Hello from Rome, Elizabeth Minchilli April 2016 Newseletter

april 2016 newsletter

Even though I've been back from my trip to the States for three weeks now, I still feel like I'm reeling from the experience. I think it's partly due to the fact that I hadn't really been back to the states for almost two years. So I felt a bit like a tourist staring in wonder at 'all the big buildings' in New York. For real.

But the real reason I'm still reeling is the intense wave of welcome and support I felt for my work. When I originally planned this trip, I thought I would take advantage of my off season (for Food Tours) to visit family. And I did do that (more below) but since I was passing through New York anyway, I thought "Hey, maybe I should organize some sort of something to promote my book?" As you know, I'm very good the whole social media thing, and have no trouble at all with online self promotion (I know some of you - my sisters? my daughters? - are rolling their eyes at the point) but when it comes to in-person, real life promotion, it's just never been my thing.

So last April when Eating Rome came out, I sort of just let it slide in the party/book signing department. Also? I was just really really busy, and didn't have time to think about it.

So, almost a year later I decided, Why not? I'm going to be in NYC anyway, let's try to organize something. My friend Sara very graciously accepted to host a dinner in my honor at her fabulous restaurant Porsena. My goal (and hers) was that at least half the restaurant would fill up with friends, fans and family. Instead? The entire dinner sold out in 30 minutes. 30 minutes?! They had so many requests they had to put in extra tables and fill up the bar as well. I really truly had no idea this would happen. I swear.

While I obviously felt extremely flattered and excited about this, I also felt badly for everyone who couldn't get in. And so my friend Rolando helped me organize another event, the next night, at ROC. Which was also jammed packed.

All this to say THANK YOU!!!! And mostly to say I hope to be saying thank you more often in person in future. I loved meeting all of you who made it. And since people actually came to NYC from places like Boston, Philadelphia and D.C. I'm thinking a bit of a tour to various cities is in order. What do you think?

what's new

The tour business is definitely seasonal and I’m heading into high season now, and so getting very busy being out and about leading people around Rome. While I’m usually busy with my Food Tours of Campo de’ Fiori, Monti and Testaccio, I’ve also been doing some new tours that I’m really excited about.

While my tours are usually small and private, with about 4 to 6 people, last week I had a group of 120 in town. Yup. 120!! It was a group of finance people from St. Louis who were in town as a kind of incentivizing trip. Since there were so many people, it was hard to decide what to do with such a large group. My solution: organize a Roman dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Pompiere. We took over the entire place, and it was a huge amount of fun! After explaining to the group all about Roman Jewish cooking, we dug into some of their specialities. I table hopped, explaining what we were eating.

The next day I took 30 of them on a walking tour of Testaccio. Since it was such a large group I got my friend Agnes Crawford to come along and help. She’s one of the best historical tour guides in Rome, we partnered telling our group all about Testaccio, from both a food as well as a historical point of view. Sophie was along with us too, to help set up tastings of cornetti, pizza, cheese, cured meats and wine along the way.

I’m hugely excited about this coming week. My Week in Rome tours are usually a mixture of couples and single travelers, but next week I’ve organized a private customized tour of Rome for just one couple. And it will involve almost the entire Minchilli family! While I’ll be leading them around Rome, Sophie is taking them out for the day to Orvieto, to visit her beloved goat farm. And even Domenico is part of the week, taking them on his Italian Rustic Tour in Umbria. (Did you know that two of my most popular books were all about restoring houses in Italy? Restoring a Home in Italy and Italian Rustic explore Italian building techniques.)

If you’d like to join me for a Week in Rome, I’ve just posted the dates for 2017. Or, if you’d like to come on your own, with your own group we can do that too. I’m easy.

travels

As I mentioned already, March was all about my trip to the USA. I actually started out my trip visiting my mom in North Carolina. I filled up on things like crab and grits, but it was mostly about hanging out with mom, who I hadn't seen in two whole years! The big event for me was the chance to go to the gym with her. She's been going to Curves three times a week for the last 20 years or so. It was a blast! And since it was her birthday, there was cake post workout. (Great idea, right?)

I then headed north, to visit my sister Jodi in her new home in Rhode Island. This is probably not news to many of you, but Rhode Island is gorgeous! My sister's house has a view of the ocean and my trip there was full of long walks on the beach and lotsa lobster. But mostly? Just getting a chance to hang out with my incredibly cute niece who I don't get to see nearly enough.

And then there was New York. When in New York I actually stay out in Westchester, with my other sister Robin. Yes, I do the whole commuting thing, but - since the train track runs along the Hudson River for most of the ride - it is one of the prettiest commutes ever.

I never have enough time to do everything I want to do in New York. My incredibly full days included attending a launch party for my friend Alice's newest book (so glad I was there to help celebrate) as well as meeting with my agent and publishers. I hope to have more good news on the book front to share with you soon. I'm very excited about all the choices and possibilities I have. I wish I could fit more hours in the days, days in the week, weeks in the year.

