Free Things To Do In Rome: Go to a Park

Long ago when I was a salesman for corporate America, I had a boss who was outstanding at sales.  He was consistently a national star earning such awards as manager of the year, highest percentage over plan, etc.  He was one of those people who was lucky to have natural "street smarts" in the sales world, and he knew how to use them.

One thing he wasn’t good at?  Judging Rome. 

One year, he received an award for being the top producing manager nationwide.  What did he win?  A week-long vacation with his family to Rome.  He was so excited before he left, and I shared in his excitement because who wouldn't want to travel worldwide on someone else's dollar???

When he returned, I asked him how it was.  "Terrible.  The whole place was just filthy," he told me.  

Luckily, that’s not possible.  Some parks even have signs that tell you to hacky sack your trash into trashcans.

I love this sign mostly because of how happy the guy is to land it in the trash can.

And here's a picture of me practicing throwing away a white ball of trash.  

Like my shorts?

Ok, so not everyone throws their trash away.  That’s a given anywhere you live.  However, when a city is about 2500 years old instead of a very young 200 years (which is what he was used to), I believe everyone should take a step back before they judge.  Consider that in the overall picture. I bet if he’d done that, he might think of it as “surprisingly clean for its age” or something more positive like that.

But I can’t live in a dream world either.  Not everyone thinks that positively.  So I dedicate the rest of this post to all my curmudgeon friends.  Here is the clean beauty I have passed by lately. And please don't be a "mudge" anymore.

Pretty.

Love all the Umbrella Pines.

Crazy how this spaceship fell nose-first into that pile of cement in the water.  Buddy, looks like your engine is flooded.  You have water coming out all the exhaust pipes.

If you plug up his mouth, the water will squirt out his nose.

Kind of wish my house looked like that.

Big Tree, Little Tree, in the Villa Doria Pamphili.

Pretty sure the top left guy is Hercules.

How cool is that?  In Rome, your every day park has 1000 year old sculptures to view.

Even stairways have their own beauty.

Duck, Duck, GOOSE!

When was the last time you stepped back from that busy day of yours and simply admired your surroundings?  Next time you’re outside, stop what you are doing and just take a look around.  Going to a park is FREE and tons of fun! Find anything just VASGO worthy?

The Market Scene

Ever been to one of those markets where it’s a bunch of stalls?  Some are outdoor, some are indoor.  When I lived in Colorado, they were called Farmer’s Markets and are probably still called that.  When I lived in Philadelphia, I would sometimes go to a most notable one which many know as Reading Terminal Market.  Even communities across the globe are working with their local grower organizations and “signing up” to get the latest crops each week.  They are all fantastic methods which help you stay away from the fast food joints that sell you ultra-processed foods which can give you ultra-high cholesterol.  Get your fresh fruits and veggies, cook a quality meal at home and smile when you realize your food hasn’t changed several hands, gone through several machines and been adulterated!  Apparently I’m making the commercial food industry sound like a tyrannical beast.

We all WISH we could eat like that every day but the reality is the foods you buy like that are just as expensive if not more.  Why?  That’s an argument for another day.  But being a money conscious consumer, we all want the best quality at the best price.  So I recommend you do as I do.  Or at least what I used to do when I lived in the states.  Every now and then, make the effort to go to that farmer’s market to get enough veggies and fruits for a day or two.  It’s almost always worth it. 

It’s important to note that the larger the venue, the more vendors there will be selling the same product.  This means they will offer more competitive prices to get you to buy from their booth.  BINGO!   Trick numero uno to saving some cash and getting excellent product.

Let’s bring in a real life example.  Something you should know about me – I’m a market junkie.  I needed my fix, man!  It had been too long since I’d seen a market that had vendor booths.  So just a few days ago, I decided to check out what’s considered the largest market of this type in Rome – Trionfale Mercato.  Take a look at what I saw:

I’m pretty sure the broccoli are actually alien eggs.

Forget meat on a stick – Gimme some meat on a whole pig leg!  I count three hooves.  Do you?

If you want it fresh sliced, you will definitely get what you want.

I didn’t have the guts to try these… get it?  Guts.  Trippa = tripe = innards = guts.  It really shouldn’t be this hard to make you laugh.

