Peter Sellars came to eat at the Academy with the cast and crew of his opera, Kafka Fragments.
He was so surprised by the awesome atmosphere that the RSFP brought to the AAR that he invited the interns to the last performance of the opera. We went and it was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it, very special. Soprano Dawn Upshaw and violinist Geoff Nuttal make an incredible duo. Bravo.
Giovanni Bernabei is kind of becoming an Italian farmer/celebrity.
He is the RSFP’s closest ally, an eccentric farmer with a simple and bold manifesto. In addition to farming, he is making a name for himself on Italy’s Rai Television News network as a special daily guest, discussing farming and growing Italy’s staple food items. I’ll get back to this. His manifesto, which he sometimes hangs at his table at farmers markets and which hangs in the American Academy’s bar, is as follows:
Dear Consumer, All the produce displayed at my stall is made by the person who sells it. The produce is ALL cultivated in the open, under the sun and frost, without any chemical products according tot he method of Organic agriculture, certified since 1995 by the Bioagricoop.
My name is Giovanni Bernabei. Ever since 1983, I made a pact with myself to touch no longer with my hands any fodder, fertilizer or any chemical products whatsoever. So long as I have the strength to raise a HOE, I will labor for those who believe in me and appreciate my produce. Hippocrates “Let FOOD be your first medicine.”
An assortment of OFFICINAL greens among which: sorrel, yarrow, yellowrocket, borage, sow thistle, chicory, crepide, berberry, dandelion, hedge-mustard, wild fennel, hawkbit, mallow, sweet clover, josierola, plantain, dock, corn poppy seed, mustard. Everything in season. PS Drink the water used for cooking.
The DECALOGUE of the good ORGANIC
- Organic food will never be beautiful like non-organic food.
- It might even be beautiful, but with hidden defects.
- It must never make one feel nauseous, have strange tastes, etc.
- It must have a “flavorless” flavor, be WHAT IT IS.
- It must not stink during cooking, but smell good.
- It must never fill you up or be difficult ot digest.
- If you have reflux, it is not good organic.
- It must have few nitrites, which are responsible for illnesses.
- It must have little water and be endowed with many vitamins.
- Good organic prodcuts never look exactly one like the other.
- PS Procure if you can, an organic agricultural diet from a producer, insuring that the producer is at least a “HOMO Sapiens.”
From Personal experience, Giovanni Bernabei
Whoa, right?
Giovanni’s farm is wild. There are plants and weeds growing together randomly everywhere. He practices a form of permaculture which I have never seen before, not that I have been to many farms or know very much about farming. But, it’s not what you would expect. Giovanni lets his plants grow to full maturity, lets the seed and then lets them die or chops them down and tills them right back into the soil. This explains why there are volunteer plants growing among all his other plants. It also explains why there are often little random bits of other veggies mixed in with the stuff he delivers to us.
He showed us his cardoons, about 25 plants (4 grueling cases the following week), 6 or 7 types of broccoli, cavolo nero (kale), fennel, garlic fields and other fields that he had just tilled. He also would stop every so often and pick a small plant from the ground and say, “this plant is very healthy, it has the most iron of any plant found in Italy.” He repeated that statement maybe 5 times, each time about a different plant.
Giovanni also has chickens and pigs. He feeds them food that he grows.
Later, after lunch, Giovanni took us up into his apartment near the farm above a pizza restaurant. He eagerly sat us down in front of his new giant flat screen TV, served us some digestives including homemade grapa and Yaegermeister. His wife fumbled with the VCR and put on a recording of him on RAI. It was awesome to see him on such a modern, flashy television show. He was so lively and entertaining. He joked with the host and at one point, even told him to shut his mouth so he could finish.
Giovanni expertly demonstrating how to fold….
…and how to cut our nettle, ricotta ravioli.
