Vita è Bella!

Ho fame

I'm currently feeling intense pangs of hunger, which could be due to the fact that my breakfast consisted of some crackers with jam and a glass of red orange juice at 7:30 this morning. So in light of this hunger, I've decided to dedicate this post to the fabulous food I get to consume here every week!

Now then, the breakfast I described just now is fairly typical for me. We always keep whole wheat crackers, a bag of cookies, Nuttella, and jam in our room, all of which prove to be delectable between-meal sustenance. Our room seems to be a popular hangout, and we constantly share these delights with our visitors. But the most prized of all these snacks is, without a doubt, our peanut butter. I can't even tell you how odd life seems without peanut butter, particularly because, as a vegetarian, it's been my greatest source of protein for the past year and a half. I love peanut butter!! In a spurt of uncharacteristically good planning (with all credit falling upon my sister and mother, who took good care of me during the whole packing procedure), I packed a jar to keep in the room here. I figured one jar would suffice for me over the course of a few months, if I rationed properly. Unfortunately, I didn't factor in the amount of people who would discover the aforementioned jar and wander into the room in need of some peanut buttery goodness... so at this point, just more than three weeks into my stay here in Italy, I'm down to about a third of a jar. This is a desperate situation! I'm not sure what will happen from here on out. Fortunately, practically every other girl on the program has friends or family visiting from the States at some point, and they've all promised to bring a fresh supply for us. Until then, the jar remains safely guarded above my bed, and we're trying to limit our consumption as much as possible.

Moving on from snack foods... Our program has worked out a deal with a local sandwich bar called Pascucci's, and it's already one of my favorite places to go. We get a little packet of money tickets every week that serve as our stipend money, and usually go there at least once a day (except Sundays, when Pascucci's is closed). For breakfast, they make fabulous cornetti, which are little croissants and pastries, some filled with chocolate, some filled with jam/berries, some filled with creme, and some plain. When served warm and gooey, they're completely heavenly. They also make fresh fruit salads, which are personal favorites of mine. You actually watch them chop up the fruits into a little bowl, with a freshly chopped banana, blueberries, and whipped cream on top. SO good! Most people get a cappuccino, coffee, or espresso as well. I never do, because I don't like coffee. Apparently I'm missing out, but no matter. For lunch and dinner, Pascucci's makes a variety of different sandwiches and pizzettas, which are kept in a glass display just beneath the counter. You pick out a sandwich, and they put it on a grill to heat it up for you. I usually get sandwhiches with tomatoes or spinach and mozzerella, and I never seem to grow sick of them. It's difficult to explain just why they're so good... but they are. And to top this all off, Pascucci's is known for its frullato's, which are really light smoothies made with fresh fruit. They put the fruit into its own blender, and blend it for several minutes until it achieves an exquisite state of perfection--smooth, almost frothy, not too thick and not too icy... mmm. As far as I'm concerned, frullato's taste like pure happiness. :-)

Most girls end up at Pascucci's at least one to three times per day. The food is fabulous, the workers are incredibly friendly and helpful, and it's a nice place to run into some other girls from the program and just hang out and grab a snack. Plus, it's positioned between our classroom building and our hotel, so we walk past it a lot. I firmly believe that every visitor to Rome should visit at least once for a pizzetta, a frullato, and a Happy Hippo.

Now then, I know I've mentioned these before, but I feel the need to devote an entire paragraph to the joy that is a Happy Hippo. Where do I even start? Happy Hippos, of course, look like little hippos. The outside is merely a hippo-shaped wafer, with little hippo eyes and a mouth painted on top. The bottom is covered with a layer of white chocolate and little white sprinkle things that don't seem to have much of a flavor, but they tend to fall off the little guy with each bite you take, almost looking like snowflakes. I've yet to understand the purpose of the sprinkles, but no matter. The inside of the hippo is what makes it so glorious! The inside consists of one bottom layer of chocolatey/hazelnutty cream, with a layer of white chocolatey cream on top of that. The inside isn't quite as firm as the inside of a Reese's peanut butter cup, but it's not light like frosting... it's almost like a truffle. But it tastes like heaven! I love them soooo much, and plan to bring as many back to America as I can fit into my suitcase. I'm dead serious. Apparently they have Happy Hippo McFlurries at the local Pantheon McDonald's, but I've yet to try one. I'll let you know when I do!

Monday through Friday, as I've mentioned, we get to have one meal at the Hotel. These meals are different everyday, though Thursday night is always pizza night, and Friday they usually serve some type of fish, simply because we're in Rome and that seems appropriate. The two people that serve us every day are named Valentina and Giorgio, and they are hilarious! Before we go in, they usually play American hip hop in the background, and you can usually hear Valentina singing along to the likes of, "Promiscuous Girl." Sometimes, you can even catch a glimpse of her dancing! I enjoy talking with them, and they know me already thanks to my vegetarianism. (There's one other vegetarian here, and they always have a special plate out for us.) It's frustrating that I can't communicate with them more thoroughly, though. One of the days last week, Valentina told me she wasn't feeling very well. Unsure of how to say, "I hope you feel better," in Italian, I began to sputter any random phrases that seemed close to what I was trying to say. The result came out like this: "Ti, ah.... sento bene? Non lo so! Sento bene, ah... dang it." That translation is, in English, "I, ah... feel you good? I don't know! Feel oneself good..." The bewildered look on her face was priceless. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled apologetically, then ran down to our RA to figure out how to correct my blunders. She told me the proper thing to say, and I hurried back over to tell Valentina. She said, "Ohhh! Grazie!!" and started laughing. She and Giorgio seemed amused by the whole thing.

The food itself is wonderful. They give us a bowl of soup or pasta, which is always my favorite, then a plate with the main course. There's usually meat (or for Jenn and I, slabs of various types of cheese or an omelet), potatoes (ALWAYS amazing) and veggies. The broccoli here looks very different from broccoli back home, but I like it. There are always fresh loaves of bread out, and sometimes they have a salad station set up, with fresh lettuce, tomato, corn, carrots, and cucumbers. Sometimes they make us a dessert, the best of which was tiramisu!!!!, or else we get to choose from several flavors of gelato. There are always pitchers or bottles of water awaiting us, and there's a little place to get hot tea, coffee, or milk. (Which leads me to another thing I miss, by the way... cold milk. We can't seem to find any here! It's odd. But warm milk is great too.) Mealtime at the Hotel is one of the highlights of my day. We all eat together, and just sit and talk and take our time and enjoy the food. I love it! I always leave feeling so full, but so content.

I haven't even gotten to the food I've had at other places here! I'm sure you can imagine how good it is though. Everywhere you turn, there's a pizzeria or a little sit-down pasta restaurant, or a gelateria or a sweets store (with piles of sweets and pastries just calling out to you from the windown displays! They're quite difficult to resist). I'll do a separate post on gelato sometime, but for now, I'm starting to think it was a bad idea to write this while hungry, because I'm starving!!

Time for Pascucci's. :-) Talk to you all soon!

P.S. Gigi, are you out there? Haven't heard a comment from you yet. ;-)

posted by Sarah @ 11:48 AM