Dear Italians, I hope you like stripes…

because I bought my one millionth striped shirt today.

But, look at the little buttons on the sleeves!

I could not resist.

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Bywater Breakfast

I love my neighborhood – Uptown – in New Orleans. The streets are lined with oak trees, the lovely Audubon Park is a short walk away and Creole Creamy, which serves the best ice cream I’ve ever had, is an even shorter walk away (the walk takes exactly the amount of time it takes to eat one scoop of ice cream).

Sometimes I love Uptown so much I’m guilty of not leaving it enough. This morning I woke up thinking about a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich that I had at Satsuma Cafe in the Bywater right after Thanksgiving. It was served on an everything bagel with cheddar cheese and was so flavorful and delicious and everything I love about breakfast all at once that I couldn’t believe I haven’t had it since.

So I got in my car and took a ride to the Bywater and was charmed by its quirkiness and funkiness all over again. If you’ve never been, the Bywater is home to a colorful collection of shotgun houses and a Bohemian vibe that is almost palpable. Its residents define the word hipster and while I definitely don’t fit in there (I was wearing Nantucket red shorts on this morning’s trip), it’s a fun place to visit.

Here are some photos from the morning, ending with the delicious BE&C. Also, if you haven’t made lunch plans yet, check out Satsuma Cafe’s website. The photography is gorgeous and, if nothing else, it will most definitely make you want to eat a tomato.

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Required Reading

Do you ever feel like you get in your own way when you’re planning a trip? Sometimes I become so overwhelmed about choosing the right place to eat, stay, visit that I start to shut down a little. This is a shot of my coffee table and about a dozen magazines I rounded up with Italy recommendations. And, I just got one of those Travel & Leisure compilation books in the mail and it’s called “Europe: The Places We Love.” Perfect! But how will I ever remember everything!?

Should I rip all of the pages out and create an Italy folder to bring with me? Make a spreadsheet listing each destination with some kind of clever note to myself as a reminder of why I wanted to go there in the first place? Just use my computer to figure it out when I get there? Or should I not bother and wander around doing what looks cool like people did in the olden days?

Am I annoying you yet? Because I’m annoying myself. So, how do you prepare for trips?

Dislcaimer: I am completely aware that this is what my husband likes to call “a first world problem.”

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Happy Monday

 

View of downtown New Orleans at dawn this morning, spied from my balcony.

I’m excited to get to Rome, don’t get me wrong. But. I will miss this place. October and November weather is what New Orleanians wait all year for. It’s mild and not so humid and sunny and cheery. The whole city wears Saints jerseys on Sundays. The person who checks you out at the grocery story asks “How you doin’, baby?” as if you’re her oldest friend. You ride your bike to dinner on a Saturday night and through the park on a Sunday morning.

And, separately, although I sometimes feel like it isn’t, New Orleans is in America. I can watch American TV shows whenever I feel like it. (I am LOVING Ringer and Revenge, by the way. Awesome secret pasts/sinister plots.) I can order things off Amazon and be reasonably sure they’ll be delivered to my house. I can drive a car without being scared out of my mind. I can drink Fresca! The list goes on.

Anyway, enough with the nostalgia. I haven’t even left yet. But if anyone has any brilliant ideas about super American things I should do before I leave, I’m game.

 

 

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Walk to Patois

There are few things more magical than talking a walk through uptown New Orleans at dusk. Last night, I was set to meet some friends at Patois for dinner. Despite the still steamy temperatures, I decided to relish my last week in New Orleans this fall by walking there. I love wandering through my neighborhood, looking at the beautiful houses and imagining the lives that are going on inside them. Here are a few photos from my walk to Patois last evening. If you can’t tell, I really sweat front porches.

Ps – the food was dreamy too! We started with crispy pork belly & seared scallop topped with Steen’s cane syrup and then I indulged my red meat craving with the grilled hanger steak with red wine & marrow reduction. Go big or go home, right? As you can tell, I’ve been quite deliquent about starting my cleanse. Too many things to do in Nola this week. Hopefully next…

 

 

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Gone to Cheese Class

After an afternoon of Rosetta Stone, I need a drink. Thank God for cheese class at St. James Cheese Company in NOLA tonight. 6 Mediterranean wines paired with 6 Mediterranean cheeses? Yes, please.

