GOURMET GIRL: ROMA CLOSER TO HOME

Recently a friend had to cancel a week vacation to Rome. It was going to be her first visit to Italy, and I had told her a few of my personal highlights that she might want to check out. So when she was faced with a week closer to home, I realized that there was a good amount of Rome reminders here in Montreal. Five years ago I booked a month off to go to Italy, and the month before, after 9 years of unemployment, my husband got a job, and in my attempt to be a supportive wife, I did my best to keep myself busy locally.

I took a beginner's italian course. I watched Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn, ate fettucine alfredo, watched 3 Coins in a Fountain (featuring the Trevi fountain tradition of throwing a coin over your shoulder so that you will return one day again to Rome), and The Gladiator.

Trevi Fontain with Seahorses carrying Neptune over the waves

I watched every video and listened to every podcast on the topic done by Rick Steves. I bought a mickey of liquorice tasting sambucca and a sickly sweet mickey of lemoncello. I ate gelato on St. Charles at La Dolce Vita and in the Fairview Pointe-Claire mall.

Bacio and Sicilian Cannoli Gelato at La Dolce Vita

I gawked at the exquisite replica of St. Peters dome that is called Mary Queen of the World. There is a four pillared "baldachin" under the dome that was made in Rome and is a replication of St. Peter's baldacchino carved by G. L. Bernini.

From my favourite clandestine viewpoint

Ebony and Gold

My husband made me cappuccini on a Breville machine I got from Martha at one of her last shows in NYC.

Cappuccino, Via Cavour style

I visited the Italian Renaissance art at the Montreal Fine Arts Museum. I admired the fountains in Place-des-arts. I bought fresh pasta in Jean Talon market, and made homemade pesto from basil, grated parmesan and roasted pine nuts. It made my trip to Italy, the next spring, a richer one.

Things to do next time I want to revisit Rome, but can't afford it:

1. A visit to Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery to find a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta called a La Pieta Mausoleum.

Michelangelo's Pieta in St. Peter's Cathedral

2. Eat in Little Italy's Primo e Secondo and shop the nearby Jean Talon market for fresh local produce, like the italian's do.

Wonder if it has a terrace? (In the Jewish quarter of Rome)

3. Visit Montreal Museum of Fine Arts - look for da Vinci, Caravaggio, Tintoretto, El Greco, Veronese in the Jean-Noel Desmarais-Pavilion.

4. Look for the Pionnier's obelisk, commemorating the 250th year anniversary of Montreal at the site of former Fort Sainte-Marie, now Place D'Youville, Old Montreal, and remember the Obelisks of Rome. Rome has 12 obelisks to find. Augustus, who beat Cleopatra and Mark Anthony to take over Egypt, was a megalolithomaniac, and the Romans loved collecting Egyptian artifacts, but when the Roman empire fell into ruins, it was the counterrevolutionary Popes that dusted off these amazing stones and erected them in places of religious prominence, in front of churches, with crosses on top, to reclaim Rome's former glory, in hopes of bringing glory to God, or at very least, the Roman Catholic tradition. The Vatican's obelisk has no script and acts as a sundial in St. Peter's "square" (circle). My most memorable obelisk is the one in the Piazza del Popolo, and the one on the back of Bernini's animated pink elephant statue in front of the Santa Maria sopra Minerva church. Others, like the one in front of the Pantheon, top a fountain.