O! Il Primoli, restaurant of restaurants, hidden gem of Rome!
How you greeted us with a complimentary glass of prosecco,
How you always seated us in the same booth,
With the photograph
Of the strange man,
Your yellow walls were warm and invited us away from the crowds
Warm was your pasta, heavy with cream and mushrooms,
or tomatoes,
or shellfish.
We laughed gently at your poorly translated English menu,
As children at an elegant older woman
who has forgotten
one curler.
But we swooned at your meats, your lamb and veal,
Carpaccio succulent and sliced so thin,
we could probably
read through it.
Zabaglione, frothy yellow and sweet, spread over
Delicate puff pastry, with wild strawberries
bursting tart-sweet
in our mouths
Sad are we at your passing, for we should have liked
To dine with you, one last time.
O Il Primoli
You shall always be
Il Primo to me.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Making Rome our new home
We made it!
After a very LONG transit time, Matt and I have finally arrived in Rome. Our apartment is SWEET and you all should definitely come visit and stay on our couch. We are right next to an awesome market - veg, fruit, fish, bread, meat, shoes - and very close to public transport. We went out and explored last night around the Pantheon - streets are quiet and empty, such a change from the summer months! My laborious description of the restaurant we visited can be found here on chowhound (I post under meels).
To prepare for our trip, I bought an ipod. If you buy an ipod from the apple website, you can engrave the back. :) Here's mine:
[it says, "not bothered by the screaming children." If you're at a loss, look back through my summer 2005 posts.]
One final note - and sorry I'm not so eloquent as last time but it's been a long week - we bought the coolest looking vegetable at the market today.
It's called Romanesco broccoli. And it's a fractal!
oh yeah, and sign up for skype - I'm on, find me!
After a very LONG transit time, Matt and I have finally arrived in Rome. Our apartment is SWEET and you all should definitely come visit and stay on our couch. We are right next to an awesome market - veg, fruit, fish, bread, meat, shoes - and very close to public transport. We went out and explored last night around the Pantheon - streets are quiet and empty, such a change from the summer months! My laborious description of the restaurant we visited can be found here on chowhound (I post under meels).
To prepare for our trip, I bought an ipod. If you buy an ipod from the apple website, you can engrave the back. :) Here's mine:
[it says, "not bothered by the screaming children." If you're at a loss, look back through my summer 2005 posts.]
One final note - and sorry I'm not so eloquent as last time but it's been a long week - we bought the coolest looking vegetable at the market today.
It's called Romanesco broccoli. And it's a fractal!
oh yeah, and sign up for skype - I'm on, find me!
Friday, January 05, 2007
Rome Thoughts: Third time's the charm
In exactly 10 days, I will have moved to Rome - Dies decem mota ero Romam - In dieci giorni io avro cambiato casa a Roma - wow that took a lot of work. And it's probably still not right.
My first visit to Rome was with Matt, while he and I were taking language classes in Florence. What sticks with me - the heat, the noise, the dirt. It was July, and there was dust in the air. We stayed too far away from everything, on the wrong side of the tracks, literally, east of the Termini train station. Our "bed and breakfast" was, unpleasantly, a woman who let out rooms in her 3 bedroom apartment by the night and fed us packaged toast-crackers and nescafe in the morning. How awkward. I didn't know to expect that Roman ruins were brick and not marble, or that the marble had been removed a long, long time ago, or that they would look so... ruined. Huge stretches of road carved through the remains, layering exhaust fumes among the dust, unsettling the hush of book history with the constant whine of car honks and the hums of motor scooters. Aside from one recommendation, we ate when hungry, falling on the "convenient" tavola calda and tourist menus, shelling out our precious euros for mediocre red sauce and freezer-burned tiramisu. We were pleased to return to Florence, its graceful churches, slightly cooler temperatures, and, at least, a modicum of familiarity and civilization - Dante, gelato, Giotto.
My second trip to Rome was two summers ago, alone - without Matt - for an intensive Latin program led by Reginald Foster. It promised a slow, deliberate immersion into 2,000 years of living Latin, with economical side trips. I discovered the Gianicolo, the hill west of Rome - which gets breezes in the summertime and offers a sweeping vista of the city skyline. Reggie's monestary was here, as was the small Catholic school whose cafeteria we borrowed for our daily class (Scuola di Divino Amore - which I wanted to call Scuola di Amore di vino). Nights were spent in Trastevere among the tiny medieval streets - which contrast so greatly with the heavy slabs of bernini and moussolini in the city center. Nights were spent with huge groups of unlikely friends - all different, all Latinists - with pizza and wine under the stars. With Reggie we walked slowly - painfully slowly - across the cobblestoned streets. We perched on old gates and parking lots and read Latin which was composed right there! said Reggie - right here, this spot, covered in concrete that doesn't exist in Reggie's world, or that does, peripherally, only in that it provides the only point of physical contact between the present and the past.