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A Visit From the Goon Squad

Have you seen this book around? I feel like every time I go into a book store it’s there, prominentantly displayed with its “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize” badge gleaming, challenging me to read it if I consider myself serious about reading anything other than chick lit. I avoided picking it up for months, and really the reasons were pretty superficial: the title contains the word “goon,” the cover artwork is weird, and most of all it’s based on the music industry. If there’s one thing I’m not interested in, it’s reading about hipsters complaining about how hard it is to produce their “art.”

Then I started reading that the author, Jennifer Egan, kind of dissed Jennifer Weiner and is a little embarrassed at her own success.  Interest piqued. I finally picked up the book a couple of weeks ago, and it was fantastic. Really, one of the best books I’ve read in I-can’t-remember-how-long.  Better than all of the books I so ringingly endorsed here.

And, to top it all off, I had one of the most amazing moments for a book nerd while reading it.  I had actually read an excerpt of the book in The Best American Short Stories 2010 anthology, and loved it. I remember nearing the end of the story in the anthology and being sad. I really wished the story were an entire book. Cue to 8 months later, reading this book: my dream had come true! Sidenote: if I had not been judging A Visit From the Goon Squad by its cover (literally) for so long, I would have found out it actually was an entire book much sooner.

One of the coolest thing about A Visit From the Goon Squad (and really the reason why it could be excerpted in a book of short stories) is the narrative style. Each chapter focuses on the experiences of a particular character during a particular period of time. Then, the next chapter kind of starts anew, picking up the narrative from a different character’s – whom you’ve already met in the story, in most cases in a minor role – vantage point, which in some cases is years before and in others is years later. What results is a story that’s not so much about the music industry or goons (not even sure where the title came from) as much as it is about the experience of moving through life.  It’s basically like meeting someone and wondering what her deal is – wondering why she is who she is, what she’ll go on to do – and then getting the chance to actually find out, over and over again.

Bottom line: it won the Pulitzer Prize for a reason and you should read it and I suggest doing so ASAP!

Ps – there is one chapter that’s written in Powerpoint (it’s not as weird as it sounds), so it might be difficult to read on a Kindle. I read the paperback.

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Sperlonga

If you’re in Rome during the summer, be prepared to sweat. Maybe more than you ever have in your life. On the plus side, at least you feel like you’re sweating out some of the calories from all the delicious food you’ve consumed. But, on the minus side, if you’re like me, you could end up looking like a drowned, overheated rat while stylish Italians pass you in full suits with not a drop of sweat on them. (Seriously, how do they do that??)

Anyway, you can see why I was excited to escape to the beach for a day. After a bit of research, we settled on Sperlonga, a beautiful seaside town about halfway between Rome and Naples.

An hour and a half train ride from Rome (take the train from Stazione Termini to the Fondi-Sperlonga station) and a 15 minute bus or taxi ride later, you’ll be deposited on this stretch of white, sandy beach flanked by a town of beautiful white-washed houses.

The beach is lined with beach clubs where you can rent a chair and umbrella as well as grab a quick snack. To my surprise, the snack bar I visited sold chipwiches! Unlike Rome, there were not many English speakers, so after an exchange with the woman working behind the counter consisting of me pointing at a photo of a chipwich repeatedly and yelling “due!!”, I discovered that chipwich in Italian is actually “cooky.” Duh!

The water was refreshing and clear, and the beach provided the perfect setting for a relaxing afternoon consisting of sleeping, reading and admiring this gorgeous view.

As the afternoon faded into evening, we headed up into the town where a band began to play jazz in a piazza overlooking the sea.The oceanfront avenue was lined with cute restaurants, many of which had water views.

After a sunset aperitivo, we headed back to the train station to be whisked back to Rome.  It was hard to believe this small beach town was so close, yet felt so far away from Rome.

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Detox

Ok, so this might be really overly ambitious. But I’m going to try it, for real this time! Given the ridiculous amount of food and wine I’ve been consuming over the past month, and the fact that I’m returning to Italy in two weeks and will certainly do more of the same again then, it’s time for a break. I’m officially going to do a one week detox cleanse.

