Rome, at Home
Of late, I’ve become a vegetarian. Beans (especially cannellini), cheeses (you name it), nuts (roasted almonds lightly salted), and lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. I love preparing and eating them tapas style, as small dishes, when I dine alone as I do these days while Kit is resident at the Lodge. Broccolini, carrots (especially rainbow colored), cauliflower (white, purple and yellow varieties), skinny asparagus now in season, artichokes and cabbage. In lieu of beef, pork or chicken, I substitute mushrooms (white or brown button, cremini, portobello, porcini, shiitakes, oyster, and recently Pleurot du Panicault (King Trumpet mushrooms that I recently found in a market in Grass Valley).
While searching for mushroom recipes on May 30, 2024, I pulled my dear friend Suzanne Dunaway’s cookbook Rome at Home off the shelf. Opening it, I could hear her voice as I turned the pages and fell in love with Rome again through her words and gorgeous illustrations. Tucked between the pages of her Funghi Porcini Arrosti (Sautéed Porcini Mushrooms) recipe was a letter she emailed to me on this very date twenty years ago—soon after she and her husband Don had relocated from Los Angeles to Rome.
First I read Suzanne’s mushroom recipe, written in one long breath: “Eight fresh porcini with stems or any other large, meaty mushroom such as portobello make a meal when brushed with ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, and salt, then cooked caps stem-side-down over medium heat for about 3 minutes before turning them a couple more minutes with a five-pound weight on a plate until nicely browned. Serve with parsley and lemon slices.”
Then I read her email, and like magic, I travel back twenty years to May 30, 2004, and spend one day with Suzanne in Rome.
“Dear Chloe,
“Here is one day. Don and I are about to go off to a chorale led by Allesandro Quarta who we met whilst sitting in on his rehearsal of a chorale at the little church of Santa Barbara below our apartment in Rome. The voices were lovely and pure and this is, no doubt, part of the special open cortile palazzi tours which are offered this week to the public. Chorale at six, drink at seven (and then some), and off to an Italian film, La Spettatrice, which I will follow and hope to catch new words for my second language. Will work on a third and fourth as France and Spain enter our lives along the way.
“Our fridge is full of goodness: prosciutto di Parma, memorable melon with dark orange flesh and honey sweet small green peppers called frigitelle which I sauté in olive oil until crisp on the outside and serve only with lemon.
“This morning I went out on my regular shopping and met three different groups of tourists, Americans and one English or German-or Dutch group, to whom I gave my bookmarks, encouraging them to cook from Rome, at Home. I might sell some of my cookbooks this way. All appeared thrilled to find a book that tells them what to do with all they have bought. At Campo de Fiori, a cook simply cannot resist the artichokes, agretti (called beards of the priests)—little green shoots that grow in the ditches near the artichoke fields), the huge long lustrous peppers from Sicily, the tiny, tough-skinned tomatoes from Pachino often found on pizza during their season, and the delectable thin lamb chops used for my recipe abbacchino alla Scottadito in Rome, at Home.”
“Weather perfect, as usual. What luck we have with Rome’s temperate skies, but then again, we have not endured a winter as of yet. Do we want to? Who knows? Somehow the idea of socking into a cozy apartment with good books and good wintry soups and stews and a bottle of Tignanello for the wild game evenings sounds all too tempting, especially to me, a California winter wimp. How spoiled we are with our perfect days at home.”
Fast forward to May 30, 2024. I share the 20-year-old email with Suzanne and our epistolary conversation continues as if it were yesterday. I write—
“Dear Suzanne,
“As always when I read your letters, cookbooks and food blogs, I feel like I’m in your kitchen cooking with you. Yesterday, as I read your 2004 email tucked safely away in your cookbook published that same year, I found myself spending a delicious day with you walking around Rome. Now I am perusing my copy of Rome, at Home to see what recipes you included with mushrooms—my source of meatless protein these days.”
Suzanne immediately emails me from her kitchen in Rome—
“Oh, you dear friend. Yes, MUSHROOMS and pois chiches (chickpeas) for protein. I simmer sweet onions, mushrooms, garlic in olive oil, add chicken or vegetable broth, squeeze in a lemon and stir in a bit of cognac and a teaspoon of butter and whiz it all in the blender. It’s our favorite mushroom thing. Or if you can get big portobello or porcini fresh, flatten them in olive oil until crispy around the edges, put in a little garlic and a little vino. I like them nude, sauteed and crisp on the edges. We should be neighbors…what fun! xxxxxxx Suzanne”
“Ci sentiamo,” I write back, wanting our conversations to go on forever. “Let us hear one another soon.”