Just the quick and dirty version…
Heat, jetlag, 9-hour days, swollen ankles and espresso shots. That pretty much sums up the first for week for me. It’s my first time working in a kitchen other than the ones in my and my friends’ homes and it’s definitely different. Still fun and delicious, cooking in a commercial, industrial kitchen (8 burners, two pasta boilers, a tilt-skillet, double ovens, piastra, multiple prep stations and a dish-washer) felt pretty intimidating at first.
My new roommates and fellow interns assured me I would be fine. The first night, Lizzy, a seasoned private chef from England living in Switzerland, and I hiked down into Trastevere for dinner together. We chose a nice enough looking place and ordered Pizza con Fiori di Zuca and Tagliata con Insalata di Rugala e Pomodoro. We were both so hungry that either of us probably would have been satisfied by kabob but the pizza and steaks were fine. Definitely couldn’t compare to the next night’s dinner with all the interns and Mona at a Sardinian spot on the Gianicolo called . The meal was simple and delicious. I had fish egg pasta, a taste of scamorza (fried cheese), calamari fritti and contorni. The restaurant is family run and Mona encouraged us to work there on our days and nights off.
When 4 AM rolled around on Monday, the 6th, I wasn’t really nervous or intimidated anymore, just excited in anticipation of all the food I was going to get to cook and eat. I love to eat and, having eaten at the Academy for a full week a year ago, I was salivating just remembering the lunches and dinners I had the pleasure stuffing myself with. Just as a quick preface to the week, my only complaint is that I do not have enough self control during staff lunch to keep myself from stuffing myself. It makes everything after 3:00 pretty tough, unless it’s topping and tailing fagiolini (green beans) during which sitting is acceptable. But I’ll get to that.
From 4-6:00 AM I reviewed and re-reviewed my AM Intern responsibilities. At 6 I put on all my cooking gear: undershirt, loose jeans, clogs, chef jacket, backwards Cal hat. I grabbed my extra sharp knives, notebook and camera and headed across the street to the kitchen located in the back of the main American Academy building. My first task, taking inventory. At times tedious, taking inventory is often confusing, but interesting, education and necessary. It seems to be one of the ways Mona and Chris come up with the daily lunch menus. Other morning tasks include filling salt containers, bowls with yogurt, and bowls with grana, slicing meat for panini, peeling and cleaning onions and garlic, lighting burners and picking up most of the deliveries that come in. That last part is actually pretty cool, especially when the deliverer is Giovanni Bernebei, the farmer outside Roman city limits from whom the RSFP receives huge crates of food each week.
I have only worked the lunch shift so far and have helped to prepare so many delicious dishes. Whenever anyone is making something I want to learn how to make I’ll watch. I’ll list a few things I’ve prepared and have watched others prepare:
I wash and tear a lot of greens and I’d like to think I’m getting pretty good at it. By tearing I mean making bit size pieces of lettuce. I also really enjoy using the meat slicer; I like to see how thin I can slice prosciutto. Getting thinner.
A few words of warning: I love it here and I may never leave.
Stay tuned for infrequent updates and maybe even a recipe or two!
Well it felt like it anyways. Someone told us about this place that kind of looks like someone’s house or basement but people are always eating there. We found it. It’s right at the bottom of some steps in Trastevere and can be found here (this link will be coming as soon as i find where it is). There are four tables, a stove and unlimited Beatles tunes.
We sat down and the food started coming. We found out later the meal is pretty much fixed except for pasta and main. It started with a puree of squash, fagiolini (beans), and bruschetta. And wine – all you can drink. Next we chose pasta: I had the carbonara (bacon, creme and eggs). For secondi I had a chicken dish that had been simmering in a pot behind us. It was very tender and was cooked in some kind of vinaigrette concoction. Yummy. Dolci consisted of chocolates and cookies followed by limoncello and grappa. I’m not sure I would go back here but it is definitely a fun experience and its all you can drink and it only costs 25 Euro per person. Worth a look at least.
