Waking up in Rome

“... [It was] a typically Roman repast of aromatic artichokes, spring lamb and impressionistic salad. ...”

—Harold Acton, Memoirs of an Aesthete, 1939-1969

I went to Rome frequently in those days, if not always as a primary destination, then as a stop tacked on whenever I went anywhere else in Europe. What drew me there, besides the obvious attractions of the city itself, was a good friend from Los Angeles named Karen, who had moved there several years before. Karen was (and for that matter still is, even now in Pennsylvania) a terrific cook and a great lover of good food, and she and I and her Italian friends seemed to spend our days and nights in Rome doing little else but going from one caffè, trattoria, ris-torante, market, and wineshop to another—or else sitting around the dining table at Karen’s apartment (first in the center of the city, off the via del Corso, and then on the Monte Mario) eating wonderful dishes she had cooked up in a sort of California-Roman style.