Here's what one Yelp review says: There is a little 4 foot tall Italian woman sitting in an archway right in the middle of all of the customers making pasta.  She just sits there with a big smile on her face, day and night, and makes all of the pasta fresh that they use in their dishes. How cool is that!?!?!?!  She seems to love to watch everyone in the restaurant enjoying her pasta.  On my way to the restroom, I saw that there was a doorway to the kitchen slightly ajar, so I peeked in and snapped a picture of the pasta maker needing the dough.  Every now and then, the little woman would hobble back there and grab more dough, take it to her table and hand make the pasta that went into the dishes.  It doesn't get any fresher than that!

Hmmm.  Seems like heavy labor to me.  The woman helping her in the photo above also seemed to be the boss, and was coming and grabbing lots of pasta from her.  It seemed she had trouble keeping up with the demand, which was unceasing.  She IS a smiler.  And, below at end of post, she seems fine with being in tourist photos.  I still feel like she's being overworked and displayed in a way that makes me feel a lack of respect by the osteria's owners.  Enough that I slipped her a reasonably large (for Rome) tip; she smiled at that.

Osteria da Fortunata does get very good reviews, on both Yelp.com and Yelp.it.  We found it a good Italian trattoria - not better, not worse.

Via del Pellegrino 11

06 60667391

Dianne

Jewish pizza ("pizza ebraica"): Not your (Italian) grandmother's pizza

Joining the line, including two Giro d'Italia bicycle race competitors, for Jewish pizza on a Sunday morning (before the race started).

Once in a while RST takes a break from heavy-duty philosophy, modern architecture, history, and churches for food, yes, food... especially sweets, say I.

One of our favorite stops is for "Jewish pizza" (pizza ebraica)  in Rome's historic Jewish ghetto.  The photo above shows you nearly the entire retail space of the bakery at via Portico di Ottavia, No. 1.  If you blink, you won't even notice it.  The name, I'm told, thanks to Katie Parla, is Pasticceria “Boccione” Limentani.  I've never seen a sign with the name on it,  but you don't need to know the name to pop in the corner door.

That's the Jewish pizza they're weighing there; sold by the gram/kilogram.  It's like a heavy, warm (eat it right when you get it) fruitcake.   Looks pretty burned and perhaps not edible.  Do not be deterred; it tastes great.

As you can see, the bakery sells other goodies as well.  Katie waxes eloquent about the biscottini on her blog.

The hours are not ideal for most tourists, since it's a kosher bakery.  So not open Saturdays or Friday nights, or Jewish high holidays.  Generally closed as well the last 3 weeks of August and 2-4 p.m. in summer.

They also run out of goods.

Our recommendation:  don't make it a destination; just stop in if you're in the neighborhood and get - and eat - something.

Dianne

Dianne Gets a Grattachecca

Unidentified English woman ordering a grattachecca

We had just come out of the Napoleon museum, having spent a glorious 20 minutes looking at a huge map of Napoleon's exploits in Italy--before it was Italy, of course.  It was another hot day in a hot Roman summer, and Dianne decided she had to have a grattachecca.  I had no idea what that was, but there was a grattachecca stand across the street on the sidewalk that lines the Tevere, under some London plane trees that are common here. 

Ice cake

A grattachecca is cousin to the American snow cone, but with shaved rather than ground ice, and served in a cup rather than a cone, with a spoon and straw.  That doesn't explain the word, "grattachecca," because, although "gratta" plausibly means "grated," "checca" does not mean ice--at least not in regular Italian.  According to Wikipedia, one story of the delicacy's origins is that it was first enjoyed in ancient Rome, when emperor Quintus Fabius Maximus brought snow from Mount Terminillo, in the Appenines. 

Shaving the ice.  That's the Napoleon museum
at right, across the Lungotevere


 

Two guys run the stand.  One is responsible for the ice that goes into the cup: he removes the cover from the block of ice, shaves enough for one cone, and replaces the cover.  Though he's not a waiter, he also looks after the several small tables and chairs.  The other guy does everything else: assembles the grattachecca (adds flavoring: Dianne got green apple), takes your money, and sells the other things--water, soft drinks, panini, beer, and fresh coconut--that are part of the business.  It works.

When Dianne gets these ideas, she always asks if I want one, too.  I always say no, and I always eat part of hers.  This also works.

This was the best grattachecca I've ever had, and also the only one.  Our Italian friends, of course, couldn't wait to tell us which are their favorite grattachecca stands, and this one ranked fairly high on the list.  It's about 200 yards north of Piazza Navona.

Bill



In the shade of the Sycamores

The same stand, at night... the stands are particularly evocative
late into Roman evenings, as one tools around on a scooter, especially

Food and Wine Happenings in Rome



Cousins Massimo and Emiliano at the bar

RST loves a good party, as most of you know - and, as they say, you can too!  Last month we hightailed ourselves to an event sponsored by Katie Parla (of http://www.KatieParla.com/ - and a frequent contributor to the NY Times Travel Section).  We were inspired in part because the event was at one of our favorite winebars, Il Bacocco, in an off-the-tourist-track part of Trastevere. We sang Il Bacocco’s praises and showed off their creative “finger food” in an earlier blog.

