Almost halfway between the famous Italian cities of Pisa and Genoa on Italy’s western coast you will find the Cinque Terre or “the Five Lands,” a collection of five small villages, some almost 1,000 years old, separated from one another and from the rest of Italy by a series of steep and rugged mountains. The only ways to get there or to go from one town to the next are to hike over the mountains, take a local train, or drive over dizzyingly curvy roads. The area is not that easy to get to, but once you’re there and have left the confines of the train or your rental car, you’ll be glad you made the journey.
The horror genre has never been a favorite of mine, and I typically avoid these types of TV shows or movies like the plague. However, about two years ago I happened to be curled up in a warm hotel room on a chilly New Year’s Eve, avoiding the crowds and the drinking and the sub-freezing temperatures. Flipping through the TV channels I stumbled upon a marathon of The Walking Dead on AMC.
The iconic Season 1 poster
The same view from Atlanta’s Jacskon Street Bridge
One of the joys of travel is meeting strangers who become new friends, and on my most recent trip to Rome, I met a man named Scott, a humanities professor from a university in the American Midwest who was living in Rome for several weeks while working on a book. After some conversation it was apparent that we were kindred spirits and I invited him to join me at my favorite restauant in Rome for lunch. Thankfully he liked my restaurant choice, and as we were parting ways for the afternoon he said that the following day he planned to go to a small restaurant called Sora Margherita he’d been to a couple of years prior. He asked if I wanted to join him and I accepted, though I was a little unnerved when he mentioned something about a waitress who’d simply seemed to despise the friend he’d dined with there the first time.
The charming front entrance to Sora Margherita
Back in my apartment I google-searched the restaurant and because I have come to rely heavily on TripAdvisor reviews, I was a bit uneasy when I noted that many of the reviews there were negative. It seemed, however, that most of the bad comments concerned the service, not the food, and many reviews mentioned a surly, rude waitress who “abused” the customers. Some said that she would “force” people to finish the food on their plates, which sounded rather scary. I wondered whether this was the same person who had “despised” Scott’s poor friend.
With a little hesitation, I headed out into the blazing Roman sun the following day and headed for Rome’s “Jewish Ghetto” neighborhood. a part of the city that I was not terribly familiar with, in search of Sora Margherita. I met Scott out front as planned and we headed inside with a little trepidation. The restaurant is a long, naoow space with maybe 15 tables. We were seated quickly, and before I even got my bearings I noticed a waitress eyeing us suspiciously, and thought, “Uh-oh”, as she swaggered over to our table. In Italian she asked us what we wanted, and having not even seen a menu we were hesitant to reply. Before we could get a sentence out, she told us just to “trust her” and she would bring us what she thought we should eat. She had a look about her that told me not to argue, and for some reason seemed to like us, so we agreed to go with the flow and allow her to choose our dishes.
I was really glad that I’d been forewarned by the TripAdvisor reviews, because otherwise I would have been even more taken by surprise than I was. Our waitress came to the table bearing a dish of marinated vegetable and before I could even react, she spooned up a healthy portion from the plate and shoved it into my mouth, a strange and triumphant look on her face as she stared at the camera that Scott had whipped out to capture the moment. I was laughing hard, but also trying not to choke to death on my food as she proceeded to break off some bread and shove a slice of that into my mouth as well. Honestly, all I could think of was that I was in some lost episode of I Love Lucy, and had to fight the urge to call Ethel for help! She did also attempt to force-feed Scott, but the look he gave her back was enough for her to back off and focus her attentions solely on me.
An “I Love Lucy” moment in Rome
Ethel! Help me!
When Tiziana says “Mangia!”…
Scott is not amused…
Fettuccine with mushrooms
Warm ricotta cake with black cherries
Throughout our meal we chatted with her a bit more and learned that her name was Tiziana. She really was good humored, but with just enough of an edge to let me know that I did not want to get on her bad side, and I imagine that many of the poor TripAdvisor reviewers that spoke about her rudeness and abuse had not taken her behavior with as much of a sense of fun as I did.
Aside from these antics, I thought the food was quite good. The marinated vegetables were delicious and she brought us out a couple of different pasta dishes that were quite tasty. There were a couple of other dishes that were not so memorable, but my favorite part of the meal was dessert. (Ok, that is not uncommon for me!) It was a warm ricotta cake with black cherries and was molta, molta buona!
A more dignified. part of the meal…
Tiziana looms in the background…
A new friend in Rome…
All in all, I would not by any means say that this was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in Rome, but it was an entertaining and decent lunch and is a memory I will carry for quite some time. And I think by the time we left I had definitely made a new friend in Tiziana, who gave me a gentle kiss on the cheek that seemed to suggest that she does have a tender side despite all evidence to the contrary! Grazie, Tiziana! Until the next time… arrivederci!
