New Year Lentils
A diary from Rome, cooking lentils and feeling better, and eating notes
Hello! My name is Rebecca May Johnson, I am a writer and cook and this is my Substack. Happy New Year! This week’s newsletter is a diary entry about my first few days in Rome on a trip this January, a note on cooking lentils, and eating notes. I am so glad to be back here after a period of exhaustion and illness.
One Morning in Rome
I leave the receipt listing our order and a tip on the counter for the staff making coffee and serving baked goods at Pasticceria Linari. Two pizzette with tomato – no mozzarella. I answered too quickly when the woman asked about cheese, Sam had wanted mozzarella. And a bombolone doughnut. When she hands it to me, I remember I had meant a ciambella. No matter, the lemon cream doughnut is good, sugared skin, a little peel in the soft dough, not too much. I think about how I forgot to pluralise to cappuccino when I asked for two at the payment counter – I had half- hesitated as I said it – then when we sit down Sam says do you make it cappuccini when you ask for two? A little put out, I say yes, I think so but I forgot. Oh well. Very smooth foam on the cappuccini.
In the market while queuing to buy oranges and fennel I feel a warm presence on my left foot. I look down and see Lola the dog sitting on it, or sitting crouching in a way that makes her look a little hunched, sheepish. The warmth is welcome, needed even, and I bend down to pet her. The old couple in front of me are buying enough vegetables to fill a shopping trolley. Lola’s action reminds me of a family dog, long dead, who would sit in your suitcase if he thought you might go somewhere and thereby, leave him.
A circle of men stand around a small black puppy a few yards from the entrance of Fraschetta da Sandro, admiring it and stroking its soft fur. The puppy catches my eye too as I pass by. When I last wrote about a visit to Sandro’s place in January 2020, there was also a group gathered around a small dog outside. When we go in there is a tomato and meat ragu lasagne on the counter that we consider first, but then Sandro brings out a version with mushrooms and artichokes. We chose that to share and a sandwich with soft-cooked broccoli, slices of coppa, and cheese, also to share. Places are set on the formica table with sugar paper, an additional plate, knives and forks, napkins, and glasses for my beer and Sam’s chinotto. The warmed sandwich is brought, cut in half. There is a large and very merry party in the other room to whom more and more trays of food is brought until it begins to be sent back again to be wrapped to take home. A man on the next table plays ringtones from various contemporary pop songs. Another man leans against the wall eating a piece of ham on bread, surveying the room and then walks over to chat to Sandro about recipes. The mushroom artichoke lasagne tastes intensely of mushroom, perhaps some dried porcini added for depth. Two workmen come and sit on the table next to us. One has a courgette frittata and a plate of cooked vegetables and says no to bread and drinks a glass of wine. I didn’t see what his friend had. Then a rush of people come in and are seated and we pay and leave, hearts soaring.
A small fluffy grey tabby cat with a third of its tail remaining and one black eye walks up to the wall that separates the pavement from the riverside. The cat jumps onto the wall, walks a few steps, then springs down out of sight into the thick twenty-foot-tall patch of bamboo that has become so heavy it hangs over the road. On the stretch where we are walking there are several large makeshift dwellings amidst the wilderness of foliage next to the river. We come to a gap in the wall and a black metal gate that, if opened, would allow one to join the cat among the plants and shelters, and to walk to the water’s edge. The other side of the gate, tied to a fence that follows the steps down to the river is a small round frosted Tupperware bowl half filled with clean water. There is a hole drilled in the side and a black shoelace is threaded through it, leading back to the fence, to which it is tied. Water for the short-tailed cat, and for any passing cat.
New Year Lentils
I have not cooked or written much lately due to exhaustion and then a period of illness. But yesterday, newly arrived for a holiday in Rome I picked up Rachel Roddy’s Five Quarters, Recipes and Notes from Kitchen in Rome from a shelf in the flat and read the first half straight through one evening and the next morning. Doing this made me feel better than I had in ages. The book begins with beautiful, self-critical, and often funny memoir about exploring and then moving to Rome and settling on her neighbourhood in 2005, romance with Vincenzo, and then comes the food – curiosity, trying beans and pasta soup, speaking to people, shopping in the market, and the recipes that come out of this living and finding out. So much thinking is embedded in the recipes and the writing around them that the world began to feel potent again and the tips of my fingers tingled with excitement.
I note down
Tonight, I cooked properly for the first time in months. Alone in the kitchen, I sat down and chopped onion, leek garlic, carrot, and celery for Rachel’s lentils. The concentration on the task, seeing things happen and the dish emerge, was very good for me. Connecting my body to language. Not asking for my agency too heavily. Just my attention to the processes before me.
While I chopped, I had a beer and a plate with olives, salami, and crisps to eat, prepared by Sam before he left me alone with the vegetables.
With the lentils, which were the best I have made, and possibly best I have eaten, too, I served a sausage each – fried, bronzed on all sides – and a salad of sliced fennel and orange dressed with olive oil and salt. The lentils were tender but held their form – not mushy – and tasted of themselves.
Eating Notes
Waiting to get the Eurostar, and thinking of my friend Dani who often used to go there when she was a student in London ten or so years ago, before she returned to the US, we went to Le Pain Quotidien in St Pancras International station and had celeriac and apple soup, half an open sandwich with smoked salmon and dill cream, salad, and an orange, carrot and ginger juice. It was exactly what I wanted and there was lots of space for our luggage.
Hot quiche (Emmental, red onion and mustard) and shared two drinks with Sam - half agrume (a fizzy bitter citrus drink) and half fizzy water on the TGV from Paris to Turin. The alps seen through the dining car windows. The pastry was not soggy and was brown on the bottom and the filling was rich and well seasoned. I read Alexander Chee’s book of essays How to Write an Autobiographical Novel and wrote in my journal and looked at the mountains. A very exciting lunch!
When we arrived off the train to Rome it was quite late in the evening. We went to La Torricella, sent there by the owner of Piatto Romano where we had initially intended to have a plate of pasta. But we had not booked and there was not space. La Torricella is owned by the father of Andrea who owns Piatto Romano. It is old fashioned but not sleepy. All stages of life were present: a toddler wandering round exploring, a mid 30s couple having an intense conversation, four white haired friends finishing a meal, a family with teenagers, a group of youngish friends ordering every starter on the menu. We had cuttlefish and artichoke patties served on slices of lemon; a shared portion of tender homemade gnocchi with clams cooked alio, olio, pepperoncino; a dish of ‘rags’ of tuna braised with artichokes and a scant few tomatoes; lentils and puntarelle; cherries on ice for dessert. House pecorino to drink. More photos here.
Can so tell you've had a break. So much love and excitement for what you do in your words. Thanks Rebecca