I need to pause here because the picture above is just too much.  Did you have ANY idea vitello lingua (Veal Tongue) was so large?  If that’s a baby cow’s tongue, then that baby must have been a teenager.  Freakin’ huge!

Wow.  I’m overwhelmed with how cool this place is.  Better take it easy and relax with a coffee.  Un Macchiato per favore.  Thanks Mr. Java-Man!

I think that girl is trying to see if I will walk away so she can drink my coffee too.  The nerve.

Ok, if I don’t leave now, I’ll empty my entire wallet here.  Better go get some lunch.  This market is making me hungry.  I heard there is a cult following for a local hole-in-the-wall pizzeria.  We should go check it out.

Cool, found it!  That wasn’t too far away. Benvenuti a Pizzarium.  Welcome to Pizzarium.

The books that recommended this place weren’t kidding.  It is tiny.

Let’s go inside shall we?.

You buy it by the kilogram.  So you tell them how much of the pizza you want and the guy cuts it, weighs it, and gives you a receipt. 

While they put it back in the oven for a quick reheat, you turn around and pay the lady at the register.

Let’s buy the Margherita pizza.  It’s my baseline which helps me compare every other institution in Pizza City.

Oh yeah, the sauce is flavorful with plenty of herbs.  Excellent balance of salty to sweet to acidic.  Cheese is good, and not skimpy either.  Not the fake mozzarella you get at some chains back in the states.  The dough is great.  I learned they let the dough rise overnight so the yeast has plenty of time to extract all the good flavors from the flours used.

No wonder this place has a cult following.  For the restaurant owner,  I firmly believe that when you go for quality over quantity (profits), word spreads and it turns into a loyal base which guarantees you enormous profits in the long run.  (For all you business majors in college, please take note of that.)

Ciao my friends!

Welcome Back!

Ciao my friends!  Hello and welcome back to just VASGO!  It's been a long two weeks away from the internet.  Perhaps the most painful experience I've ever encountered.  Ever.

More painful than when I was 6 years old and my friends and I built our own ramp while living in the streets of Los Angeles, tried to be BMX bikers like the glorious Nintendo game ExciteBike and the bottom of my chin perfectly landed on a sharp, 100 pound rock meant to prevent cars from driving on our neighbor's lawn.

Here's a picture of me mid-jump.

Ok, for legal reasons, I'm obligated to tell the truth.  That's not actually a picture of me.  I got this image from Wiki.

It was more painful than when I was 7 years old and while camping, I wanted to treat my family to a great breakfast of eggs and bacon over a fire because I woke up first.  What does a good-natured child do to start a fire?  Find wood of course!  What?  There's no wood nearby?  No problem, I'll just grab the old three in one hatchet/saw/shovel I treasured so much (thanks to my old family friend who was a scout master and soccer coach for buying it as a christmas present).

By the way, as a 7 year old boy a three-in-one hatchet is just about the coolest thing you could get as a present, next to an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!  I'd just like to mention I'm pretty sure my mom has still never forgiven my old soccer coach for buying that present for such a young child.  But who can blame him, really?  It was the 80s, folks.  A different time.  Most know it as the age of innocence, especially if you were in high school or college then.

Anyway, back to the story!  There's no wood nearby that's already chopped, so what does a 7 year old do?  Go find a log, of course.  Hatchet in-hand eager to please his family, there it sat, an enormous old tree fallen over making a perfect bridge over a creek.  A few careful steps, didn't want to fall in of course, and I reached the part of the log where a huge branch once connected and now remained as a large stump.  Placed my feet correctly.  Needed to have balance for a proper swing. Still didn't want to fall in the creek.  I tensed my muscles in my right arm, got the wind up set... and THUD!

I barely made a dent in the log.

Ok, log.  So you're playing hardball, are you?  Well, I can chop harder than that.  A little more power this time.  THUD!  Still nothing.  Ok, chopping horizontally is getting me nowhere.  Besides the grain of the open stump is clearly going down, vertically toward the naturally made "bridge".  So I changed my stance.  Left leg back.  Right leg forward, knees slightly bent to allow maximum power. Oh yeah, my body feels good.  I know this will get a good chunk of wood off the stump this time.  On three then... one...... two....... THREE!