I discovered Le Tournebièvre (named evidently because it is located on Quai de la Tournelle at the corner of Rue de Bievre) on a trip to Paris in the summer of 2017. I was wandering along the quai across the river from Notre Dame, and as I got further from the crush of people and tourist-oriented cafes around Saint-Michel, I noticed a quiet, unassuming little restaurant with outdoor seating. There was one outside table available, and I took this as a sign, and settled in for a wonderful three course dinner that seemed traditionally French, but the food also had an exciting, innovative flair…
A 30 minute drive west of Milano, near the town of Arluno, lies a tiny, gastronomic oasis of green and tranquility just waiting from those adventurous enough to leve the city, get off the autostrada and find it.
This past weekend I attended the Western Psychological Association conference in Portland, Oregon. This conference happens every year and is held somewhere in the western states. Some years it’s in an exciting destination like Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Cancun, Mexico or Vancouver, Canada. Other years we find ourselves in such lackluster destinations as Sacramento, Reno or worse yet, Irvine or Burlingame, California. Therefore, my students, colleagues and I are always excited when the conference is held in Portland, and thankfully this is the 3rd time in the last 10 years that Portland was chosen as the site.
Le Felizianerie… a new find on my Roman dining circuit
I’ve spent a lot of time in Rome, and I have at least a half dozen restaurants there that I adore. But things happen: you can’t get a reservation, the place you love is closed, or in my case recently, I was staying in a part of the city that was far from my usual haunts. So I decided it was time to venture out and try a new place. With a little help from tripadvisor.com, I found a restaurant that got rave reviews, sounded really interesting and when I searched the map I discovered that it was literally a block from the apartment where I was staying. It was a chilly, rainy night, so a well-recommended restaurant just a stone’s throw from my place sounded like the perfect solution to my “Where do I eat tonight?” quandary. Off I went to a place called, Le Felizianerie.
This is a rather small, lively restaurant located less than a couple blocks from the Vatican Walls on Via Candia. As I arrived, several English-speaking folks were leaving and when I asked how they’d enjoyed their meal, they exuberantly described everything they’d tried and said that this had been their third visit in a week. That boded well. Inside, the décor was colorful and bright, and I was quickly greeted and seated at a perfect table by the window.
The bright and cheery interior.
I’d read that the restaurant specialized in Italian with a bit of Asian fusion, and had trouble imagining just what that would look like. But one of the first things that caught my eye on the menu was the Salmon Teriyaki appetizer. I ordered it and it was both a visual work of art as well as one of the most delicious dishes I have ever tried. Beautiful chunks of teriyaki salmon were “decorated” with fresh ginger, lemon, olives, Asian cabbage, crispy oven-dried seaweed, and dabs of citrus mayo for dipping. It was refreshing, generously portioned and an almost startling mix of textures and flavors. A+!
Salmon Teriyaki, Roman Style
One of my favorite pasta preparations is a typically Roman dish called all’amatraciana, a slightly spicy and hearty sauce made from guanciale (a sort of bacon made from pork cheek), tomatoes, onion and pecorino cheese. I usually see it served with bucatini pasta, a very thick spaghetti noodle that I would never order on a first date or if wearing any clothes I treasure, as it is almost impossible to twirl the broad noodles around one’s fork without splattering sauce in all directions! Well, Le Felizianerie featured an amatraciana dish served with paccheri, a large tube-shaped pasta that captures sauces much more effectively. I ordered that, and I have to say that this was hands down the most delicious version of this dish that I’ve had anywhere in Italy. Another A+.
Best. Amatraciana. Ever.
I also had a refreshing glass of the house prosecco and though I was curious about dessert, I simply did not have room for it. But I’m not lamenting that decision, as I know that I’ll come back here on my next trip to Rome with a bigger appetite and ready to sample more from the menu of this great new find! Check them out! Buon Appetito!
I was born and raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts, about an hour south of Boston and a half an hour east of Providence, Rhode Island. Although I left New England in 1980 for graduate school in Virginia and subsequently southern California, it is still “home” to me, and I make visits back there several times a year, with a cross country road trip every summer and every Christmas. Because I have made the trip so many times, I begin to feel like I’m already on home turf by the time I reach Pennsylvania, but crossing the border from New York into Connecticut, one of the six New England states, means I’m “home”.
After my first visit south of the Mason-Dixon line some 40 years ago, I joked that now I understood the reason that the South lost the Civil War. They were obviously too full from all their amazing foods to be able to fight at full effectiveness. Despite the fact that I was born a Yankee, I lived in Virginia for a couple of years and I’ve traveled through the southern states often. From the Carolinas to Texas, I find the people to be among the warmest, most welcoming and polite I’ve ever encountered.
Magnolia Plantation outside Charleston, South Carolina
“Get Your Kicks on Route 66” is a popular refrain from the 1946 song that was made famous by Nat King Cole and subsequently was recorded by dozens of other artists including Chuck Berry, Asleep at the Wheel, and Michael Martin Murphy. While vestiges of the old highway that wound “from Chicago to L.A.” still remain (notably in the California desert and various parts of New Mexico and Oklahoma), much of it has been replaced by Interstate 40. But don’t despair, you can get your kicks on any number of highways that crisscross the U.S. You just have to take that long dreamed about road trip!
The Burr Trail, a scenic but rugged drive off Highway 12 near Boulder, Utah
MATT: AT HOME IN THE WORLD 