Chin Up, Moschino
10 days in Rome and I'm still my father's daughter
Ciao, ragazzi! After spending ten days in Rome earlier this month, I’ve basically become a chic Italian woman. I wear tailored linen dresses and sunglasses the size of dinner plates while I drink campari and soda on sun-drenched piazzas, laughing expensively and saying things like buon giorno, dov’è il bagno, mi dia il conto! Being this cultured is an art, not a science.
Nick and I headed to the Eternal City for the Eid holiday, and while we had only planned to be there one week, we got stuck due to Iran’s attack on Israel and the resulting closure of Jordan’s airspace (my paid subscribers heard all about this last week). Let me tell you, amici, I could think of far worse places to be stranded. Rome is freaking magical—said everyone, ever. And they are right. It really, really is. The shimmering fountains! The churches filled with Caravaggios! And don’t even get me started on the people watching. If you’ve never sat in a trattoria and looked on as a lone Italian man wolfs an entire margherita pizza while slowly stripping off layers of clothing until he’s left wearing only an undershirt, pleated pants, and a crucifix, you truly haven’t lived.
But what I was even more thrilled about, if you can believe it, was having extra time to gorge myself on beautiful, beautiful food. Catholicism may be everywhere in Rome, but cooking is the true religion. Our guide at the Borghese described the city as a “lasagna,” and while she was referring to the fact that each era of Roman history is layered directly on top of the ruins of the previous, I took it more literally: the place is a hodgepodge of cheesy, starchy, tomato-y goodness, something delicious to be found in each mouthful. Un cappuccino, per favore, con un cornetto pistacchio. Amatriciana, carbonara, cacio e pepe. Guanciale, salsiccia. Cannoli ricotta. The names are poetry, the flavors a symphony—never too sweet, never too salty, rich and flavorful without sticking to your ribs.
Allora, after a couple days of such world-class eating, Nick and I were ready to move in, and we started strategizing over how he could finagle an assignment to Embassy Rome. It may be easier than it sounds, because rumor has it that Rome is the posting where foreign service officers most frequently curtail their tours. The tour-ending gripes are allegedly many, but to name a few: having to learn Italian (what a ghastly fate for a diplomat) and not being able to find American groceries. This simply does not compute to me. Apparently these people are justifying their early exits by saying something to the effect of, “you told me Italy would have great coffee, yet I can’t find a single Dunkin’ Donuts franchise here.” Bold move to leave la dolce vita when, for all you know, your next tour could be in Somalia, but I suppose there is no accounting for taste. I, on the other hand, was ready to consume everything in Rome, especially the things I couldn’t find in the U.S., because who gives a crap about Kraft Singles or Uncrustables when you could have a luscious bufala or a hot, fresh panino? I couldn’t sympathize with wanting to leave such a heavenly place any sooner than I absolutely had to. I wanted to gobble up as much as I could for as long as possible.
Funny thing was, I’d actually been to Rome once before, and I had no recollection of being so obsessed with food then. That was almost twenty years ago now. I was just thirteen, too young to have any real zest for life, and touring Italy with my parents in sensible Merrell sneakers was a far cry from doing it now, with Nick, in my soft leather loafers (remember, I’m a classy donna). Back then, I was told I “ate like a bird.” I was the kid who never finished her meal, the type to be lectured by stuffy old people about starving children in Africa, as if the smooshed second half of my cheeseburger could somehow get to them. This trip to Rome was a different story. I cleaned every single plate, and I did it with gusto. I slurped piles of spaghetti on outdoor patios, pitying the hot girls on their cobblestone runways and contemplating the tragedy of the low-carb diet that probably enabled those crop tops, all while crudely wiping sauce off my chin. (Ok, maybe I’m not such a classy donna.) I wasn’t there to look good, I was there to eat.
And then there was dessert, which I relished after every meal. My choice of sweet? Gelato. This, I remembered well. Gelato was the only food I had really cared about all those years ago. Twice a day, between tours of ancient ruins and renaissance basilicas, my dad—his thick, dark Sicilian waves matching the setting so perfectly—would say, with a trace of mischief, “I think it’s time for a gelato.”
This being before the days of Yelp and Google Maps, we’d duck into the first place that looked good. But didn’t they all, with their rainbow nectars swirled as elegantly as meringues in the display freezer? If we weren’t stumbling upon the best gelaterias in all of Rome, we never would have known it. They were wonderful to us, their wares refreshing and lush. As I remember it, my mom would pick the lighter, more interesting varieties, like stracciatella, but for my dad and me, it was cioccolato. Always, always chocolate. The best gelato flavor was just one of many things about which we were of one mind.
He’s been gone exactly two years as of Monday. I never cared much for the anniversaries—my dad isn’t going to get any deader than he already is, that fact will never hurt any less than it does now, and grief will creep out of the shadows to stab me in the heart whenever it damn well pleases, unconstrained by such temporal realities. But gelato is real, more tangible than the passage of time, and as Nick and I planned this trip to Rome I was certain I would crumble as soon as I tasted my first one. I was prepared to mourn the fact that I would never again sit side by side with my dad on the steps of an Italian church, cones in hand, and hear him say, “now that’s decadent.” I knew that all I would want would be for him to smile the way he used to at my teenage melodramatics, pulling me into a bear hug with an “oh, moschino”—my pitiful little fly—his voice thick with exaggerated sympathy and the subtlest hint of laughter.
Still, I’d rather cry while eating gelato than have no gelato at all. I am, after all, my father’s daughter. So with the power of the internet in our pockets, Nick and I researched the best places in the city, zigging and zagging through narrow streets to find them. I tried so many flavors: nocciola, fiordilatte, caffè, crema al limone.
But the best one, as always, was a cioccolato. While Nick enjoyed a dainty cup, I scarfed a heaping cone of it—on this trip, I was eating for my dad, too. His ghost was right there, silently following us down Via Giulia, asking me did I remember our last chocolate gelato together, that one in Poschiavo, the best we’d ever had?
Of course I remembered it. I was reliving it with every sacred mouthful. And you know what? I didn’t fall apart. Not the smallest peep, not even once. Because as Nick and I sacked the gelaterias of Rome, I heard my dad’s voice loud and clear: chin up, moschino. There is so much life left for you to devour.
Reader, I’m curious…
What are your strongest food-related memories, from travel or home? Are there any special dishes that make you think of people you love?
In case you missed it:
Two weeks ago, I talked with
about all things Spain, and I’m now longing to sit on a terrace in Valencia all summer, listening to jaleo and munching on some jamón ibérico. Last week, my paid subscribers heard more about how I made the most of getting stuck in Rome.Up next:
Next week, paid subscribers will get a piece about the challenges of living overseas as a “trailing spouse.” I’m having fun with this one by dabbling in autofiction (a totally new form for me) and am excited to share what I come up with! Please upgrade below if you’d like to follow along.
You are divine. I always love reading about your dad. I need to think, or maybe even write, more about the food/past/emotion connection, but in lieu of my own memories, i will tell you that whenever our Sicilian neighbor makes her Sicilian olives for my Sicilian partner, he slow-pokes his way to picking an olive then savors it with his eyes closed and tells me they're just like his grandmother's olives.
I was not expecting, at the start of this essay, to be near tears by the end of it.
And I had no idea that moschino could mean little fly! Italian is so funny! Every word sounds like it's gonna be poetry but then I guess when you translate, it's a language like any other, with beauty and silliness and all the rest.