Just when we thought we had a handle on things, we made another boo-boo. Around 7:00PM on our last night in Rome, we were famished. Sightseeing makes you incredibly hungry! We should have known from the perplexed look on the waiter’s face at Ristorante Cacio e Pepe and the still upturned chairs that we were a little early for the dinner service. He recommended we come back in an hour or so. Embarrassed and a bit deflated, we strolled around the Della Vittoria neighborhood of the city to burn up some time and came upon an epiphany. The beauty of this ancient city is not only in its famous sites but in the most mundane and overlooked of things: a small intricate fountain tucked in a park corner, the swirling mosaic of a stone pathway, the soft gurgling of a Nasoni (a heaven-sent on a blistering August afternoon), a street lined with ripe and fragrant oranges.
TRAVEL TIP: Italians tend to eat later in the evening than Americans. A perfect excuse for another cornetto or gelato to tide you over!
Speaking of Cacio e pepe, the recipe consists of only three ingredients: Pasta, Pepper, and Pecorino Romano. It is the quintessential dish of Rome. With so few components, why then has it been nearly impossible to recreate back at home?
