A slice of pizza for Casey

Before we left for Roma our good friend, Casey Jones, requested that I take some pictures of the food for him. There are more food blogs to come, but it seemed particularly appropriate to devote this blog to Casey. After all, he, Robbie, and Bill get together every Friday evening for beer at Tim's Pizza.

The first two pizzas were eaten at Rossopomodoro in Roma. If you haven't tried anchovies on pizzas, they're great. Our Lenten favorite--anchovy and onion.



The next pizza is from Baffetto's in Roma, supposedly the best in town. There are always long lines. Generally, Bill and I end up sharing a table with strangers but that's fun.



The last, and maybe the best pizza, is from Lecce. I love thin crusted pizzas without too much cheese on them. Notice that these mushrooms, unlike the first picture, were fresh and not canned. We did eat more pizza than this, but these were the best pics.



By the way, do you want to know who to invite for the most self-conscious dinner (short of The Last Supper)?--a judge, a psychiatrist, and a English professor. The judge will know if what you did was wrong, the psychiatrist will know what you aren't saying is wrong, and the English professor will know if what you are saying is being said incorrectly. Well, Casey is both a judge (West Fork) and the Fayetteville City Prosecutor, Robbie is a psychiatrist, and Bill, of course, is the English professor. That said, we have fun at our dinner parties!

Buon appetito, Casey!

A slice of sky

This is Santa Maria della Pace, a lovely baroque church not far from our apartment. Originally, this was part of the preceding blog on spectucular lighting conditions. However, when I uploaded it, I realized that I was reminded of an original work of art.

Laura Terry is a professor in the School of Architecture, as well as the School's liason to the Rome Center. She is not an architect but rather an artist who teaches first-year architecture students to draw. She was in Roma for the start of the spring semester. Bill and I had the pleasure to meet her and also Scott Finn, an architect from Auburn, for dinner with Davide.

When not accompanying students on site visits, Laura spent her time working on a series of oil pastels. I've included one of them here for your enjoyment. When you walk through the City Center in Roma, generally all you can see from the narrow vicoli are stuccoed buildings silhouetted against a slice of sky. Laura captured that beautifully, as well as the brilliant shade of blue skies that we enjoyed while in Roma this winter.

Two other bits of information about Laura. She was in Roma for the recent snow storms and got to see snow fall through the oculus of the Pantheon, every design/architecture student's dream. Also, she wore a pedometer while in Roma and walked more than 120 miles during her sojourn! Under blue skies, that's an amazing fete (yes, sadly, the pun is intended). More important, she managed to do so without breaking anything--a downright miracle when you consider that the sanpietrini were covered with ice, slush, and snow for several days.

Spectacular Lighting Conditions

An architect once told me that architecture was about light. I think he really meant that good architecture involves the contrast of light and dark. This blog is a collection of images where the lighting was particularly dramatic. The pictures have not been photoshopped.

Bill took the following picture while crossing the Tiber. His amazing picture of the Castel Sant'Angelo was also taken on this particular evening.

We had spectacular lighting conditions on our first day in Lecce. Here's Bill's photo of the Duomo and its campanile. He used a special filter for sunlight which you can see in the corners of the picture.

The following picture was taken of the Piazza Colonna and the Colonna Antonina in Roma.

More Lecce pictures.

The followling is one of my favorites. This is the castle in Lecce.

The next picture was taken in Roma at the Campidoglio. Actually, the picture doesn't do justice to either the space or the lighting conditions that afternoon, but I've included it because it reminds me of what I saw that day.