We’ve been to Rome more than any other European city. Whenever I visit, it’s impossible for me not to think about the glorious movie Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. In that movie, Hepburn, playing a visiting princess, escapes her handlers, disguises herself as a civilian, meets up with Peck (with whom she of course falls in love), and sees the real Rome. Afterwards, Princess Ann (Hepburn) is asked which of the European cities that she visited was her favorite. She begins to answer in a politically correct way, and then, catching the eyes of Gregory Peck (who is as dreamy as they come), she says, “Rome….my favorite city was Rome.” Mine too, Audrey.

Rome is as different from Paris as Sonny was from Cher. Where Paris is quiet and romantic and people walk slow and hold hands and leisurely drink coffee at streetside cafes, the energy in Rome is practically tangible. The people walk with quick determination. The underground and buses are ridiculously crowded. Romans order espresso at stand-up bars and drink them down in one gulp, quickly, so they can get to their next destination. Scooters fly by noisily. People talk loudly and their hands are in constant motion. The atmosphere is vibrant. I loved Rome from the very first time I visited it.

Perhaps it’s the history. Maybe the amazing art intrigues me. The food, of course, is delicious. Maybe the multitude of churches appeals to my very Catholic self. I don’t know. I just know that I will never get tired of visiting Rome.

The first time we were there was during the trip about which I spoke yesterday. Remember I told you we were taking a train from Milan to Rome? The whole sleeping car fiasco? Well, here’s the continuation of the story, starring Bill McLain.

Neither of us slept too well once we got into our bunks on the sleeping car. It was somewhere around 750 degrees F. and we couldn’t get the air conditioner to work. We managed to get the tiny window open, well, a tiny bit. We slept fitfully until the train steward brought us coffee and brioche. I remember that because I had never had brioche before.

We got off the train around 9 o’clock in the morning in Rome, on a Wednesday. We were to attend an audience with the pope later that day, and Bill informed me we had to quickly pick up our tickets at a rectory somewhere near the American Catholic Church in Rome, St. Susanna. We had our luggage, which he planned on dropping off at our hotel prior to picking up our tickets. He, of course, had no clue where our hotel or the rectory or St. Susanna was located. But Bill McLain DOESN’T DO TAXIS. If God had meant us to take cabs, he wouldn’t have given us two perfectly good legs with which to walk. He had his handy dandy map, and off we went, on foot. Pulling suitcases over cobblestones. After a restless night on a train. In a strange city.

I will say this for Bill. He’s a very smart man with a very good sense of direction. And he’s lucky as hell. I won’t go into details, but we were able to find our hotel fairly easily, and then made our way with little trouble to the rectory, then on to the Vatican. All on foot. With the temperature easily in the 90s.

One more memory about that day. Before we left Milan, Heather had given me a picture of the Black Madonna of Poland she had gotten for her Bushia (her Catholic Polish grandmother) and asked me to have it blessed by Pope John Paul II when we attended the audience with him on Wednesday. I promised I would. Little did I know that the pope didn’t do his blessing until the end of the audience, nor that the day was going to be blistering and that we had no shade, nor that the audience went on literally for hours. After three hours of sitting in the burning hot sun, Bill pled with me to leave. “I promised Heather,” I said. I fulfilled my promise. Pope JPII said, “amen,” and Bill and I flew out of there like two jackrabbits.

When we visited Rome during our Big Adventure in 2008, we spent two full weeks. Heavenly. Using the wonderful website Home Away, Bill found an apartment on the edge of Rome but very near a metro line. The best part is that it was located in a neighborhood. As a result, while we weren’t walking distance to the Spanish Steps, we were able to get a feel for the real Rome. We could hear children playing in the courtyard in the evening and listen to the sound of television from open windows. We got to know our neighbors. While we couldn’t speak to them, they would smile and nod to us when we passed them on the way to their mailbox. I loved it.

