How to enjoy Italian coffee like a local

Italians are regimented about their caffè. Neapolitans won't drink espresso other than on their turf, deeming anything else served outside their city as vile and toxic Espresso brewers throughout the country perform absurd propitiatory rituals to ensure their post-prandial Joe is just right. Some never wash the stovetop moka pot to conserve flavor in the hardware parts. Others add a grain of rock salt in the water boiler. All will tell you never, ever to pat down the coffee powder in the filter. Cappuccino fundamentalists insist on not drinking any after 11 a.m., and especially after meals, when caffè rules.

Beyond the simple espresso comes a whole universe of choices. The number of ways Italians enjoy the concentrated beverage brewed by forcing very hot water under high pressure through coffea Arabica beans that have been ground to a fine powder is at once finite and endless. Here's an alphabetical shortlist of common espresso-based bar beverages.

Affogato translates to "drowned." This is a shot of brewed espresso poured over a scoop of vanilla gelato commonly served as a dessert in restaurants, though some fancy bars and cafes with magnanimous baristas will sometimes dish it out over the counter...

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Looking forward to Fall

It's the end of summer, or so says the calendar.

After the hot and quiet slumber of the Italian August, normality gradually returns (most schools reopen the second week of the month). Sandy towels are washed and stowed; brown shoulders tucked under cotton blouses; and back-to-school checklists become the norm.

But September doesn't just mean catching up on unpaid bills and getting back to the office humdrum, at least not to me. Finding novel places and writing up new and exciting Rome restaurants has become my profession, and it’s safe to say I’m looking forward to going back to work.

Here are a few interesting newly opened Rome eateries we should keep under close observation in the coming season.

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Favorite spring vegetables

Getting a taste of beloved deep-fried carciofi alla giudìa notoriously means taking advantage of the pesky February-to-May window in which the quintessential Roman artichokes are in season.

But with all the focus on supermodel artichokes, other versatile vegetables, also in season, tend to get short shrift.

Take agretti for example...

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Intercontinental air travel with kids

"Single mothers or those traveling alone with small children: please come to the front of the line for immediate boarding."

What was that? Did the voice coming through the speakers just say 'single mothers?' The two of us, toddler and I hobble along, boarding passes clenched between teeth and stuffed, life-size Labrador Retriever tucked underarm. The laptop in my backpack weighs like bricks, the handbag strap either burrows a gash or relentlessly slides off my shoulder as I walk doubled up, rolling along my son's Spiderman trolley...

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Cook pasta a dente!

In Italy, overcooking pasta is a sin, period. Al dente, which literally means "to the tooth," as in, "how does it feel to the tooth," stands for the correct point of cooking hardness. The opposite of al dente isn't some version of normal; it's soft or overdone.

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Value dining in Rome

C'è crisi — it's crisis time: there's no way around it. Our former prime minister insisted the opposite as recently as last fall, when he told the world that Italian restaurants were packed to the hilt with happy folk spending money right, left and center. But that was 2011. Welcome to 2012, which finds Italy's economy poised on a slippery slope and trickling south faster than melting butter.

Dining out will remain an option for few fortunate foreign wayfarers and revolutionary nonconformists. But for others, pick carefully. Here's my shortlist of where to score a value meal, and still feel like living La Dolce Vita...

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Remembering Tessa

Image © An Aerial Armadillo

Almost a year ago I lost a good friend. I had actually never met her in person, but she was among the closest, most generous and understanding brave women I have ever known. I had the joy of knowing Tessa Edwards thanks to blogging, and I will forever be thankful for that.

I'm honoring her sweet memory by sharing again one of her lovely recipes, and paying it forward to the community of adventurous and sophisticated women travelers that constitute The Travel Belles, a group I am very proud to be a part of.

The recipe is her own hometown's bobotie, a curried ground meat and egg custard dish, typical of the Cape Malay.

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I made the papers!

There was a lovely article about my food blogging in the Rome issue of Corriere della Sera this weekend. It talked a bit about my childhood, my family, how I came to blogging, and how my career has evolved out of film and into food writing. It was a very well written article, and condensed the friendly, hour-long chat I had with columnist Maria Egizia Fiaschetti, who penned the story.

Here is an online version of the printed article.
Definitely going into my book proposal package to publishers!