I look down and notice a shiny metal object sticking out of my thigh, just above the knee.  Now imagine the girliest, high pitch scream coming out of my mouth.  Yep.  No bacon and eggs for this hungry boy.

And what's more painful than those two scar stories?

NOT BEING ABLE TO SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD!

- just VASGO

This picture was too pretty not to share and I couldn't wait for later posts.  If this were working today, we would know it as a 24 Hour Fitness or other fitness club.  Say hello to the ancient and beautiful Baths of Caracalla.  To your left would have been the normal temperature pools.  To your right, the Cold plunge pools.  Behind you, the exercise room.

How to Make a Speck and Brie Panini

Every now and then I get inspired to recreate that dish a had once-upon-a-time ago.  Today is my first introduction to the world that just VASGO is also a cooking blog.  Surprise!  So follow along, go buy the necessaries and enjoy the meal as much as I do.

Speck and Brie Panini

First you'll need the following:

• Speck 
• Brie
• Arugula
• Any kind of good, thick bread.  I chose Ciabatta.

I'm sure you're all asking at this point, ""What the heck is Speck?"  And anytime you have a question, please insist that it rhymes like I just did.

Well your answer is this: think lightly smoked proscuitto.  It's still porktastic.  It's thin sliced, salty and delicious and it's flavors are honestly unlike any other meat I've ever had.  Want the full story on speck?  Here's the wiki link to it - Speck.

I remember when I lived in Philadelphia and wanted to make this panini it was a somewhat difficult item to find.  Some specialty stores such as Trader Joe's or Whole Foods may have it if you're lucky. If not, go to your local Italian grocer as they might have it there.  If they don't, put in the request.  It's worth it even if you have to buy a large cut and slice it yourself at home once it arrives from their vendor.

However, some people don't feel that Speck-Finding is a fun scavenger hunt.  So if you have no other choices, good old prosciutto will be an OK replacement.

Let's begin.

Slice that bread and lay it all out.  Life is always easier when it's laid out in front of you.  

Now cut the cheese.  Ok.... I sense snickering in the background.  I swear that was an honest slip.  Now cut the Brie.  It's important to note that too much brie can be overwhelming, especially when you don't use a lot of speck.  Here I decide to use half a slice for each sandwich, and cut those again so they act as glue on both sides.

Then you have to add Arugula.  Nice bitter, peppery leaf.  Adds a wonderful touch to the sandwich.

Then it's Speck time.  See it?  It's actually translucent!  I love this stuff and am so glad it's everywhere here in Italy.

Then add a piece to each sandwich.  If you have more, I suggest using more because it tastes, well, awesome. And in that case, add more brie too!

Fold those puppies over making sure nothing falls out.

Light up the stove and toast them to golden goodness.  No oil or butter necessary. If you have one of those fancy panini presses or heavy food bricks that sit on top of sandwiches, use it.  My spatula only smashes so much.  Take care to not over-toast the bread.  When in doubt, rely on your nose!  Bread clearly ramps up to a full burning smell if you pay attention closely.

And there you have it - Speck and Brie Panini. 

And what a combo!  Heating the sandwich causes the brie cheese to be warm and gooey, helping relax how dry the sandwich would have been.  The meat is outstanding and the arugula adds the perfect touch of bitter and pepper.  Combine that with the crunch of perfectly toasted ciabatta and you will be asking yourself where the next round of panini are.

Buon Appetito!

Paradise found in Truffles

Today's episode is brought to you by SCIANCA s.r.l. Salsiccia Al Tartufo.

Salsiccia al Tartufo.  Sausage with Truffle.  Salted meat with awesomeness.  There seem to be a million different ways to describe this gem of an appetizer but I think the most recent describes it enough.  Want a closer look at the goods?  Here you go.

Go ahead and take a second.  Click on the picture and let it come full size on your screen the way it's meant to be viewed.  Inside the casings, see those tiny black specks?  It shouldn't be from your dirty computer screen.  Well, maybe that actually is from your computer screen and this episode should really be brought to you by Windex or some other screen cleaner.

This episode is brought to you by just VASGO brand computer screen cleaner.  Now go clean your screen.

When you're done, take a better look at the picture of Salsiccia.  Those tiny black specks in there are actually black truffle shavings.  That, combined with firmly packed minced pork meat and what is most likely its back fat, all mixed together with wonderful spices including plenty of salt and possibly vinegar makes this salami a taste bud extravaganza!

