First week in Rome
Leaning into Italian, learning the rhythm of a Roman kitchen, cherishing food & light
Hello from a gray Sunday in Rome!
After a week of new new new, it feels so good to write to you today in this space that I’ve built over the past year and a half. With all of you reading along, I feel decidedly less alone as I navigate a new place and meet new people.
I have a foundation of Italian from college, as well as a semester abroad in Bologna, but it’s been four years since I’ve spoken the language with any regularity. The words feel foreign on my tongue, and when I attempt to string together sentences, I feel clumsy and just so…American. This generally hasn’t been an issue (I am at the American Academy after all), but it frustrates me to have awkward encounters with Italian staff members here, when I just want to convey my gratitude and warmth.
When I venture out, like I did on Friday to go to the post office, I find that it’s a toss-up between people who are patient with my Italian, and those who are not. There doesn’t seem to be much English spoken in Monteverde (my new neighborhood), which is wonderful, but can also be challenging when trying to get information across. As I write this, I feel the gross privilege of English fluency. I want to shed the comfort and arrogance of speaking English everywhere, and try — really try — to lean into Italian. My dad told me yesterday on the phone that it doesn’t matter how rusty my Italian is as long as I’m trying to communicate and connect with people who are different from me. It’s liberating to remember that if I’m trying, I’m winning.
And now, more about my first week here! After tossing my stuff in my (very cute) room, I jumped straight into the kitchen, which is directly downstairs from my apartment, and worked my first full shift. We interns alternate between morning shifts (7 am - 4 pm) and evening shifts (12:30 pm - 10 pm). The shifts are similar in length to those I worked in NYC, but the pace is much gentler here. We continue our menu meetings until we’ve covered every dish in detail. We have a slow lunch of the fellows’ leftovers, and stop by the Academy’s bar afterwards for a café macchiato. We take our time cleaning the kitchen after each shift, unhurriedly scrubbing the surfaces with hot, soapy water. I see the pace as a good and bad thing: it’s a pleasure to let your body relax a little in the context of a professional kitchen, but it also means that we’re somewhat inefficient when we could be out earlier, experiencing the city. I suppose my perspective reflects my very New York urge to MAKE THE MOST OF EVERY DAY and DO EVERYTHING ON MY TO-DO LIST AND THEN SOME. With time, I’ll embody the slower rhythm of the kitchen, driven by Italians.
One of my goals for my time here is to carve out more moments of pleasure. I want to become a person who puts sugar in her espresso, and takes herself to a bar to get a glass of wine or a gelateria for a cone. I’d like to lie in the sun while reading a novel, wander around the city with no set destination, and perhaps spend an evening in bed watching American reality TV when I can’t be bothered to do anything else. Yes, I’m working in a professional kitchen, and will therefore be busy a lot, but I’m also here in Rome, where il dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing) is embedded in the culture.
I don’t know how I’ve written 500 words about my week so far without mentioning the food, so let me start by saying that the food is exceptional. We have a garden with citrus trees and greens and herbs and so on, and we also receive produce from local farmers, like the one whose picture is framed on the kitchen wall so that we can all worship him daily. I love that the Rome Sustainable Food Project regards its producers so highly, and understands that good ingredients make good food. It’s as simple and complicated as that. The RSFP also does a fantastic job of reducing food waste by using every last bit of each ingredient and transforming scraps into delicious meals. In the mornings, we take any odds and ends from the fridge, set them all out on the counter, and decide what we’ll make for the Academy’s lunch. This kind of thrifty, creative cooking inspires me, and I have Hart’s to thank for showing me the way via family meal, day in and day out. Thank you, Hart’s, for that, and for the education on everything else related to professional kitchens.
One of the main reasons I doggedly pursued this position at RSFP is the fact that my palate is aligned with traditional Roman cuisine. A non-exhaustive list of Roman foods that speak to me: rich, buttery guanciale, artichokes (braised or fried — I could never choose), bitter greens ripassata (blanched then sautéed with olive oil, garlic, and anchovies), fried squash blossoms stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, long-braised meat, and on and on. Roman cuisine embodies the combination of rich, nourishing, and seasonal that I covet and aspire to cultivate in my own cooking.
Okay, that’s all I have in me for today. Hope you’ve all had restful weekends! More soon.
Love,
Phoebs
sent by your mom. this is an insanely cool thing
So glad that Jerome and I toured the Academy in March last year. Because of Covid, we weren't allowed into any of the private spaces, but it looks like an amazing place to live and work for 6 months. Brava, brava bella.