Frances d emilio biography of albert
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Jet-lagged, I thought: Where can I go nearby to relax and cool off for a couple of hours –something not too “impegnativo” – demanding or involved?
The local library, of course. Still, the two brothers who run the coffee bar around the corner would seemed slightly scandalized whenever I ordered a couple of ciambelle — donuts — to go, and instructed them to skip the cardboard tray and wrapping paper and just place them in a paper bag.
Made on the premises, the donuts at the Fratelli Volpicelli coffee bar are so fragrant, so fresh, often still warm, I couldn’t wait to eat one at home.
In consolation, there is always latte macchiato and a cornetto.
I’m curious: What do you miss from your time living or traveling in Italy?
Half Roman
I had perhaps 20 minutes to spare before dashing off to Palermo’s airport after several days on a reporting assignment.
The “ciambelle” — donuts — dominate the top shelf of pastries at a family-run coffee bar in Rome.
As for storage, life in a place with few or no closets helps pare down possessions to the more essential.
Besides an extra meter or so above my head, what else do I miss when not in Italy?
Freshly baked bread.
Around the corner from my place in Rome is a bakery that sells to hotels and restaurants and residents of the neighborhood who line up outside for their chance to duck inside and contemplate the array of breads on the shelves.
Teens chilled by reading or playing games on their laptops.
I left room for the tray in my under-the-seat bag.
The donut had to travel. “Traveling” cannoli cannot be hastily wrapped and stuffed in some bag. Or “senza sale” – without salt. For her reportage in the Mediterranean area, Frances followed political, economic and social developments in Italy, Turkey, Malta, Albania and Libya.
Her passion for travel, particularly for exploring tiny Mediterranean islands, is reflected in feature writing, both for The Associated Press and freelance for The New York Times.
Her insightful, often humorous perspective on Rome is the basis for her first book, “Hippocrene Insiders’ Guide to Rome.” The book intersperses brief essays, drawn from personal experience, on aspects of the city, including how foreigners – and foreign women – are viewed, with practical advice about how to appreciate Rome’s monuments, piazzas and often-overlooked neighborhood gems.
Another passion is languages, for the insights they provide into the people who speak them.
My condominium was constructed in the early 1950s.)
When friends from the States, particularly New Yorkers, visit me in Rome, they marvel at the height of my ceilings. I experienced a sense of oppression when I moved from THAT place to my current abode in Rome.
A detail of an ornate ceiling in the Doge Palace (Palazzo Ducale) in Venice.
Keen to improve her Polish in honor of her maternal ancestors, Frances studied the language at the intermediate level at university in Krakow. Maybe rye shaped like a ring that resembles a bagel.
Half loaf of fragrant bread from my neighborhood “fornaio,” or bakery
With no preservatives, the bread lasts two, maybe three days in a pantry.
.
Frances D’Emilio is a writer and journalist based in New York and Rome. She has studied French at cultural centers run by the French embassies to Italy and to the Vatican, and Russian at the Institute of Russian Culture and Language in Rome. If there wasn’t space, out went a sweater or pair of pants.
She is a keen and analytical follower of politics in Europe. Frances fluently speaks Italian – almost like a Roman by now but still with indelible traces of her accent from her native New York.
To go to Rome, that is.
The staff looked horrified that I would want already-filled cannoli in the display case, not to enjoy instantly, like customers in the establishment, but instead to be eaten many hours after they were made.
She has chronicled the progress and setbacks of women in Italy, particularly in the workplace and in immigrant communities.