July 2016 Newsletter from Elizabeth Minchilli

july 2015 newsletter

I am currently suffering from a severe case of brain melt that no amount of cold coffee drinks can cure. While Rome definitely gets hot in the summer, every so often a heat wave sets in that throws everyone off their feet. This is the kind of weather that makes you understand what the whole siesta-after-lunch-thing is about. There is just no reason to be walking around in the middle of the day if you don’t have to. If you happen to be visiting Rome, and want to do some sightseeing, I suggest you stay clear of the Roman Forum and try to explore Churches (always cool) and Catacombs (you’ll actually need a sweater)

My heat diatribe is also partly my way of excusing myself. I have not been posting recipes lately on my blog because I have not been cooking lately in my home. The heat is mostly to blame (who wants to turn on any sort of flame in this inferno?) but we’re also doing work on our house. I won’t go into details, and I fully realize it’s a first world kind of problem, but our house is a disaster zone these days so mostly we’ve been heading out to eat a lot. We spent one shady afternoon at Pipernos, and have made the air conditioned interiors of Pizzeria Emma a regular occurrence.

The few times I have managed to pull a meal together at home I’ve gone the no-cooking route. I’ve rediscovered the joys of prosciutto (my kind of fast food) and my friend Eugenia taught me this nifty recipe for cold yogurt soup.

And gelato. There is always gelato. Here is my most recent round up of Roman gelato. I know I should update this post. But it’s just too hot.

what's new

Summer doesn’t just mean heat. It also means visitors. June is not just the busiest time in terms of Food Tours, it’s also when some of my oldest and dearest friends come to visit. Many are academics (from my art historian days) and so are on a school schedule. This means they head to Italy in June and July to do ‘research.’ Ok, they really are doing actual research in the various archives around town. But they also are enjoying one of the perks of choosing academia and Italian art as a way of life : regular trips back to the motherland. Kind of makes you wish you had chosen this field,right?

But there are also friends that come to Rome this time of year that I’ve actually never met. Yes, I”m talking about people I’ve come to know through the miracle of social media. This, to me, has been the greatest part of this whole internet thing. Getting a chance to ‘meet’ people through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And they are not just virtual relationships. One of my best friends here in Rome is thanks to Twitter, and I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had the joy to meet through Instagram in the last year. While many of the relationships remain virtual, since everyone eventually comes to Rome, I actually do get a chance to meet up with them in person. This happened a few weeks ago when Victor Hazan (that would be Marcella’s husband) came to town.

Summer also means more Day Trips out of town. While Sophie has pretty much taken over the Wine and Cheese Trip to Orvieto, I lead folks south, towards Porchetta land. The Porchetrarama tour takes in both Marino (home of Vito Bernabei, the Prince of Porchetta) as well as stops to sample local wine and have lunch in a typical Fraschetta tasting even more porchetta. One of the sweetest parts of the day is a visit Nemi, a small village on the shores of Lake Nemi which not only has drop dead views of the lake, but cool breezes and the most fabulous wild strawberries in Italy.

travels

I met Emma in Venice to have a look at the Biennale. My friend Gillian refers to this as the Death March of Art. And it really is art overload. We spent a full two days in the Giardini (where the country pavillons are located ) and the Arsenale (where there is even more art stuff). We also wandered our way around the city, trying our best to see as many of the collateral exhibits as possible.

And of course I was also there to update Eat Venice. But unlike Rome, Milan or even Florence, not much ever changes on the restaurant scene in Venice. But even though there are never really any new restaurant openings, there are shifts underway and no one is quite sure what the effect on the city will be. For instance lately many of the coffee bars have been sold by their Venetian owners and are now being run by Chinese families. While everyone talks about the natural pressures of the rising sea levels to the city, there are equal if not stronger pressures from these economic shifts and from the huge increase in tourism.

Rather than search out the new, or delve into social change, my goal on this recent trip was to explore the lagoon and the outlying islands that still preserve a sense of a past way of life. I had the pleasure of staying for two mights on Mazzorbo and one night on Murrano. I visited Torcello and Burano and spent an evening out on a antique boat in a remote corner of the lagoon. I was surrounded by herons and egrets rather than tour groups. It was a different, and totally magical, side of Venice that most people never see and that I’ll be reporting on in the next month or so on my blog.

I’ve also been taking shorter trips, to escape the heat whenever I can. Rather than head to the sea, which can be as crowded at St. Peters Square during mass, I’ve been spending as much time as possible on Lago di Bracciano. Cool and tranquil, and pretty easy to get to.

If you're headed to Milan, I finally wrote about some of the places I visited there last month. A great pastry shop, a vegetarian spot that I love for lunch, a visit to an enchanted garden that also happens to be a restaurant and, finally, some very elegant cocktails.

what I'm reading

Like everyone else in Europe I’ve been reading as much as possible about the unfolding Greek Crisis that is currently underway in Europe. I don’t ever delve into politics on FB , since that tends to bring out the crazies, but I thought I’d feature a few links here, that not only help explain the situation (as much as it can be explained) but also express my feelings.

Jim Yardley explains Greece's debt crisis
Germany's very short memory when it comes to debt relief.
And here is a very moving blog about another crisis that is happening in Greece, that is not making headlines.

While the European Union can't get its act together to solve either the immigration crisis or the Greek tragedy, it evidently can agree that from hence forth you can legally make cheese without using fresh milk.

We all know Nutella is not health food. But if you're looking for some alternatives that not only taste more delicious but have the added benefit of containing no palm oil, here's your list.

and finally....

I had the pleasure of participating in a few podcast chats this month. I chatted live with Rudy Maxa on Rudy Maxa's World and Jeremy Cherfas interviewed my for his show Eat This Podcast.

Thank you, Family Circle for including me in your list of summer reads in the July issue and Made in Italy Blog for interviewing me. And the Jewish Light of St. Louis featured a nice review of Eating Rome.

Everett Potter asked me to debunk some of Italy's biggest myths when it comes to tourism. Here is the original article, in USA Today and it also got picked up by the Daily Mail

And thanks Fathom Way to Go for including me in your list of Instagrammers in Italy to follow

And a final thanks to all of you for continuing your support not only on my blog and for my books and apps, but also for this newsletter. I have to admit that it's not easy to get it together each month to write this. (and you'll have noticed I'm always a few days -if not weeks -late each month) but I've really been enjoying the chance to talk about things I don't cover elsewhere. And thanks to you this newsletter has a 52% open rate. That means that of all the newsletters I send out, 52% get opened. You know what the average for the travel industry is? 7%. For real. So grazie!!! And please do let me know if there are things you'd like to see in my newseltter. More recipes? More links? More gelato? Let me know, because it's all for you.

x,Elizabeth