Highlights

...from our first holiday season in Rome...

Many small streets populated with pedestrian shoppers are lit for the season. It does make for a kind of magical feeling.

The days are short on light, but still mostly sunny...

Piazza Navona was once known for its creche market, but it is now the site of a few vendors' stalls and an otherwise fair-like atmosphere, complete with a carousel.

The ever-present chestnut roasting stands offer up this treat that we have to import in the Eastern U.S., since we have no indigenous chestnut trees (well, that last to maturity) anymore.  Some dedicated people are working on this though.

I love these things, but they do suck all of the moisture right out of your mouth...

...some work has come to an end....

For Thanksgiving, I joined the students I taught here during Fall term.  They made a LOT of pie.

...new-for-me, old for here, visions of seasonal developments...

The installment of a large menorah on Piazza Barberini

Near the U. S. Embassy complex is a street lined with orange trees.  They are heavy with fruit right now.

...holiday food adventures...

A friend said:  join us for brunch at a place in your neighborhood.  They have pancakes.
I will not lie:  I was ecstatic for this.  And I was right to be - even with bacon that is not, as the English would say, 'streaky.' 

So I thought I'd try my hand at baking my first loaf of bread here. 

You remember that episode of I Love Lucy where she and Ethel bake overly yeasted bread? My loaf got so big in my little European 'Barbie Dream Oven' (it's not called that, but if you saw it, you'd understand why I call it that) that I thought I was going to have a similar incident.

My first Italian rustic loaf turned out pretty well, even if it was approximately the size of an infant. I put 2/3 of it in the freezer.

...Romans have tightened their belts and yet, still have expressed warm generosity.

On the blunt end of the otherwise paper-clip-shaped Piazza Navona is one of the many museums of the city of Rome.
And look what they brought me for Christmas:  an Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition. 

I cannot describe my joy at being able to see the painting that is visible through the far doorway.  Painted when the artist was very young, it was long misattributed to her father, who was also a painter (and who was her principle teacher). Here it is in its full glory. 

Heard (and seen) from my apartment kitchen on Christmas eve, carolers in the streets of Rome.

And from my Italian teacher - with whom I've bonded on the topic of baking - I received a 'pet.'  He gifted me with a piece of his own lievito madre ('mother leavener')- a yeasty bread starter that I have to feed with a high protein flour and water every 3 or 4 days.   In many instances,  a singular lievito madre may be nurtured for years.  Some are 100 years or older. Given the season and our present location, 'Maria' seems like a fine name for my new pet. Here she sits, having been fed and watered, waiting the requisite hour before returning to live in the fridge until another 3 or 4 days pass and she gets another 'meal'.  For now, her house is a Nutella jar.  Yay for jar savers!

...family visited....

The Spouse and his mother, walking through the interior of St. Peter's Basilica.

This was their view.

And here is a view of the church and its piazza.

For my mother-in-law's birthday, we took her to a restaurant in the Testaccio neighborhood.  Testaccio has a sizable hill that is made entirely of broken pottery fragments from the ancient era.  This restaurant is built into the side of that hill, and has handily provided a way to see a cross-section of the pottery.

So maybe they're artfully arranged...

If I'd thought about getting a closer shot, I would have filed this twice - once under 'family' and once under 'food adventures.'  I baked the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted (all recipes - for cake, ganache and frosting - from this baker and her fabulous book <just scroll down the webpage I previously linked>), and after layering on a ganache first, I topped it with a true buttercream (the kind that does not contain confectioner's sugar) and gave it ganache 'kisses.'
I've been thinking about coming up with reasons to make another one...and I don't even really like chocolate cake.
Wow, it was good.

A late afternoon Christmas day view from the rooftop of Hotel Minerva, where we had a spectacular lunch. That's the Pantheon roof on the far right.

And on the last day of the year:

The best sunset over the Tiber river.

Dear readers, I wish you beautiful sunsets in 2017, and with them, a sense of satisfaction over days well lived.  That is my only intent for the coming year:  to seek out good experiences and to try to remember to enjoy them.  The palpable, lingering melancholy related to my previous entry spurs me onward.  Life feels pretty precious.