Per me, gli spaghetti cacio e pepe!

Ciao!

So, as expected, I spent this weekend laying in the sun, at various spots around Rome.  On Saturday, I laid in the sun in Villa Pompilli and today, I laid in the sun at the beach, Santa Marinella.  In order to not bore you with pictures of the sun (and my great tan ;-)), I have decided to show another part of what makes Rome great...the food!

I had never been a big fan of pasta, until I tasted Italian pasta...which does not resemble Italian-American style pasta at all.  Instead, the flavors are unique and very complex.  One of my favorite dishes is Spaghetti (or even better, Bucatini) cacio e pepe which is a very Roman dish.  Cacio is a slang word for cheese (also known as "fromaggio") and "pepe" is, of course, pepper.  Because this dish is my favorite, an Italian friend's mother passed to me the simple and yet delicious recipe--and...I am going to share it with you!  So, move over Spaghetti Factory, here it is:

Cacio e Pepe-- Roman style
Makes 2 servings, Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:
2 servings of spaghetti or bucatini pasta
1 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano
Pepper to taste
A drizzle of EVOO
1/4 cup pasta water (the secret ingredient!!)
Salt to taste

The ingredients. 

First, cook the pasta in boiling water for 6 minutes.  This leaves the pasta al dente--what you want for this recipe.  During the 6 minutes that the pasta is cooking, grate your cheese.  Then combine the cheese and the pepper in a large bowl.  The amount of pepper you use should be based on your taste.  Pepper is one of the star ingredients of this dish, and it is usually served with quite a bit of pepper.  But...over peppering can kill the flavor, so start with less (about 5 turns of a pepper mill) and add more later.

Cheese and pepper--ready to go!

Once the pasta is ready, ladle out 1/4 cup of pasta water, reserved for later.  Then, drain the pasta but do not rinse it.  Add the pasta to the big bowl.

Then using spoons, toss the pasta with the cheese and pepper.  The cheese will start to melt and clump up a bit...keep tossing!

 If you notice that your pasta mixture looks a little dry, add a little bit of the pasta water.  Add sparingly.  Keep tossing until you have almost a cheese sauce coating all of the pasta.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Finish with a drizzle of EVOO.

And...that's it!  E' molto facile!  Enjoy with a glass of red Italian wine (perhaps a glass of nero d'avolo or syrah)!  Buon appetito! 

La spiaggia, ti amo...

Ciao!

I fear that the rest of the pictures that I post for the remainder of the summer are going to be of one thing--the beach...because that is where I will be every weekend!  I have always been a beach bum, reformed in recent years when I have spent more time on city concrete than on sand. But, now I can have the best of both worlds--work in a city during the week and head out to the oceanside for the weekend.  Perfetto.

This Saturday, we ventured down to Sperlonga, a beach that is about an hour south of Rome.  It was shockingly empty on the beach (well not the bus ride to get there) and so calm and relaxing. We swam in the ocean-yes, it was a bit cold--but after daring to fully commit to complete submergence, the water was incredibly pleasant and even CLEAR! I loved it!

On Sunday, I decided to counter my calming beach day with a trip to Ikea, which involved heading deep into the Roman suburbs, which (not?) shockingly look like every other suburb that I have encountered.  And the mall where Ikea was, could have been South Coast Plaza.  It was quite the adventure, but now my apartment is very organized with all of the Ikea supplies I bought.  Totally worth the trek.

Me, Frederik and Ariane 

(insert feisty Italian hand gesture here)

Ciao tutti!

This week brought some fun and some challenges (well, the challenges all came today actually...).  Amazingly, friends from law school and from college were in Rome this week.  It was so much fun to share this city with them--even if I did get lost trying to take my first set of guests to my favorite gelato spot (sorry guys, next time)!  Fortunately, when Sapna (my freshman year dorm roommate) and her husband  came into town we found it!

I took Sapna and her husband around--showed them a few of my favorite places, introduced them to a few of my friends and hit up all the ultra touristy spots I have been avoiding since I arrived (but so glad I finally went).  I did opt out of returning to the Vatican museum with them (I think that I am good on the whole shoving-other-tourists-to-get-a-better-view-of-the-Sistine-Chapel thing for at least another year...).

