Train travel and the perfect gnocchi!

We left Venice today, in the smoke grey dawn fog, sailing on the #1 vaporetto or the slow boat up the Grand Canal. We were having a once-in-a-life-time experience while the people next to us were off to school and work. Strange.

At Santa Luccia Station we tried to board a train to the main station, Mestre. Track 18, we were told. We arrived in subzero winds. Italian shrug. Broken. Inside again; another set of instructions, Out again onto the windswept tracks. After an hour of back and forth, we were on our way to Roma! The landscape over the first two hours was beautiful - blindingly white and untouched. After Florence, the snow began to give way to the rolling green of Italy.

Rome Termini Station. After scaring Ted and Elle into hyper-vigilance re: theft ("Hide everything!" "If someone 'bumps' into you = watch out!" "Hide that iPod!"), we got a taxi to our lovely apartment off Via Flamino, a lovely sixth floor flat two blocks from Piazza de Popolo.

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Our host, the charming Mr. Rene Batard, showed us about explaining the intimate and obscure details of Roman heating and electrical rules. Three different systems. All overlapping. Rene explained: "In Italy, we always have Plan A, Plan B and Plan C."

I knew I felt at home here.....

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We went to local shop to get essentials, which in our family means coffee, garlic, salami, cheese, olives, pasta, and cookies. When we returned it was 5:30 and we were starving. But we knew no Italian restaurant worth eating at would be open for hours, and we were famished from a day of 1/2 a packaged sandwich each. What to do? We decided on Hitchcock's THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and snacks (see how those emergency supplies came in handy?) and watched the movie while it rained, rained, rained in Roma.

Able to stand it no more, by 7:15 we ventured out. Joe commented were were equivalent of the old folks in Florida going for the "Early Bird Special." Too true. We stumbled into Taberna Ripetta while the charming owner was still setting up. She sat us down and handed us a handwritten menu, then proceeded in an enticing manner to describe what she could really make us. We were all beside ourselves. Antipasti - grilled eggplant and peppers, thinly sliced spiced potato, stuffed peppers, stuffed zucchini, sauteed mushrooms, smoked fish, warmed greens. hmmmmmm. Primeri - ravioli stuffed with ricotta, herbs, spinach and the lightest gnocchi in a saffron lemon sauce. Secondi - beef in broth over greens, pasta with a mix of sea creatures. Wine - "fresh, red." Dessert - one lush tirimisu four ways.

I could eat it all again tomorrow...By the way, Joe was right. Half an hour after we began eating, then next entering customers were a young couple taking grandma out for an early dinner.

NOTE: I am having some technical difficulties with loading pictures and the type face color. Sorry!