Now, like the Where's Waldo books, Where's Salsiccia Al Tartufo?

Forget blogging.  True money is in salami identifying books.  

First person to spot the correct salami wins this dog that was near the store.  Yes, its head is astoundingly large for its body.

Ok, that was honestly WAY too easy to spot.  Unfortunately the dog is not for me to give away.  I couldn't convince the 9 year old girl wearing the red sandals to trade him for truffle sausage.

Anyway, I think you should get the truffle sausage experience too.  So please excuse me for the uninvited molestation of body space and comfort zones, but guess what?  You just became me.  Welcome to the 2nd person perspective.

THE JOURNEY OF THE TRUFFLE SAUSAGE
By just VASGO

Grabbing a knife, you feel power and purpose in your hands.  Microscopic beads of energy travel from one region of your brain to another as if it were data being downloaded from a website. The thoughts are overflowing your mind.  So many ideas, if only you can keep track of every single one.  Some of them  border dark.  So many things can be done with this weapon.  There it is!  You're brain finally comes to a decision.  You officially decide to cut the sausage at a slight obtuse angle.

You bring your nose near the now greasy hands and inhale a long, drawn out breath.  The air rushes through your nostrils, depositing flavors on your tongue which tell you that what you are about to eat has truffles and has a noticeable acidic brightness.  Your mouth waters instantly, craving more than just the teasing smell.

The first taste is salty and oily.  You hold the piece on your tongue to a get a little more sense of the flavor and your brain registers something familiar and yet mysterious. Ah yes, truffle just made its entrance.  You then realize an acidic quality has been complementing the entire time.  Hidden, yet in plain sight.

You chew on the morsel.  The tender, highly seasoned pork and fat easily give way to the grinding in your mouth, releasing even more of the balanced vinegar-like sensation.  The bits disintegrate on the tongue, causing you to salivate even more.  You lick your lips.  Truffle oil, seasonings.  Your mind is consumed with how many layers you have noticed in just one small slice.  Then as you look down at a cutting board full of sausage, you wonder if the remaining slices will be the same.

A smile comes to your face.  Better get a glass of red wine out.  You just realized your journey is 8 times longer.

The EPIC 11 Course Lunch

Buon giorno i miei amici!  Good morning my friends!  Today, I will drop the F-bomb on all of you.  What kind of bomb?  A FOOD bomb of course!  My apologies for the delay in posting. This one took a little more time than usual.

Recently I had the pleasure to participate in a truly EPIC 11 course lunch.  The location: Titignagno, a 2 hour bus ride north of Rome.  The business: Agritourism.  That's a shortened version of agricultural tourism and as a foodie, I'm pretty sure I was elevated to a heightened state.  Was it heaven?  Was it reality?  What IS reality, really?  Ok, going too deep.

Back to food.

This place was incredible.  Talk about an interesting business operation.  I learned that it's a seriously large estate with acres and acres of land owned to help make not most, but ALL of their meals.  Other than bottled water, post-meal espressos and those who fancy a coca-cola light (diet coke in the states), they do not outsource as far as I know.  Everything else is grown here, farmed here, raised here, then prepared here for meals.  That includes the wine. To make it more than just a restaurant experience, they have a pool, views, lots of land to explore and plenty of guest rooms for those who want to make a great night out of it, hence the tourism aspect.

I wonder if an operation like this would work in America.  Does anyone know of one already in existence?  Let me know in the comments as I'm always interested to hear about my future hangouts. :)

Now it's time for you to experience the meal with me.

First we got out of the bus, walked down to the dining hall and I had to stop.  What a view.  Hills in the distance, beautiful stone driveway and lot, lovely old buildings.  Very just VASGO worthy.

To the right is the dining hall, to the left are guest rooms for those spending the night.

 When you are busy taking pictures, you are not paying attention to the more important things such as the food tables with our first round of appetizers.  I immediately sprint to the table.  After all, I'm in competition with about 150 study-abroad college students who know how to eat well too.  Luckily, I have the strength of a 30 year old, over 6 feet tall, plus 200 pounds man.  Now you can visualize me picking up that short, frail twig of a sophomore college student, holding him above my head using both hands and releasing a guttural war cry as I throw him over a 3 foot tall stone wall.  I said get out of the way kid.