My third trip starts in less than two weeks. Not alone, but with Matt, and we'll be living in our own apartment down the other side of the Gianicolo, an area I'm only passing familiar with. We will be living among the Romans, in their residential neighborhood. We will shop at their market and supermarket, away from the intensity of the center, but also away from its history. There will still be grime and graffitti, and dog poo on the sidewalks. Buses will come barrelling down the streets at unpredictable intervals. There will not be the heady heat of wine and summer, the strains of funk bands playing on the bridge at 4am. But there will be winter - rain and empty streets - hush and dark. The first flowers of spring. With the seasons will change the vegetables, the length of days, the air - a new year, a new layer of dust, a new history - our history, Matt and I, together - to settle upon the ruins of old.
My first visit to Rome was with Matt, while he and I were taking language classes in Florence. What sticks with me - the heat, the noise, the dirt. It was July, and there was dust in the air. We stayed too far away from everything, on the wrong side of the tracks, literally, east of the Termini train station. Our "bed and breakfast" was, unpleasantly, a woman who let out rooms in her 3 bedroom apartment by the night and fed us packaged toast-crackers and nescafe in the morning. How awkward. I didn't know to expect that Roman ruins were brick and not marble, or that the marble had been removed a long, long time ago, or that they would look so... ruined. Huge stretches of road carved through the remains, layering exhaust fumes among the dust, unsettling the hush of book history with the constant whine of car honks and the hums of motor scooters. Aside from one recommendation, we ate when hungry, falling on the "convenient" tavola calda and tourist menus, shelling out our precious euros for mediocre red sauce and freezer-burned tiramisu. We were pleased to return to Florence, its graceful churches, slightly cooler temperatures, and, at least, a modicum of familiarity and civilization - Dante, gelato, Giotto.
My second trip to Rome was two summers ago, alone - without Matt - for an intensive Latin program led by Reginald Foster. It promised a slow, deliberate immersion into 2,000 years of living Latin, with economical side trips. I discovered the Gianicolo, the hill west of Rome - which gets breezes in the summertime and offers a sweeping vista of the city skyline. Reggie's monestary was here, as was the small Catholic school whose cafeteria we borrowed for our daily class (Scuola di Divino Amore - which I wanted to call Scuola di Amore di vino). Nights were spent in Trastevere among the tiny medieval streets - which contrast so greatly with the heavy slabs of bernini and moussolini in the city center. Nights were spent with huge groups of unlikely friends - all different, all Latinists - with pizza and wine under the stars. With Reggie we walked slowly - painfully slowly - across the cobblestoned streets. We perched on old gates and parking lots and read Latin which was composed right there! said Reggie - right here, this spot, covered in concrete that doesn't exist in Reggie's world, or that does, peripherally, only in that it provides the only point of physical contact between the present and the past.
My third trip starts in less than two weeks. Not alone, but with Matt, and we'll be living in our own apartment down the other side of the Gianicolo, an area I'm only passing familiar with. We will be living among the Romans, in their residential neighborhood. We will shop at their market and supermarket, away from the intensity of the center, but also away from its history. There will still be grime and graffitti, and dog poo on the sidewalks. Buses will come barrelling down the streets at unpredictable intervals. There will not be the heady heat of wine and summer, the strains of funk bands playing on the bridge at 4am. But there will be winter - rain and empty streets - hush and dark. The first flowers of spring. With the seasons will change the vegetables, the length of days, the air - a new year, a new layer of dust, a new history - our history, Matt and I, together - to settle upon the ruins of old.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Domestic Goddess Initiation: Snickerdoodles
These are from Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess baking book. They're more doughnut-y (she has nutmeg in them!) than cookie-y, and very delicious.
Unfortunately I think her recipe is off a bit - the dough was way too dry and next time I will add less flour (something in the translation from the UK to US version, I suspect). But I still served them, warm, with sugared strawberries and creme fraiche.
Domestic Goddesshead, here I come!
***********NIGELLA UPDATE
So I wrote in an email complaining that the dough was too dry through her website, and got this reply - it's not Ms. Lawson herself, but sure enough, there's a missing tablespoon of butter. (interestingly, also extra sugar!)
Dear Amelia,
Let me give you the English version, though translated by Nigella now into cups and so forth, and see if that helps. Since Domestic Goddess, she has always insisted on providing the American quantities herself, whereas up to and including DG, the US publishers 'translated' from the metric version themselves.
One and two thirds cups flour
Half teasp ground nutmeg
three quarters teasp baking powder
half teasp salt
One stick plus one tablespoon butter
half a cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine sugar
1 large egg
1 teasp vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Good luck!