Yes, we said "Finger Food"

Katie arranged a Lazio (the province of Rome) wine tasting, complete with several Lazio cheeses and meats as well as explanations by sommelier Hande Leimer of vinoroma. E15 a person, with part of the proceeds going to a new food charity. Katie gives the details on her blog.

A crowd of more than 30 happily bumped shoulders with each other (Il Bacocco is small), most of us primary English speakers, almost everyone full-time residents of Rome.

Katie, presiding

A good time being had by all

Even if you’re temporarily in Rome, if you have a chance, hook up with one of Katie’s events (she held one in NYC recently also). Or if you’re just a foodie (we’re not, but she almost makes us want to be), her blog is for you. She alternatively waxes eloquent and is brutal in critiquing Rome's restaurants.  Click on the Events tab to see what’s coming up.

And Hande does personal wine tastings and food tours in Rome (e.g. her "My Italians" session is Euro 50 per person and sells out regularly).

Dianne

Delivering the Meat

Meat gets delivered everywhere, but perhaps not so obviously in US cities as in Rome.  Indeed, we can't remember ever seeing a meat truck transporting carcasses in the United States.  They surely exist, but they must do their thing in the back of supermarkets, far from the eyes of squeamish shoppers, who would rather not know they're eating animals. 

We had these and other thoughts when we came upon a meat delivery, this one in front of a butcher shop on Via Gregoriana XIII, in a vibrant neighborhood known as Boccea (after Via di Boccea), to the northeast of Rome's center--behind Monte Mario and beyond, even, Parco del Pineto.




The delivery guys wore long burgundy coats (all the better to hide the bloodstains) with hoods, the latter to shield them from the cold and clammy meats that inevitably press against their heads.

Bill

Language Encounters of the the 3rd Kind: Calzoni & una Moglie Ubriaca

Italians are believed to be more tolerant than the French (but then that isn't saying much) in dealing with tourists eager to put newfound language skills to work.  Intrepid traveler and guest blogger Allen Beroza, a retired attorney from Buffalo, New York, put the theory to the test in a pair of encounters, the first in Florence, the second at a Rome restaurant not far from the Spanish Steps. 

Piazza Sant Croce, from in front of the building housing
the Scuola Toscana language school

While attending language school in Florence I discovered a pizzeria located right on the Piazza del Duomo featuring calzone that looked absolutely delectable.  Unable to stop and partake on my first visit, I came back a couple of afternoons later.  Alas, the calzone were all sold out!  Something in me wouldn't let it go.

"Che peccato!" ("What a shame!) I moaned loudly.

Yup, said ye old proprietor, a touch gruffly I thought, they were all gone.

"Sono stato qui due giorni fa" I continued ("I was here two days ago")...

No response in particular...

w I really decided to gild ye old lily, so I said, only partly in jest, "E da due giorni penso dei suoi calzoni" ("And for two days I've been thinking about your calzones...")

Calzone goes
into basement oven

Still nothing.

"Sogno dei suoi calzoni!" ("I've been dreaming about your calzones!")

Oh well, it was just not to be  After all, what could he do?  I actually didn't think there was anything.  My daughter and I trudged away.

A triumphant Beroza, with calzone

When lightning struck, Italian style.  Customers came out of the shop, shouting for us to return.  Ye old prop had decided to make me up a custom calzone.  Though he was the only one tending the pizzeria he left the shop semi-full of customers and took me downstairs, where it turned out he had a full kitchen replete with stacked pizza ovens.  He asked me what I wanted in my calzone, kneaded the dough, loaded it up, popped it in an oven and told me it'd be a few minutes. 

Back upstairs none of his customers who'd been waiting seemed fazed by any of this.

As for me, gotta confess I got a thrill from the exchange, not so much from the calzone.

Via Sistina, looking up toward the top of the Spanish Steps

A little less than a week later I was part of a group of five people looking for a restaurant in Rome on a Saturday night.  We found a likely looking spot on via Sistina called "La Botte" and we went in.

Now this was my first night in Rome, and I was in just a fine frame of mind.  I must tell you that I had been told that Italians have a marvelously colorful way of saying "I want to have my cake and eat it, too."  They say "I want to have a full cask AND a drunken wife!"

And guess what?  "La botte" means "cask" in Italian.

OK, then, as two young waiters and a busboy escorted us to our table I had to try it.  I shouted out "Voglio avere una botte piena..." ("I want to have a full cask...") then paused for a beat before continuing--loudly and in unison with our dining room crew!---"e una moglie ubriaca!"  We instantly became favored customers, swarmed with attention and recommendations throughout our meal, which concluded with grappa on the house all around. 

Allen Beroza