Usually I write first about what we saw and did but today I will just cut to the chase and talk about the food. This amazing flower is an artichoke, Jewish style. It is deep fried and opened like a flower. You eat every crunchy leaf, like artichoke potato chips, right down to the delectable heart, the hairy parts are mysteriously not there. We ate this at a great restaurant in the Jewish Ghetto, Trattoria da Giggetto. Also had pasta with portobello (it's mushroom season) and tripe roman style with a hint of mint.
Before this, we spent hours wandering around the Forum getting dehydrated and culturally clobbered. Arches and columns and temples, all strewn along the Via Sacra, where conquering heroes paraded in glory. Afterwards we jumped on a bus, ANY bus and that's how we found ourselves in the Jewish Ghetto. Rome is a whirlwind of ruins and monuments and crazy decadent art produced for supposedly religious folks like these centaurs at Galleria Spada.
