Barbra Austin

One look at La Bergamote’s shiny glazed fruit tarts, tall dark chocolate cakes, glittering pates de fruits, piles of crisp meringue clouds, plump religieuses and golden brioches, and I am transported.

A lap around the Campo di Fiori market on Monday made me wish I had a few more days in Rome, and maybe a small kitchen of my own to do a little cooking.

This has to be one of the most useful signposts in all of Rome, communicating two things every tourist needs to know: How to get to the airport and how to get to the gelato.

I am familiar with most of the more common cuts of meat, but I simply cannot commit to memory the full lexicon of butchery. I can’t remember what comes from where and which is better for what. It’s a recurring resolution of mine, to learn every name of every part of the cow/pig/lamb, but I’ve yet to make good on it.

If I need meat, I call Florence.

You may have heard that today is Valentine’s day. Personally I don’t enjoy the forced romance of February 14th, and the pressure to do something special. What I do enjoy is finding the right gift for someone, any day of the year.

I have eaten at Ippudo at least a dozen times since my first visit last September. The total would be higher if I hadn’t been away much of the fall and Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is a weekly thing now. I eat there more frequently than any other restaurant. When I’m there, slurping up noodles, all I can think about is when I’ll be able to come back. I crave Ippudo.

I love this island.

“With every step down, you travel back in time 75 years.” So says the proprietor of Spirito di Vino, a family-operated, wine-centric restaurant in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood. He was talking about the steps down to the ancient wine cellar that sits below the dining room, but he could have been describing any subterranean staircase in Rome.

Food is sold by l’etto in Italy, a unit of 100 grams. There are 1000 grams in a kilogram. A kilogram is just over 2 pounds. The current exchange rate is about $1.40 to the Euro. You do the math.

There are things one can do to keep busy while eating alone and one of them is eavesdrop. I settled into my seat at La Fourchette, ordered a glass of rosé and tuned in.