Dream Date

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 Ciao beautiful people.  Whoa- you guys are the shiz, seriously.  Your comments about my Jenna post just blew me away!  I am touched by all your willingness to advocate for our dear friend.  What moves me the most is the unilateral commitment to support eachother that you have expressed.  It gives me the same warm and fuzzy feeling in myheart that I get when I am with my sorority sisters.  Loves.

Now back to bus-nass.  I gotta bust out these Italy recaps so I can get back to blogging about my daily eats.  For some serious art porn and sexy marble torsoes, check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. 

Here was the hint I left you with last time:

Con mon amore, outside our hotel

So you can safely assume that tonight’s topic is about a romantic night out for the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs.!  First, that’s right yo, I finally got myself an Herve.  Seriously, I have like 3 major accomplishments in my life:  winning choreographer of the year in my ballet company in 2000, graduating from Dickinson College, and now owning this ridiculous, inappropriately tight, completely unreasonable ace bandage dress is the third.  Don’t hate. 

Seriously, I write that heartfelt Jenna post and now I ruin it all by flaunting my pompous and outrageous sense of style. And you thought I went soft.

I even rocked the self-timer in the hotel room to make sure it still looked good after 3 straight days of eating in Italy. Psycho.

Whatever, yo.  I say live life to its fullest, and if that means wearing spanx and calling it a dress while galavanting around Rome with your lovaaaa, DO IT.  Oh yeah, the point of this story isn’t the dress- it’s the night, isn’t it?    So after lunch with Graziella, Michelle decided she had enough for the day, so encouraged Mike and I to have a nice night out while she gave her tummy a break and drank some water.  So us kids got a little dressed and headed to Campo de’Fiori, where Mike and his partners-in-crime spent most of their time while studying abroad in 2003. 

It was hot, but literally the most clear and perfect night.

Compo de’Fiori is absolutely awesome, and really epitomizes the role of the piazza in Italian social life.  At night, it literally becomes like an open-air club, with tons of kids piled in the sqaure, all drinking beer and wine  and enjoying the beautiful sights.  There are also tons of bars and restaurants right on and surrounding the piazza making it ideal for people watching.  God I love Europe. 

Tourists, Romans, Europeans on vacation... people of all ages, from all walks of life were here to enjoy the good life.

We immediately headed to The Drunken Ship, one of Mike’s favorite bars, to have a pre-dinner drink. 

I don't even want to think about what kind of trouble my considerate, sweet fiance got into here almost 7 years ago.

There was beirut and vodka melons. Aah to be young again.

Mike enjoyed Peronis all night and I stuck to a pretty good chianti that this fine barkeep poured for us. 

Yes, his shirt does indeed say "Shipfaced." Oh heavens, sorry Mom.

He's so handsome I could just scream.

We, of course had an absolutely wonderful time, enjoying each other, enjoying the atmosphere, and just being.  We ended up making friends with a brother and a sister from South Carolina that just moved to Rome a couple of weeks ago.  Both came from a nice family, went to good schools, and had fine jobs.  They decided to just totally screw it, so they packed up their bags and bought one-way tickets to Rome.  They are looking for jobs and don’t know where they’ll live after their apartment lease runs out in a few weeks, but they are so happy to just be grabbing life by its balls.  Pardon my French, there is just no more accurate way to descibe their vivacity.  Mike and I are firmly committed to maintaining our joie de vivre, and these two were totally kindred spirits with us.  Anyway, we had so much fun talking and laughing with them about everything- college, America, Italy, expectations, marriage, that we ended up having three pre-dinner drinks (!) and spending a couple of hours at thr bar.  It was so incredibly much fun.

It was so hot that even I was sweating.

Yes,.I am aware that my brassiere is showing. I have yet to find the right bra for my lovvaa dress.

We really didn’t want to leave, but it was almost 11:00 and we really had to eat!  So we exchanged info with our new friends, and headed to La Carbonara for dinner, just a few doors down on the piazza.  The restaurant was almost closing, so there were few people eating on the patio.  It was totally surreal to have this quiet restaurant patio with amazing food, yet the buzzing energy of the piazza just a few feet away.  Plus the love of my life across the table- heaven!

BFFAEAE

I love any restaurant with an artistic menu cover.

We had the house red to drink, which wasn’t very good, but who cares.  By that point Anna was a little tips, so I was more excited about the food anyway! 

Every other night on the trip we just had a glass or two of wine, so this night was wild and crazy.

Then came the pane!!! Lordy I ate most of this and it was to-die-for.  I consumed more bread than anything else on this trip and loved every second of it.  Seriously, I honestly feel bad for people that avoid the bread basket at restaurants because of carbs.  Bread is one of the greatest joys in my life, and I let myself eat as much as I wanted  on this tip and didn’t feel the least bit guilty.  It was always so fresh, with a crumbly crust and soft chewy inside.  And the foccacia!  Chewy and resiliant with the flavor of olive oil. 

Do they have a Carbs Anonymous?

I will think of the focaccia every time I have it back in the states. Nothing will ever compare.

We shared the verdure antipasti (vegetable antipasta), which had some incrediblyflavorful grilled and roasted veggies, a lovely farro salad, and a piece of an omelette. 

Sorry for the cruddy pic.

I stuck primarily to bread and cooked vegetables for most of the trip, but knew I had to have pasta at least once, and I did it totally right on this night:  gnocchi with black truffles. 

I think I hear an Alleluia chorus.

I could not imagine a more perfect dish for me.  Gnocchi is my very very favorite kind of pasta and the subtelty of the truffles was a perfect completement to the starchy potato dumplings.  They were plump, chewy little darlings cooked perfectly al dente. 

Biting into each one was such a wonderful experience. Viva l'italia!

We concluded the night with a final drink (which we probably didn’t need) at Sloppy Sam’s another one of Mike’s favorite hangouts.  We didn’t get home until like 1:15 but it was totally worth staying up late. 

Drool

I think Mike has grown so accustomed to my silly hands-on-hip pose that he thinks he's supposed to do it too. I hope he doesn't do this at the wedding.

Beautiful architecture and weather, interesting and celebratory atmosphere, delicious food, plenty of wine, the perfect dress, and my fiance?  Definitely one of the best nights of my life.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading about Italy!  I will definitely be continuing to discuss the trip, but am more than ready to get back to daily eats, so I will be incorporating Italy reflections among regular posts.  Hope your weekends are going well!!  xoxo

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