Make reservations. Andrew Zimmern and David Kuller recommended the restaurant Roscioli. Andrew wrote “you’d be hard-pressed to find a better griciathan than at Roscioli.” Honestly, I had to look up “griciathan.” Turns out it’s pasta with three ingredients: Guanciale (pork cheek), pepper and Pecorino Romano cheese, and that appealed to me. So we went downstairs […]

This was the unexpected highlight of our trip. We came for last night’s concert, but going to the birthplace of Quinto Mancini? WOW! So according to Wikipedia, Scanno is a town on a lake, southeast of L’Aquila, but with a higher elevation, as a matter of fact it snowed there last night, and not just […]

We’re here for a hundredth birthday concert for Henry Mancini. L’Aquila is somewhere between one and two hours from Rome, depending on the traffic. It’s in the Apennine mountains. (You remember them from elementary school, right? Well, I remembered they were in Italy, but I couldn’t have picked them out on a map, nor did […]

If you like Carbonara get the traditional type made with Guanciale instead of bacon or pancetta. Spaghetti Guanciale Pepper Salt Peppered pecorino cheese egg Yolk (NO CREAM) Created in 1944 Rome Italy Val Garay ___________________________________ The trick of the Trevi: Go early and if you cant, go to the benetton and go upstairs in the […]