All-liquid cleanses seem kind of scary to me. I know myself. Let’s just say no good will come from me not eating solid foods for days. So, I’m going to try Gwenyth Paltrow’s GOOP cleanse. You cut out alcohol, soda and caffeine, and eat healthy recipes and smoothies for the week. Quite frankly, the recipes look delicious. I actually can’t wait to try the Salad with Carrot & Ginger Dressing.

Fellow blogger Karma Cucina piqued my interest in the cleanse when she wrote about her positive experience with it over the summer, and since then I’ve just been waiting for the right time to do it. (Quick aside: she’s the source of my favorite soup recipe ever and everyone really must try it.) Plus, Deb over at Smitten Kitchen has made the salad before and raved about it. Bottom line: give me two internet endorsements of something, and I’m in!

Wish me luck, friends.

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First Dinner

Usually I just love the internets. I spend hours and hours reading online reviews of restaurants, trying to figure out the exact best place to dine when I travel. It sometimes (ok, maybe all the time) gets really exhausting weighing the opinions of hundreds of online reviews, from professional critics to online strangers, always trying to figure out which are crazy and which might have the exact same taste as me.

So when I didn’t troll the internet for days prior to my first Rome trip, it was weird. I can’t tell you exactly why, but I guess I figured that it really would be tough to go wrong eating anything in Rome. For the most part, I was right. Most everything we ate was delicious, but we did unfortunately stumble into a few tourist traps.

Since I’ve returned to the US, mainly due to the fact I have a really bad case of jet lag and was up at 3am today, I’ve found so many wonderful blogs (in English, woo hoo!) and articles about life and food in Rome*. And one restaurant that keeps coming up is actually where we ended up on my first evening: Antico Arco. I had posted a status update on Facebook about my trip to Rome, and an old friend told us that we should definitely fit in a visit even though it was on the edges of town. Turns out that it was about a 10 minute walk from our b&b and she was right – it was amazing.

Of course, we got despeately lost trying to find the place and just as I was about to give up, we rounded a corner and it was there: a wonderfully adorable ivy covered exterior leading into a chic, modern dining room. We stumbled in the door at 6:30, committing Roman faux pas #1 of what I can already tell will be thousands. Being much more civilized than Americans, Romans would never dream of dining so early. We were told to come back at 7 when the restaurant opened, and they’d fit us in sans reservation. Trying to play it cool, we re-arrived fashionably late at 7:10.  Yeah, we still weren’t fashionable and the restaurant was still empty, but they were nice about it, sat us at a table near the kitchen and our evening began.

The helpful staff gave us pointers on navigating the Italian wine list and brought out a delicious amuse bouche and I was already in love. When they brought out a small side plate of my pasta dish for my husband to try (apparently they do this with every pasta dish that’s ordered at a table so guests don’t have to reach to try their companion’s dishes), I swooned. What an adorable touch/why doesn’t anywhere in the US do this!? I started with Crispy Buffalo Mozzarella with salted tuna roe and confit tomato and moved onto the star of the evening: Cacio e Pepe topped with fried zucchini flowers.

If you’ve never had cacio e pepe, the best thing I can liken it to is a delicate, sophisticated Italian version of the most heavenly mac & cheese. I’ve never had a great version of  it in a restaurant in America (though, NYC residents: I’ve heard Lupa‘s is yummy), but Bon Appetit has a decent recipe that I tried over the summer and liked if you’re up for making it yourself. I had to place a bet, I’d say this is the first of 100+ times I will eat this dish in Rome from now through December. It is that good.

Antico Arca’s cacio e pepe was fantastic, and the fried zucchini updated the dish, giving it the restaurant’s signature modern touch. Afterwards, we took a short walk to admire the view of the city from nearby Gianicolo Hill which was absolutely gorgeous. Sadly, I didn’t have my camera so can’t show you the scene, but believe me: I will be back to both Antico Arca and the hill itself and will document it next time.  (PS – I must admit that I stole the images above from www.scattidigusto.it. I’m not that professional at blogging yet!)

*If you’re interested in some delicious and highly entertaining reading, I recommend visiting Parla Food, Un Americana a Roma and An American in Rome. I had a blast reading through these sites this morning and it made me SO antsy to get back to Rome.  2 more weeks!

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