We also went to the Galleria Borghese which proved to be as beautiful inside as it is outside. I had heard that of all the museums to see in Rome, this ranks near the top.  I totally agree and as Rick Steves suggested we say "Grazie mille, Cardinal Borghese, for commissioning such an amazing art collection."

Fresh off a weekend filled with Rome love, I returned to my apartment this afternoon to find that the crazy wind storm had blown and broken two windows in my apartment and my kitchen sink was clogged (awesome.).  Normally, shattered glass all over the floor would bring me to tears, and it nearly did today, but having faced a broken window in my apartment previously, I both knew the Italian vocabulary for "Can you fix my broken window?" and where I could find someone to help me fix it (just down my street, my new buddy, Luigi, at the glass shop).  I dropped by to see Luigi and he already came, picked up my window, fixed it and brought it back--in an hour.  Oh Luigi, grazie mille!

But what to do about the kitchen sink...well, my landlord's childhood friend, Marcello, owns a shop below my apartment. So, I went and saw him and asked for some aiuto, and he quickly called up his buddy Massimo who came and checked out the problem and will return tomorrow with tools.

Instead of crying out of frustration, when Luigi, Marcello and Massimo came to my disaster apartment rescue, I nearly cried over happiness at the willingness of people to help (despite my broken Italian), at the thought of how cool it is to live in a place where every body knows each other and at the fact that even when Rome throws me challenges, it only ends up making me love it more. How is this possible??!!!

*

Vatican city

St. Peter's Basilica

Palantine Hill--amazing to imagine what it used to be and what it used to look like. It was used from 500 B.C. to 500 A.D!!

Inside of the Colloseum

Plug for Rick Steves? Riiiiccccckkkkk!!!

Sapna and I!

                         

Gardens at Villa Borghese

Festa Fine!

Ciao!

Oh Roma--yet another amazing week!    This week flew by but was punctuated by my roommate and I throwing our first festa (hopefully of many) on Friday!  It was a great time, and grazie mille, Roma--i poliziotti hanno aspettato fino alla 3:30am smetellare la festa.

I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and enjoying the sun and hanging out with friends!  On Saturday, we took it easy, just wandering and sunbathing in Villa Pompilli and on Sunday, we went to the beach--Santa Marinelli!  It was absolutely gorgeous!  We ate lunch at this tiny little pizza shop right on the beach, which was the epitome of Rome line/ordering chaos--but of couse, very charming also!

I really think that I will never run out of beautiful things to see in Rome. Mi piace tanto la mia vita a Roma.

Party preparations. My roommate, Johanna, our friend Davide and a 5 liter jug of wine. yes. 

On the way to Villa Pompilli

A presto!

Come è Maggio?

Ciao tutti!

How is it May already? Time is flying so fast!  This weekend hundreds of thousands (no joke..) made the pilgrimage to Rome for the beatification.  I had been warned that over 5 million people were coming to Rome just for this event, but did not really appreciate the magnitude of the influx until I was walking on Via Vitorio Emanule on Saturday night and saw a steady stream of people decked out with country flags from ALL over (from Mexico to Australia), sleeping bags and guitars (I suppose for entertainment while they awaited the ceremony...).

I was so impressed at the dedication of these people to come from so far for this one day. wow.  Check out some pictures.  While I did feel slightly guilty that people were coming  from thousands of miles away to attend, and me, who lives less than 2 miles away, couldn't get far enough away!  A friend and I headed to Via Appia Antica, which on a normal day is an oasis of an escape from the chaos of Rome...but especially today!  We laid on the grass, drank white wine and rented bikes to ride!  So nice!

Also, this weekend it was May 1st, which is labor day here in Italy.  In honor of this day, San Giovanni hosts a huge concert!  We dropped by and it was actually very nice!

Via Appia Antica and my bike :-)

The concert at San Giovanni

(sorry, not too many pictures this time...I was distracted by the sun and wine and kinda forgot to be snapping away...)