Right across the street there was a restaurant where we ate nearly every breakfast and many of our dinners. The patrons lived where we lived. The same person, probably the owner, was there in the morning and at night, every single day.

Italians don’t go in big for breakfast. They will have their espresso or cappuccino and a donut or something else sweet. Save the appetite for a big afternoon meal. We had learned from our guidebook that donuts were called bomboloni. So the first morning Bill confidently ordered, “Uno macchiato, uno cappuccino, e due bomboloni.” We pointed to the sugar donuts sitting on the tray on top of a thick layer of sugar. Well, our friendly neighborhood proprietor laughed so hard you would have thought Bill was Don Rickles.  Once he stopped laughing, he said, “No bomboloni – CIAMBELLI.”

Bomboloni

Ciambella

Well no matter what you call them, they were delicious. The donuts – er, I mean ciambelli – were coated with a layer of sugar so thick that you needed to lick it off your fingers. (Well, I did; Bill went to the bathroom and washed his hands. Meh.) But here’s what I finally figured out. Ciambelli are donuts, you know, with a hole. Bomboloni are filled donuts, you know, like bismarcks. So it would be like going into Dunkin Donuts, pointing to the glazed donut and saying you want one of those bismarcks. Not that funny, huh? But it certainly was for our friendly neighborhood proprietor. He eventually became our friend.

Bill’s nephew Father David, who at the time was studying in Rome, was our tour guide. Since he speaks English, Italian, and Latin, and was incredibly knowledgeable about all of the churches and all of the art in the churches, we couldn’t have been luckier. If you would like to read about our experiences in Rome, here’s a link. Go to June 2008. We were in Rome the last two weeks.

Spaghetti Carbonara is a typical Roman pasta dish. It’s believed to have been developed during World War II, perhaps as an answer to American troops’ nostalgia for bacon and eggs. There are many theories about its origin, but no questions at all about how delicious it is. My favorite recipe comes from Chef Marcella Hazen.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara, from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan

Ingredients

1/4 lb. pancetta
2 garlic cloves
1-1.2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
2 T. dry white wine
1 large egg
2 T. freshly grated Romano cheese
1/4 c. freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
fresh ground black pepper
1 T. chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 lb. spaghetti

Process

Start by boiling a pot of water and then cooking your pasta according to the package. Time it so that everything else is prepared by the time the pasta is cooked.

Cut the pancetta into strips not quite 1/4 inch wide. Lightly crush the garlic with a knife handle, enough to split it and loosen the skin, which you will discard. Put the garlic and olive oil into a small sauté pan and turn on the heat to medium high. Sauté until the garlic becomes colored a deep gold and remove. Fry the pancetta until it starts to crisp at the edges. Add the wine and let it bubble for a minute or two and then turn off the heat.

Break the egg into big enough bowl to toss the pasta in. Beat it lightly with a fork, then add the two grated cheeses, a liberal grinding of pepper, and the chopped parsley. Mix thoroughly. Add cooked drained spaghetti to the bowl, and toss rapidly, coating the strands well. Add the entire contents of the bacon pan into the bowl, toss thoroughly again, and enjoy at once.

Nana’s Notes: I recently posted a blog about Bill’s inability to cook, or at least his lack of interest in cooking. In the blog I pointed out that he had surprised me by making onion rings. My niece Maggie reminded me via a comment that Bill does, indeed, make one meal. He makes a helluva Spaghetti alla Carbonara. I don’t know why he became the one who makes this meal, but it is so. And it is delicious. Last night we cut the recipe in half and it worked fine. Also, I didn’t have quite enough pancetta (I used what I had left over from the Bucatini Amatriciana), so we threw in a little bit of American bacon. The difference is that American bacon is smoked and pancetta is not. It tasted delicious. Spaghetti Carbonara is the only pasta dish, however, that I won’t eat left over. When it is reheated, the egg scrambles and the dish becomes nasty. My opinion, at least. No problem. We always eat it all.