I also got the chance to see friends and, of course, eat. Weirdly, whenever I'm in NYC the first place that people want to bring me to are Italian restaurants. While I'd rather be catching up on tacos, sushi and pho, I did have completely fabulous meals at Porsena, Via Carota, ROC, and Robertas. I finally got the chance to eat at Russ & Daughter's Cafe, and LOVED it. The drop dead delicious stellar meal though was at Untitled and the new Whitney. This was my last lunch before hopping on a plane back to Italy and was the best send off I could think of.

Back in Italy we spent a very subdued, quite, but sweet, Easter in Bari. Emma came down from London, and so it was nice to be all together for a few days. Mostly we cooked and ate. We had a fantastically fish-filled lunch on the Saturday before Easter. And even our Easter was meat-less, with a vegetarian first course and a big (very untraditional) baked fish for our main course. We are still working on the two cute marzipan lambs Domenico insisted on buying. They may be, I'm afraid, too cue to eat.

We also spent a lovely long weekend up at our house in Umbria. Trees were in bloom, the forest was carpeted with cyclamen and I spent most of my time foraging for wild asparagus. If you're interested in renting out the villa, we still have a few weeks left in June and September.

videos

Videos. I didn't make any last month. Sorry. I hope to be better this month, but can I admit something? Since I started using Snapchat, my creative urge to make videos has been satisfied by this little app. It is so much fun!! It's like my own little reality tv show, which allows me to share what I'm doing, eating, cooking in a completely creative, natural and spontaneous way. I LOVE it! So, if you haven't downloaded it yet, you should. And to get you started here is a list of some of the people I think you'd enjoy following. Here follows their names on snapchat to plug in to follow:
eminchilli (me!)
carin-olsson (very fashionable paris photographer person)
davidlebovitz (you know who he is)
eatlikeagirl (Niamh is a London food blogger and is hysterical)
ggnitaly84 (Girl in Florence pretty much sums it up)
gmcquireinrome (Gillan is Rome based, but always on the road everywhere)
mattaphoto (Matt is a famous photographer. Also extremely funny)
nkinpos (follow Nicki for your daily dose of Positano and Amalfi Coast beauty)
baysigne (Signe is a great photographer, food and gorgeousness from Denmark.)
skymcalpine (Skye splits her time between Venice and London very stylishly)
whatsgabycookin (I love her daily dose of zaniness plus food)

what I'm reading

I'm in total denial about finishing the last of the Neapolitan books by Elena Ferrante.I wish I had something else. Any suggestions???

I'm about to start Elizabeth Gilbert's new book on creative living. Has anyone else read it yet?

Loved this article on Blue Apron. I'm fascinated by the concept and believe that anything that gets people cooking is a good thing. What do you think?

The sanest most level headed piece I've read so far on fear, travel and just getting on with your life.

Fascinating, information-packed article on Roman gelato from Jill Santopietro

and finally....

While I was in New York one of the funnest things I got to do was be on the radio together with my friend Rolando. Thanks for inviting us over to chat, Taste of the Past, it's always an honor be on the Heritage Radio Network (especially since there is Roberta's pizza involved) If you'd like to listen, you can tune in here to hear us blab away about current trends in Italian food.

And speaking of trends, have you noticed how Cacio e Pepe seems to be everywhere these days? Tasting Table noticed too, and interviewed me about it here. And then I got to take over their Instagram account for a day, which was a LOT of fun.

Thank you Nicki for including me in this nice round up of Italy-based snapchatters.

I was incredibly honored to be featured in Lonely Planet Magazine. And when I say magazine, I mean a real paper magazine. And if you want to see it, you actually have to subscribe and pay for it. Which, I think, is worth it since the articles are fantastically researched and reliable. Here is there site, and you can judge for yourself with a preview. But in the meantime, I've posted the article on my fb page. A bit hard to read, but gorgeous photos by Susan Wright.

I was also featured on the biggest Italian travel website in Holland. Saskia, who runs the site,Ciao Tutti! , has been described as the Dutch Rick Steves. While I have nothing against Rick, Saskia is definitely on the cuter side (sorry Rick!) Anyway, thanks for featuring me and here is the link, but of course…it's in Dutch. However the website is well worth looking at while you're doing research for any Italian trip, since the lists of hotels and restaurants are understandable in any language. And since she is considering doing her best selling ebooks in English eventually, it's good to keep in touch

Are you excited for pea season to start? Me too. Here's some recipes so you'll be prepared:
Pasta with artichokes, peas and mint
Pasta with peas and arugula pesto
Fresh Pea Soup

x,Elizabeth

Please download my app, Eat Italy. Eat Italy is a free app, with guides to Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan and Umbria available as in app purchases.

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