Good, now I can see the table.

Man, those appetizers look good. I should only try a few so I have room for  the actual meal.

But wait!!!  Where I'm standing gives such a fantastic view of the other half of this agritouristic delight.

To the left: More students to throw over walls.  To the far right: The guest rooms.  Center: The Chapel.

Then I turn around and look at the 3 foot wall I "might have" thrown the sophomore over.  Turns out it's a 30 foot wall.  Hmm.  Who would have thought?   Guess I should have paid more attention to the excellent view.  Seriously though, beautiful, isn't it?

I love the winding river and the fact that their crops are grown so close to where we are eating.

Then I get my hands on my first appetizer of the day.

ENTER COURSE #1!

Here's me trying their home made pork sausage and mild white cheese crostini.  Very warm and fresh out of the oven, very tasty.

They had fresh apricot and pear juice from their own trees and some bottled water to start us off.   I chose water and apricot.  Below left is the brined caper and anchovy pate crostini, or at least that's what I thought it tasted like.  Right of that is the Arancini - packed rice wraps a nugget of mozzarella cheese and a basil leaf, then deep fried to perfection so mr. cheese nugget turns into gooey goodness.

ENTER COURSE #2.  The second round of appetizers outside. I didn't try all of the pizzetti, but think of about 4 different types of flat breads being laid out on a table next to the empty plates from the first round.

We tried the Margherita (tomatoes, mozzarella and basil) and the White pizzetti - fresh rosemary, fresh olive oil and salt, easily my favorite of the two.

And then it's back to the real reason why we are here.  Like the dinner bell is rung in the days when cell phones weren't given to farmers children, the head honcho, Dean Strommen in the blue shirt, turns up the volume on his vocal cords and tells us all to get inside.  It's time for the main event.

Even the walls of the room were interesting.  I think the ceiling may have been cooler though.

Ok.  First let's pour a drink.  I think I'll have a glass of the estate-created red wine, and a glass of bottled water.

Delicious house made red wine.

ENTER COURSE #3. Meat plate!

Left: Proscuitto.  Center: Salami.  Right: Lonza aka pork shoulder is what an expert thought it was.  All were salty and delicious.

ENTER COURSE #4.  Torta Salata, translated officially as "salt cake".  Why?  I will never know because it surely was not salty or cakey. Cakey is a made up adjective by the way.  However, look at the layers of cheese between the three layers of buttery pastry.  Seriously delicious.

The cheese layers were creamy like a brie.  Found out they were made of Emmentaler (Swiss cheese), Mozzarella and Parmigiana.

ENTER COURSE #5.  Asparagus Risotto.  At first, I was overwhelmed with the nose of this dish.  It was pungent the way canned green beans have a soggy, overcooked odor to it.  It was almost unpleasant.  But as they say, never judge a book by its cover.  Even though it was too hot a dish to eat on an 85 degree F day, oddly enough, it worked its way on the palate and slowly won over my taste buds.

The rice also seemed perfectly cooked.  Tender, moist, and absorbed a surprising amount of asparagus flavor.

ENTER COURSE #6. Pappardelle con sugo dicinguiale.  Pappardale in Wild Boar Sauce.  I got a whiff of this and immediately began salivating.  It smelled excellent, like a pot roast served to you in the middle of winter after a rough afternoon of snow shoveling.  We're talking ultimate comfort food folks.

The noodles are freshly made, not completely uniform like a commercial noodle maker would create, with perfect thickness and slight grittiness to its exterior to soak up the light sauce.  The boar is shredded very thin so each noodle grabs plenty of meat with its gritty yet tender microscopic suction cups.  The sauce is oil based.  The flavor reminds me of pureed carrots, onions, celery, thyme, bay leaves such as you would find as the standard base for many made from scratch soups.  What's the name of that again?  Isn't it French?  C'mon foodie readers.  Help all of us out here in the comments box with the real name.

Already there has been so much food and so much more to come, but I had to have seconds of this dish.

Without a doubt, this was my favorite dish of the entire event.

