Bit of a departure today. Instead of examining Rome through a historical or architectural lens, I will be looking at it through a cultural one. Anyone who has read my blog has seen that I am pretty consistently exhausted by the end of the day, which I had attributed partially to poor nutrition. But Morgan, you say, your brow furrowing in concerned confusion, you are in a country known for its cuisine. How could you be eating poorly? Thank you for your concern, dear reader, Continue reading and I will explain.
The Problems
The first issue that I faced was that I was regularly missing dinner. Italians tend to eat very late in the day, so most restaurants do not open until 7:30 or later. Beyond the first day, I was always asleep at that time, meaning I never had dinner. When I did eat, it was one of three things: breakfast, pizza, or gelato. While all of these are very good, astute readers will notice that there are a couple major food groups missing. I have not been eating vegetables and my meat consumption was nominal at best. I needed a way to be able to shove these things into my diet, while working around a very busy schedule.
My living situation also posed some problems. Saving food for later is not a real option, because the apartment did not really have access to food storage tools, and cooking is limited to what can be made on the stovetop or in the oven -- very limiting when it comes to reheating leftovers.
The Solution
I asked a friend of a mate about options that I had that were quick, easy to make one portion at a time, and healthy. Cost was not a huge concern, but I was not interested in paying 5 euro per serving. The response I got was encoraging. Pasta, premade sauce like pesto, prepared meat, and whatever veggies I wanted. One trip to the grocerry store later and...
All generic brand, obviously.
This seems like a fairly reasonable solution to me. I put all of this together with some sliced cherry tomatoes and got a very promising result.
I have a confession. I went out to eat tonight, and while I enjoyed the company of some friends, I was not enamored of the dining experience overall. I get the feeling that over the course of this trip, I will be doing a great deal more eating in. It is cheaper and admittedly much less stressful. There was not anything that particularly drew me to it in the first place, anyway, other than the company.
But What About Gelato?
Fear not! I still really like that, and intend to continue eating it. One of the first things Suzy and I did when we got off the bus to Tarquinia at 10:30 am was find a gelato shop.
The breakfast of champions.
Our visit to Tarquinia was incredibly enjoyable afterwards. After lunch, I got chocolate gelato. It was nice, but the place we went to was not great. Our servings were definitely smaller than the one that we had found in the morning.
Stay Tuned
Tomorrow, I will lay some philosophy on ya'll with regards to the passage of time. Have a good night.
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