Roman Adventures in the Kitchen

I didn’t go out to see any new Roman sites today. We decided to try to avoid the lines and go to Ancient Rome early Saturday morning. After class, we wandered around looking for a cheap, non-touristy, delicious, authentic Italian restaurant—a tall order when you’re wandering around the center of Rome.

            We ended up at a very touristy, only relatively well-priced tourist stop by the Tiber. I ordered a Pizza Margherita—advertised as having great big slaps of Buffalo Mozzarella placed over vivid green leaves of garlic. In reality, this turned out to be regular cheese pizza with some tiny dried basil tidbits scattered amongst the paltry portions of cheese. It was not bad by any means, just not as fabulous as all my previous meals. 

Breakfast Cappuccino 

The highlight of the meal arrived after the bread. In Italy, even though tips are not expected as they are in the States, many restaurants bring bread to your table and subsequently charge a “bread and table” fee. Even if you skip the bread, the fee is non-negotiable. Being the cheap college kids that we are, we were pretty upset with this 5 euro surcharge, and decided to forgo the bread in a type of boycott. After paying, we realized the futility of our mode of protest, and decided to take the bread “porta via”—basket and all.
After getting over the adrenaline rush that fueled our escape from Italian waiters who were puzzled over the disappearance of an insignificant bread basket, our consciences caught up with us. We decided to restore our karma and gave the bread to a beggar on the street.

Zucchini and Red Pepper

Lunch preceded a very lengthy nap (I have been only getting 5 or so hours of sleep the past few nights—there is so much to do!). Our little group decided to hit up the grocery store in a communal shopping/cooking endeavor. I love cooking, but I never knew how easy/fun/delicious cooking in a giant group could be. 

Master Chefs

Zeke was in charge of the menu, and prepared gnocchi with tomato sauce, zucchini, red peppers, and chicken. It was DELCIOUS! I don’t know if it was because we are such great cooks (Ha!) or because the quality of food in Italy is just so much higher. I’m going to go with both!

Tomato Sauce

Dinner was great—8 of the 10 of us gathered around a small table and discussed everything from the nature of love (a carryover from our discussion on Plato’s symposium) to Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” to most embarrassing stories. The conversation is currently still going on—I think we’re talking about the conflict between art and poetry—but honestly I haven’t read enough of Plato outside of The Symposium, or anything actually by Socrates to make any meaningful contributions to the conversation—outside of my obligatory defense of the non-conflicting relationship between science and religion (whoops).

The Finished Product

It’s past midnight here, and we’re going to have class IN THE VATICAN tomorrow, so it’s probably time for me to get some rest! Arrivederci e buonanotte!

Alex and her Roman Bread