ENTER COURSE #7.  Capriolo.  Venison.  Deer meat.  Bambi!  I don't eat venison often but if it were cooked like this, I'm pretty sure it would be a constant household request.  The chunks of deer are very tender and hardly gamey in taste.  The sauce is pronounced with rosemary.  Made with whole, unbrined olives and mushrooms grown on the estate, this dish goes from rosemary flavor to slight game flavor, to wonderfully accented herb sauce flavor.  A superb dish.

Poor Bambi.  Thanks for tasting so good.

ENTER COURSE #8.  Roast Chicken, Potatoes and Lamb.  This was a good dish, but I think my stomach was also telling me it's just about done and so I didn't desire these as much.  However, the skin on the chicken was crispy and salty making it taste VERY good.  The potatoes were buttery, baked, skinless and only had salt and pepper made with them.  Surprisingly addictive.  And the lamb was heavily seasoned with fresh herbs, particularly rosemary.  But that made the dish that much better.

ENTER COURSE #9.  Shellfish?  Really? Out here in the middle of the land?  It didn't seem like this would have been a dish normally added to the lineup.  Out here in Italy, regional cooking is everything and here in Umbria, we are landlocked.  No body of salt water is nearby.

Ohh that makes way more sense.  The wait staff just explained that this was part of the vegetarian-only meal. But once they were brought out to our non-meat eating friends, they were respectfully declined.  I found it interesting that shellfish qualified as a vegetarian item here.

Anyway, enter some sort of breaded shrimp dish on a skewer.

Looks pretty good.

So I dig in.  Wait!  What's that?  The shrimp is sitting in something of a cup?  Now I have to try this.  Take a bite of the cup.  Rubbery, bland, a little cold.  This must be squid.  Needs more flavor in my opinion and could have used less time in the oven.

Let's try the shrimp.  Breading is rather flavorless. Maybe some salt would help.  What's this crunch I'm getting?  It's not the breading.  Interesting. They don't remove the legs before cooking it.  I'm not grossed out eating the legs as plenty of other cultures eat them, even Asian ones eat them solely as a snack if my memory of travel food shows serves me correct.  It's just not what I'm used to from growing up in the US.

Surprise!  Have some squid with your shrimp.

Are you kidding me?  Now you're going to bring out salad?  Ok.  I'll try some of that too.  I didn't consider this another course, though I should have to make it even more courses.  The Insalata looks like it's romaine lettuce and all that seems to be on it is the estate's fresh olive oil.  It's surprisingly good.

The olive oil on the lettuce is so fresh.  Absolutely delicious.

ENTER COURSE #10.  Tiramisu.  I loved this picture because of the distinct layers.  The taste of this dish: really really good.  The marsala wine used in this dish is surprisingly noticeable but not overpowering.  And there was not as much espresso flavor as I was expecting.  The ladyfingers - moist but not soaked.

The tiramisu here was wonderful.

ENTER COURSE #11. Vino Santo con Biscotti.  "Holy" Wine with Cookies.  The experts around me couldn't completely explain why Italians use Santo, Holy, to describe this wine but the most obvious reason is that it is sweet.  It is an after meal wine.

The Vino Santo was sweet, bright, perfumed in a way, and included hints of sherry.

Then an expert who has lived here multiple years shows me how to eat this second dessert.  What?  You dip your biscotti in the wine?  Yes please.

For those who don't know how to dip a cookie in a wine glass, do it like this.

The cookie was an almond biscotti.  It contained whole, blanched almonds added into its dough before it is baked.  By itself, the flavors are so light that it's nothing much to rave about.  Dipped in the vino santo, almond flavor is brought out big time.

Believe it or not, they even concluded this course with one more which was just a shot of espresso.  But I didn't count that either.

Let's total everything up, shall we?

TOTAL NUMBER OF COURSES: 11
TOTAL NUMBER OF FOODS TRIED: 19
TOTAL NUMBER OF FOODS AVAILABLE TO TRY: 24 (including all the appetizers outside)

What a meal!  An expert told me this was a mini-version of an Italian wedding feast you would experience at a reception.  Are you kidding?  This was a mini-version?

Generally there is no concern whether a person eats all on their plate so portions are always much larger than what you saw today.  Good thing this isn't an everyday meal. I'm full just thinking about it.

Buon Appetito my friends!