Mangiare!

Our fine friends in San Diego sent us off with cold hard cash and explicit instructions to promise to have a great meal on them and then document the splendor. Well, a promise made is a debt unpaid, and besides, we're not above bribery.

For those that don't know we're a colossal pain in the food department... Do not have us over for dinner! I'm (Bill) vegetarian, self-imposed and, in my opinion, self indulgent and Kenzi is gluten intolerant, which isn't her choice.

She's intolerant, like can't have the stuff or bad things happen, been DNA tested, and I've been a first hand observer of the reactions she has when she gets gluten. Even with all this, she still very apologetically says to wait staff "I'm gluten free" rather than "I'm gluten intolerant". The difference being that the former sounds like a choice and the latter a genuine health issue. Anyway, I digress.

On to the main event.

So, we really wanted to experience Italian food and that meant finding a place that would serve up the staples of the Italian diet with out the usual helping of gluten. This turned out to be easier than we expected; steering clear of gluten has been getting easier and in our experience, Europe is no exception. Kenzi did the research and we found a great place, Voglio di Pizza, which is inherently Italian, in fact what I though was just a plain cheese pizza, the Margherita, is actually a pizza with the colors of the Italian flag, white cheese, green basil, and red sauce. So now you know.

Cute Fridge in our Rome Airbnb

OK, before we get started, I figured I'd add that this is normally where our food comes from. In order to afford a year of traveling we have dined in or packed out every single meal since we arrived in Rome. This works well for us, neither of us are foodies, we can't tell whether or not the sous chef clarified the butter. However, we still like a good meal and appreciate our friends buying us one. I also wanted to show you how cute our fridge was, looking like it's out of the 50s right?

Our normal place of eating

And here is where we normally eat. Pretty nice, balcony right there, kitchen even has a miniature dishwasher.

Finally the dinner out big event: we kicked it off with bruschetta, bread slices with tomatoes, basil and a few other spices on top. Normally not an option for Kenzi but this restaurant takes good care of us, so here it is:

Bruschetta, bread, tomatoes and spices.

Bruschetta bread is usually toasted and piled high with tomato pieces. This makes for awkward eating but we managed, perhaps that managing was made easier by:

Monte Chianti!

The wine was great! They actually put the year on the bottle, and it's not the current year! You know it's got to be good! All kidding aside, it was the house wine and it was great.

Next up, primo or first course, traditionally a pasta and also a recommendation from a friend, Cacio e Pepe:

Near as I can tell this is spaghetti with pepper and cheese, and lots of creamy sauce. Again, this wouldn't normally be an option for Kenzi. Really yummy!

Pizza! With tons of toppings

Secondo, or second course, we went off the reservation a bit and got a pizza, a really stacked pizza, the Capricciosa Pizza, which included green olives, artichokes, mushrooms, and the coup'd gras, an egg! I'd seen the egg in France before, they call it the "royal" and usually they don't break the yolk so you get a bit of a messy yolk but in this case it appears as if they lightly scramble it before baking so it was pretty much cooked egg on top of the pizza and it was really yummy. Traditionally this pizza comes with prosciutto and sausage as well but as I mentioned, I'm a self indulgent vegetarian and so no meat on this pizza. For whatever reason the GF pizza in Italy, even the frozen pizza at the supermarket, is far superior to what we have in the US.

Ok, for now a little wine break. Lets talk about how the Italians ruled the known world 2000 years ago and how their attitude now appears to be that life is too short for dealing with such trivial things like managing the masses, instead they'll concentrate on all the good things in life: love, food, sexy cars, good lifestyle, gelato, and evidently cheese cake:

Finally, cheesecake

The final course of our wonderful dinner, gluten free cheesecake! Fantastic. Not too heavy or sweet, and probably more of a Greek invention than Italian but whatever, we're not in the business of taking sides, just taking the best from wherever and putting it together.

Even with splitting everything we got we were totally full when we rolled home happy and well fed. Thanks Heather, Tyler, Lindsay, Matt, Lisa, Jake, Beth, Justin, Kristi and Wyatt!

And the best news is that we have enough left over to get dine out again. My what great friends we have!

Buon appetito!