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| Dated 2300-2000 BCE; We've got to do better |
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| View of the Roman Forum from the Palatine Hill |
- Rome was by far my favorite; simply walking around the city was incredible, add in the sites and food and I was loathe to have to ever leave. I do hope to go back to Rome one day, but if I don't make it, I feel satisfied that I saw as much as anyone can in 5 days - I just never stopped walking, ever.
- I have got to start taking better care of my belongings. I cannot go one week without breaking something, yet enough ceramic pots from 2000+ BC have survived to fill every museum across Italy.
- I am notoriously bad at art, so while I will not be leaving behind fresco-ed cathedrals, I want to do something with my life that matters to at least 1 person centuries from now.
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| La Prosciuterria in Rome - I love and miss you |
In addition to seeing as much as I could, I also walked so much to offset everything I ate, because I ate everything. Before leaving for the trip, everyone asked if I was going to eat paleo in the land of pasta, pizza, pastries and gelato. I intended to try my best to stay primarily on track, but not to deprive myself if I wanted something and try my best I did. My general approach was to take the opportunity to try local meat dishes such as Coda Alla Vaccinara (oxtail stew), Bistecca alla Fiorentina (florentine steak), Saltimbocca, Baccalà (salted cod), Abacchio a Scottadito (super hot grilled lamb), Pappardelle al Ragu Di Cinghiale (pasta with wild boar sauce), vegetables such as roasted peppers, zucchini flowers, eggplant, chicory and artichokes, and as many salamis, hams, sundried tomatoes and olives as I could get my hands on.
My three best meals all came from this list of local dishes and were all in Rome:
- Da Enzo - Coda Alla Vaccinara and a Marscapone Mousse with Strawberries for dessert
- Da Luigi - Baccalà with Roasted Potatoes and Zucchini Flowers
- La Botticella - Saltimbocca with Sauteed Chicory and Tiramisu for dessert
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| Cappuccino from Nineteen and Gluten-Free Biscuits |
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| Gran Caffe at Sant'Eustachio |
One thing I consumed way too much of was coffee in Italy. I just felt compelled to "when in Rome" and have a cappuccino in the morning and an espresso after lunch, also sometimes an iced coffee as well. The best cappuccino I had was at Nineteen in Rome and the best espresso I had was the gran caffe at the famous Sant'Eustachio il Caffe in Rome. As recommended to me by my friend, I enjoyed it while standing and gazing about "Roman Style." Now that I am back, I am trying to detox on the caffeine and it is a serious struggle, particularly because I really want to make some coffee in my adorable mug I brought back from Sant'Eustachio.
The surprising thing was that it is actually pretty easy to stay gluten-free and dairy-free while enjoying brioche, pizza, pasta and gelato. You just can't necessarily get gluten-free and dairy-free at the same time. The airline we flew, AirBerlin even let me request gluten-free meals on our flights. What I generally found is that by requesting the special meal, I got better food - more fruit less crackers. You may want to keep that in mind for travelling even if you aren't a gluten hater.
Senza Glutine (Gluten-free)
Fun fact - every child in Italy is tested for celiac when they are 6 years old and those with celiac receive a stipend from the Italian government. Consequently, it isn't really that hard to eat senza glutine, with most places offering gluten-free pizza and pasta options as well as just non-gluten menu-options. I enjoyed Spaghetti alla Carbonara at Voglia di Pizza and Pizza Cappricciosa at La Soffitta Renovatio, both gluten-free and both in Rome. Yet, the best gluten-free dish I had was the Pappardelle al Ragu Di Cinghiale at Da Garibardi in Florence. They even brought me a gluten-free bread roll, which was such a treat after not having had anything like it in so long. There is no picture because I was really hungry.
It is even possible to enjoy gluten-free pastries in Italy! There was an incredible gluten-free bakery named Starbene in Florence, where I picked up a veggie pizza-square, some incredibly addicting Brutti Buoni cookies and a jam filled croissant to enjoy for breakfast with a cappuccino. In Rome, I found a bakery with these pistachio and almond biscuits that were gluten free and again enjoyed them immensely with my morning cappuccino (see picture above). Also in Rome (with other locations), we went to Mama!Eat, which has an entire gluten free menu that includes gluten-free desserts, so I happily enjoyed a massive piece of apple cake there.
For more information and to find gluten-free restuarants in Italy visit this link.
Gelato
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| Brother-Sister Gelato All-Star Team |
One of the things we did on the trip was attend a pizza and gelato making class outside of Florence in Tuscany. The chef/instructor gave us some tips on finding good gelato - to avoid all gelateria with mountainous looking gelato, ask if they made their gelato in store and to look for places priding themselves on quality ingredients. After that, my brother and I made it a point to find the best gelato in each in city. I had gelato every single day of the trip and visited no gelateria twice. I think every gelateria we went to had vegano (vegan aka non-dairy) options and most of them prided themselves on using the highest quality ingredients. The vegan flavors were shockingly creamy, but I did splurge on dairy-containing flavors a few times when I new that the milk was coming from grass-fed cows. I always regretted it because I actually preferred the vegan flavors. In fact, the best gelato I had the entire trip was a vegan pistachio at Frigidarium in Rome. NOTE: There are not a lot of pictures of gelato because I have this thing against melted ice cream and in the 100 degree heat there just isn't time.
Some of the good ones we found were:
- Florence
- Grom
- There are also Grom locations in New York - Dangerous!
- Shake Cafe
- Venci
- This place really close to us on Via de Gignori, whose name I can't remember, but where I had carrot ginger apple gelato that was SO refreshing.
- Rome
- Frigidarium (best pistachio)
- La Romana
- Grezzo
- Grom
- Fatamorgana
- Naples
- Officina Gelati (second best pistachio)
- Casa Infante (my brother loved the Banana here)
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| "Give me your four best flavors" |
Even after trying all that gelato, my brother still loved the soft-serve fruit he got at Chloe's here in New York before we left best of all. Chloe's IS amazing and it will take all my strength every day not to walk down to Sedutto four blocks from my apartment where they serve it.
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| All the veggies at L'Etto in Naples |
Now, as I said I tried my best to make good eating choices - I was not perfect. As you can tell, the sugar content of a food wasn't even on my list of efforts to make. The issue was not that I wanted to gorge on cheese and bread, but that it got to be a pain in the butt sometimes to find anything else, particularly a green vegetable. When I found vegetables, I ate a thousand servings of them. My worst splurge was at 1 am on our first night in Florence. I couldn't sleep and all we could find was some 4 cheese pizza at a restaurant in the Piazza della Repubblica. My best splurge was on an incredible Tiramisu at La Botticella in Rome - I will never regret eating that. I so wish that I had taken a picture of mine before I inhaled it, or of my brother's before I inhaled what he did not eat of his.
Needless to say it was an incredible trip and I actually enjoyed the cities and sites even more than I did the food. However, by the end of the trip, I was ready and excited to get back to my normal (paleo) way of eating. I cannot wait to try and share new recipes, incorporating some of the foods I tasted and tried in Italy!
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