Soufflé Days

Rome was packed—packed full of middle school groups touring the monuments and museums. Luckily, the restaurants weren’t, which made my style of vacationing (which this time involved a multi-layered map, conveniently separable into “gelato” “pizza” “coffee” “restaurant” and so forth) much easier to accomplish than seeing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We ate well, and often. I was a particular fan of eating squares of pizza with just a simple tomato sauce for breakfast—a great savory alternative to breakfast pastries. In fact, while this blog tends to document an unwavering relationship with sugar, I veered pretty strongly towards the savory in Rome.

Some highlights: Pizza with prosciutto di San Daniele, and a bowl of fettucini with the most translucent, buttery and sweet, tomato sauce at Emma Pizzeria, a plate of melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi with strolghino and tomato from Roscioli, the dozens of different kinds of pizza, cut and weighed to order, at Pizzarium, caffe and caffee granita at Sant’Eustachio Il Caffè, gelato at Gelateria del Teatro (around the corner from our apartment) and Fatamorgana, a huge plate of rigatoni at Le Mani in Pasta, at Trapizzino, handheld triangles of pizza bianca stuffed with stewed eggplant and tomatoes, fresh burrata…you get the picture. There were also many plates (only two pictured here) of cacio et pepe, the Roman specialty of pasta with Pecorino Romano and pepper.

Food aside, another great thing about Rome in March was the opportunity to go outside without a winter coat. Oh, the novelty!