Drinking in the afternoon

For the last two days we’ve been roaming around Rome with John Bird, an Australian now living in Italy whose quite varied career has included a stint as houseman/major domo to Kenny Solms in LA (which is how we have connected), hairdresser to the stars with Alexandre in Paris, personal assistant to the rich and famous in New York and now owner of a concierge service specializing in gastronomical tours in Tuscany. Not surprising, the theme of our walks has been food. In the morning, we’ve sampled pizza bianca—bread topped with oil and salt, a specialty of Rome in the winter: in the afternoon, a sweet pastry made with chestnut flour and late in the day a tiny cup of coffee thick enough to eat with a spoon laced with a dollop of chocolate and whipped sugar and topped with whipped cream-- the perfect pick me up after several hours of pounding the pavements.

For every church or palazzo we visit, we stop into a salumeria where we ooh and aah over the amazing displays of cheese and pork products and fresh vegetables— pencil thin bunches of wild asparagus, sprays of red tipped artichokes, all kinds of greens--arugola, chicory, kale—bulbs of finochhio, spears of pink rhubarb, tiny sweet pachinos from Sicily and blood oranges that make the most delicious fresh squeezed juice in the morning. It’s enough to make me think about cooking …well maybe.

Highlight of our walks is lunch. While we seemingly roam around at random, John definitely has a goal in mind—where to eat. Somehow between 1:30 and 2 we find ourselves in front of a restaurant ready for lunch. The first day it’s I Mani in Pasta, a small restaurant in Trastevere specializing in home made pasta and fish. After an animated discussion with the waiter an antipasto of crudo appears—paper thin slices of raw sea bream topped with shavings of fresh truffle to be washed down with a bottle of white wine from Sicily. Two hours later we have finished another bottle of wine along with two servings of pasta con gambretti and vongole and I have discovered the true meaning of al dente pasta. Needless to say, the rest of the day and evening is spent in a stupor recovering on the sofa.
Today we are revived and are able to eat again. (I’ve also been to the gym in the morning and feel quite righteous after an hour with Aramis.) After a short stop at an enoteca for a glass of prosecco to start us going, it’s time for the afternoon’s main event--lunch. This time John nonchalantly leads us across the Ponti Sisto out of Trastevere to Casa Bleve, a wine store and restaurant in a former palazzo located in the tangle of streets around Campo di Fiori. The restaurant which is only open for lunch sits behind the store in a large colonnaded room with high ceilings set with stained glass panels. Lunch is a selection of savory antipasti—raw artichokes in oil and garlic, fresh buffalo mozzarella, zucchini blossoms stuffed with cheese, all kinds of meats, thin slices of veal napped with a sauce of creamy tuna, etc., etc., etc. Despite the fact that we have sternly allowed restricted ourselves to only one bottle a wine at lunch—a delightful red from some small vineyard in Tuscany—dinner is not on the menu for Steve and me this evening.