Admin
Unfortunately I think her recipe is off a bit - the dough was way too dry and next time I will add less flour (something in the translation from the UK to US version, I suspect). But I still served them, warm, with sugared strawberries and creme fraiche.
Domestic Goddesshead, here I come!
***********NIGELLA UPDATE
So I wrote in an email complaining that the dough was too dry through her website, and got this reply - it's not Ms. Lawson herself, but sure enough, there's a missing tablespoon of butter. (interestingly, also extra sugar!)
Dear Amelia,
Let me give you the English version, though translated by Nigella now into cups and so forth, and see if that helps. Since Domestic Goddess, she has always insisted on providing the American quantities herself, whereas up to and including DG, the US publishers 'translated' from the metric version themselves.
One and two thirds cups flour
Half teasp ground nutmeg
three quarters teasp baking powder
half teasp salt
One stick plus one tablespoon butter
half a cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine sugar
1 large egg
1 teasp vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Good luck!
Admin
Monday, January 01, 2007
a new look for 2007!
Hurray! So many dys-FUN-ctional things in 2007! Like MY WEDDING!!!!!!! And living in Rome! (Why are we going there? Who knows! It's fabulous!) And then going to the Netherlands (probably) and then applying to LAW SCHOOL (shhhh... don't tell Jennifer yet!) and baking cupcakes and did I mention MY WEDDING?? And maybe we'll go live the colonial life in Indonesia for a while! (er - how about after storm season?)
It's dys-fun-freakin'-tastic!
It's dys-fun-freakin'-tastic!
Saturday, December 30, 2006
what'd YOU get?
Apples! Silver ones that hold sugar and cream!
So cute!!
and an apron, and nigella lawson cookbooks, and and and and a necklace and an LSAT book.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Post-Christmas
Ah, the glories of going home for the holidays... mom and dad, this is what happens when I come home for christmas. except you're at work.
and speaking of mom - she is doing much better, as I understand, and has, indeed, begun to lose handfuls of hair. My Christmas gift to her, fabulous hats from Headcovers.com are well timed.
and speaking of mom - she is doing much better, as I understand, and has, indeed, begun to lose handfuls of hair. My Christmas gift to her, fabulous hats from Headcovers.com are well timed.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
I love the princess...
Princesses have made the New York Times magazine this week. Oh, how I wish I were 10 in this day and age! You know I always played princess... though I didn't need disney to tell me what sort of princess to be. I had my own princess names - Sapphire was one - and I'd play "locked in a garret escaping evil parents" and run around the neighborhood with my handmaid/guardian (Ambre). What's wrong with that? :)
oh the smell of saltmarsh in the morning...
Well here we are in Maine, in our little apt. with matt's parents and sister and a view of the salt marsh. ahhh...
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Sunday, December 17, 2006
just an update
so mom is doing well, according to dad - walking around, occasionally without oxygen, feeding the birds, watching movies. so that's fun :)
Matt and I are planning christmas dinner, to be made when we go with matt's family up to maine (brrr!!) again this year. And I spent an inordinate amount of time tonight - with no small amount of injury to my person - trying out a new recipe for Butternut Squash Risotto which I HIGHLY recommend! Tasty!
Matt and I are planning christmas dinner, to be made when we go with matt's family up to maine (brrr!!) again this year. And I spent an inordinate amount of time tonight - with no small amount of injury to my person - trying out a new recipe for Butternut Squash Risotto which I HIGHLY recommend! Tasty!
Monday, December 11, 2006
mom update
well, they ran the blood test early (just for my mom, I guess!!) and it is, in fact, Wegener's Granulomatosis. But Mom should be going home today - yay! They started treatment on Saturday, which means mom had a chemotherapy treatment that is a slightly lower dosage than for cancer patients. (Cytoxan works on a lot of different diseases, turns out.) Downside - yes, mom will apparently lose her hair. So says the doctor.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Food and Wine Matcher
Thank you Nat Decants, for having an amazing wine site with the coolest thing ever - a Wine and Food Matcher. I will spend hours on this...
Christmas Dinner thoughts are brewing... game birds with sangiovese? Mille feuilles with sparkling Italian Asti Spumante?
Or more eclectic: what wine DOES pair with haggis?? (Answer: New World Cabernet Sauvignon, of course!) Sushi? How about a nice champagne blanc des blancs? Marshmellow sweet-potatoes (listed improbably under "vegetables")? Viogner.
Christmas Dinner thoughts are brewing... game birds with sangiovese? Mille feuilles with sparkling Italian Asti Spumante?
Or more eclectic: what wine DOES pair with haggis?? (Answer: New World Cabernet Sauvignon, of course!) Sushi? How about a nice champagne blanc des blancs? Marshmellow sweet-potatoes (listed improbably under "vegetables")? Viogner.
