It was a very good night...and other discoveries

I have made several discoveries since coming back to Rome.

First of all, there is a strange fruit called a Mapo, which doesn't taste all that bad.

A Mapo is a green citrus, in the same family as a Tangelo. Like the Tangelo, it is a cross between a clementine and a Douglas Grapefruit. Unlike the Tangelos that most of us are used to, this is meant to be eaten while the fruit is bright green and it is shaped like a small grapefruit instead of being pear-shaped. It is also not very sweet, which makes it a curious delicacy in Italy, as they seem to be obsessed with sweet treats.

Don't look for a Mapo in Wikipedia; you will need to search google.it (Google Italy) and be prepared to translate Italian to find out more about this strange fruit. They are not shipped outside of Italy and this hybrid is currently ONLY grown in Sicily.

I'll see if I can save some seeds, though that doesn't always work for hybrids...

I have also found another good gelateria: I use the word 'found' rather loosely here, as it would be more remarkable if I HADN'T found the place. It is less that 100 meters from my house...but the major discovery was INSIDE....

I need to point out at this time that, while living in Rome, if I sampled ice cream at every shop I passed, I would be the size of a house. So one learns to pass by the majority of shops.

But there was a crowd outside the shop one morning as Andrew and I came back from our daily grocery trip. (Yes, daily.) So we braved the crowd and Andrew got his standard Fior di Panna (Flower of Cream) and I tried Cointreu with chunks of candied orange and Honey with rice and toasted Sesame. No, I am not a pig, but every small cone gets two scoops of gelato.

The honey was very good, sweet and smooth, with odd chunks of frozen cooked rice to help clear the stickiness and little toasted sesame seeds. The cointreau and orange was fabulous.

But that morning I noticed an oddball, one flavor I had never seen before: Pesto.

Now for people unfamiliar with Pesto, it is an Italian condiment, very popular tossed with hot pasta. Pesto is made from basil leaves, raw garlic, salt, olive oil,pepper and parmesan cheese.

It is very rich, strong and flavorful, and not at all what a person would expect to put in ice cream

Of course, I couldn't resist!

I was good, though, and came back the next day, with all the kids following behind. One by one, they ordered the Fior di Panna and Fragola. And I ordered a small cup of Pesto.

The girl behind the counter spoke English and she gave me an odd look - I was obviously the only person who had asked for Pesto today - and she said, "Do you know what Pesto is?"

I replies yes, but that I was curious and had to try it. So she gave me a small scoop and didn't charge me for it.

Her feelings about the Pesto gelato were very clear.

I wasn't nervous as I tried it, just very curious: I once had black pepper ice cream and it was great, so this oddly colored concoction really appealed to me.(Pesto is half basil, so it is the color of pureed grass)

And it tasted just like a good pesto, only sweet. There was no olive oil in it, as I suppose it wouldn't freeze well that way, but it was basilly and garlicky and slightly cheesy. And sweet and creamy. But odd.

I walked home and slowly took tiny tastes of the pesto gelato while the children ravenously devoured their very simple cones.

I did not finish my gelato, which has NEVER before happened; I did probably eat half, and I gave Bill a taste when I got back to the apartment. But then I took one more nibble and let it melt in the sink, while I ate the Cointreau and Orange gelato that I bought as back up.

It was a Friday night!

And then something amazing happened. It may be the moment which defines our Roman experience and it will likely be the memory that I summon up when people ask me what I like best about living here.

Before I tell the story of THE BEST NIGHT, I need to preface it by saying that in spite of having gotten food poisoning from our local trattoria, we decided to go back. The food was just too good!

We have been back twice since I got sick from the Vongole and now the people who work there know us. Not like they would remember the same couple who came back every night for their week long holiday, but the staff and owners have realized that in spite of our failure to speak Italian, we are part of the neighborhood.

So they encourage us, and our kids, to learn new Italian words and try different foods. Though William will not move beyond Pizza with Proscuitto and Helena will only order the Penne alla Vodka. Both of which are actually very good.

And when the Conto (check) comes, we now get the 'locals' discount, which usually means the wine is free and they havent charged for the Verdure (cold vegetable buffet) and one of the kids' meals. Who could complain?

It is really nice feeling part of a neighborhood, which hasn't happened to us in a long time. So we have tried to go once a week, and that was when IT happened.

The weather finally started getting cool enough to need a jacket, so we all put on our cardies and coats and wandered up the street for dinner. There was a persistant breeze, but it was still warm, so we decided to sit outside under the umbrellas.

Rome is too bright to appreciate the stars at night, but Aventino is a beautiful neighborhood: the newest buildings are Art Deco and the older Palazzos surround Piazza Remurria, which has a park at the center. So there is plenty of beautiful scenery to watch while you wait for your meal to arrive.

Very soon after placing our order, William claimed to feel a raindrop, which I dismissed as nonsense - the weather report said there wouldn't be rain until the weekend. But in the distance some lightning flashed; we didn't hear the thunder, so we dismissed that occurance, as well.

Dinner came at the same time the lighting struck closer to our little neighborhood, but the food was great (grilled tuna and fresh porcini mushrooms tossed with fresh tagliatelle) so we stayed and started counting the seconds until we could hear the thunder.

By the time we finished eating, the thunder was close, the lightning struck every minute or so, and a cool breeze blew from the direction of the sea. We knew it was time to move, so we corked our bottle of wine (Yes, you get to take it home with you!) and asked for the Conto.

As we paid the bill, a giant spark of lightening hit at the end of the street. The storm was upon us, and the thunder shook the umbrellas above our heads, just before the skies opened.

It was actually very beautiful and funny at the same time - the other diners ran into the restaurant, but we decided to stay and watch the rain. There was music playing somewhere and all of us were laughing at the weather, the timing, and how wonderful everything was at that moment. The boys, of course, were playing with the streams of water that were pouring off the canvas above our heads.

As the waitstaff jumped into action, moving tables closer to the center of the main outdoor tent and clearing tables that were not going to get any diners for the rest of the evening, we began to put our coats on and collect the children.

The rain grew heavier, though, and the weight of the collected rain split the canvas above our heads, soaking our table, what was left of our dinners, and our poor waiter, who happened to be standing directly under the tear.

We couldn't help but laugh harder, and decided to run home through the rain, dodging puddles all the way.

It was probably the best night we've had in Rome so far.

Wisdom about Wine....

I don't often engage in email forwards to people, but a wonderful person recently forwarded me the following item, which I humbly offer up to wine-lovers everywhere:

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine...
And those who don't and are always seen with a bottle of water in their hand.

As Ben Franklin said: In wine there is wisdom, In beer there is freedom, In water there is bacteria.

In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 litre of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed
more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) - bacteria found in feces.
In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poo...However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor.) Because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting. Remember: Water = Poo, Wine = Health.

Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid than to drink water and be full of shit.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I'm doing it as a public service!

And I am trapped in Italy, land of wine and cheese...lucky me. And I have learned not to drink the water!