Friday, December 08, 2006
your mom... no wait, my mom
I always knew my mom was one in a million... but she's also 1 in 30,000... 1 in 30,000 people to be diagnosed with a disease which is known to most doctors as the answer to trick questions on their medical school exams (no kidding!): Wegener's Granulomatosis.
She's been hospitalized since Tuesday and will stay there until confirmatory blood tests are run on Monday (apparently the blood test is so rare/complex, only one lab in Oklahoma does it, once a week).
I talked to her yesterday and knew she was feeling better when she started listing the types of flowers in the arrangement I sent her. (imagine: [labored breathing] "Your flowers are beautiful honey ..." "I'm glad you like them, mom, are you feeling better?" "... lillies ... irises ... [labored breathing] ... delphinium ... canterbury bells ... [labored breathing] ... some sunflowers ... and ... and some red things I can't see because ..." "because it's on the shelf?" "yeah, I can't see it. Oh and a pink rose.") (Those of you who know, know that in her emails my mom only tells me about her garden and what birds she saw that week.)
Anyway, she said she doesn't mind being at the hospital because people bring her food, she doesn't have to do dishes, and she gets to watch cartoons all day. And more people have come by to talk with her in the past two days than she's seen in the whole month.
She's been hospitalized since Tuesday and will stay there until confirmatory blood tests are run on Monday (apparently the blood test is so rare/complex, only one lab in Oklahoma does it, once a week).
I talked to her yesterday and knew she was feeling better when she started listing the types of flowers in the arrangement I sent her. (imagine: [labored breathing] "Your flowers are beautiful honey ..." "I'm glad you like them, mom, are you feeling better?" "... lillies ... irises ... [labored breathing] ... delphinium ... canterbury bells ... [labored breathing] ... some sunflowers ... and ... and some red things I can't see because ..." "because it's on the shelf?" "yeah, I can't see it. Oh and a pink rose.") (Those of you who know, know that in her emails my mom only tells me about her garden and what birds she saw that week.)
Anyway, she said she doesn't mind being at the hospital because people bring her food, she doesn't have to do dishes, and she gets to watch cartoons all day. And more people have come by to talk with her in the past two days than she's seen in the whole month.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
whoa... too much free time theater
on the suggestion of Matt's dad Peter I took a look at the Althouse blog, blog of Ann Althouse, law professor and general commentator on politics, law, and the pretty shadows made by the holly branches in her office. Her articles - fine, interesting. But don't get mired in the comment threads!!!! I have wasted an entire day going through them... whoa. (And some of them are CRRR-AZY!)
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Oh Christmas List, oh Christmas List, how lovely are your contents...
just in case some of you occasional readers (i.e. my parents, brother) needed some guidance, for your convenience:
- pink ipod nano
- alphonse mucha art nouveau book
- annie leibovitz photography book
- j crew gift certificate (or light sweaters in wool or cashmere)
- Emily Post's Etiquette (17th edition)
- LSAT study book
- cute fun books about etiquette, style, or event planning
- Nigella Lawson cookbooks
- things ingestible and comestible
- pink ipod nano
- alphonse mucha art nouveau book
- annie leibovitz photography book
- j crew gift certificate (or light sweaters in wool or cashmere)
- Emily Post's Etiquette (17th edition)
- LSAT study book
- cute fun books about etiquette, style, or event planning
- Nigella Lawson cookbooks
- things ingestible and comestible
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
SHAME ON NEW LINE CINEMA
TheOneRing.net, a fan site devoted to Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings, published a letter today in which Peter and Fran disclose that they will not be directing The Hobbit. This is due to the fact that New Line refuses to settle a dispute about Peter's still unpaid salary for the Fellowship of the Ring. WaPo story here.
Backbenchers in white wigs are standing up and yelling SHAAAAAME!
Backbenchers in white wigs are standing up and yelling SHAAAAAME!
Thursday, November 09, 2006
total wedding madness
can't... sleep... can't focus on school... must think about cakes with buttercream (or royal? or fondant?) in shapes and flavors - flowers (diy? splurge? pink? lilac?) - maps - must make a map and must find more ... more hotels! and put it on the wedding website! wait, must update this too! and when will we have time for pictures?? between? during? before? wha... six and a half more months of this?!?
oh, poor, poor Matt.
:)
oh, poor, poor Matt.
:)
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
totally creepy stalker ecard
Well, if you care about someone enough to bother sending them a halloween card, why don't you send them a creepy stalker card - one that's realistic enough to seem totally threatening and psycho.
Not taking credit for finding it - saw it first on Wonkette, who linked to this blog.
Not taking credit for finding it - saw it first on Wonkette, who linked to this blog.
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