Olive Oil Tasting at the Pantheon Institute!

The last extra-curricular activity that we organized for the Spring2011 students at the Pantheon Institute was an extra-virgin olive oil tasting.

We contacted a real expert in the field, Mr. Luca Mattioli, who came to the Pantheon office on Thursday afternoon to teach the students how to taste olive oil and how to distinguish a good product from a bad one.

Mr. Mattioli started his lesson with a little general information about olive oil: he said that “like wine, virgin olive oil has distinct flavors and signs of the territory of origin. Italy, having its head in central Europe, its feet in the Mediterranean and its belly somewhere in between, is blessed with a varied climate. Volcanic rock, marine salt, truffles and mushrooms, herbs and spices, fruit and vegetables, all join in with the help of father Sun to create the many different flavors of olive oils”.

This is why it is essential to discover how to taste the differences between olive oils and how to recognize their main qualities (i.e. sweetness, fruitiness, smoothness, softness…) and their main defects (i.e. rancidity, weakness, dryness…).

As for wines, also the tasting of extra-virgin olive oils entails the use of three of our sensory systems: vision, olfaction and taste.

Obviously, as Mr. Mattioli explained, the mouth tasting is the “classical and most complete method to value an olive oil and finally draw a conclusion after the visual and flavor tests”. The olive oil sommelier also gave our students some suggestions on how to match olive oils that are produced in different regions of Italy with the appropriate food.

We hope that our students enjoyed this experience and we will certainly organize this interesting activity again in the future!

Girls Soccer Match

This week, and for the first time since I started working at the Pantheon Institute, I had the pleasure to organize a soccer match for girls only! As a matter of fact, some girls studying here asked me to help them arranging a game before the end of the semester. The match took place on Tuesday night at the “Olimpiclub” fields, in the Viale Marconi area. I met the girls (who came with a couple of boys who watched the game) in front of the bus stop that I had told them to get off at and we walked together to the fields.
Only few of the 11 students who took part in the game had played soccer before, which means that, for most of them, Tuesday’s game was the first ever! In spite of their inexperience, I have to say that the girls were not bad at all! Six people played in each team and the match was engaging and full of goals: the final score was 6-6! Everyone had fun (players and spectators) and I hope we will manage to organize another girls match also during future semesters!

Giochiamo a bowling!

The Pantheon Institute organized a bowling night for the students on Wednesday, March 23rd.

Once the students were done with the Wednesday architectural studio session, they came to the Pantheon office to meet me and we headed together to Piazza San Silvestro to take the bus; we walked along streets full of tourists and Romans going around for shopping. We took bus n.80 and we reached our destination in just 10 minutes: as a matter of fact, we didn’t go to the Brunswick bowling as we did last year with the Spring 2010 students, but we decided to go to a place that is definitely smaller and not as fancy as the Brunswick but that’s absolutely easier to reach…and everyone liked it! This bowling is in Viale Regina Margherita, very close to the university “La Sapienza”.

Once we got there, we met Alessia, the student from Roma Tre who is working as an intern at the Pantheon Institute , and her friend Silvia. So we went inside and, after the students got the bowling shoes, they started playing. Despite being a little discouraged at first, the girls totally rocked the competition so much so that they scored more points than most of the boys! Between a game and another, Americans and Italians had a good chat…using both languages!

This activity was once again a very nice opportunity for our students to have a little conversation, relax for a couple of hours I good company and get to know new areas of Rome!

Campo de' Fiori: a slice of daily life!

The best way to get to know a city is trying to interact with its inhabitants. And the street market is no doubt one of the best places to do so! This is why we decided to organize a tour at the market of Campo de’ Fiori, one of the most famous and ancient of Rome.

As a matter of fact, besides being one of the night spots that young people like the most thanks to its numerous square-side cafés, pubs and bars, Campo de’ Fiori is a slice of daily life, the most genuine portrait of a city that is slowly being swallowed by the fast rhythm and the chaos of our times and that here, instead, seems to go back to its past and traditions.

The Pantheon Institute students demonstrated quite a bit of interest for this initiative: walking with me and Alessia thought the market stands, they had the chance to practice their Italian while buying fresh fruits and vegetables and to interact with local people.

Street markets are full of funny people…here you get to talk to persons that you would hardly meet in other places, so this was really an interesting occasion for our students to immerse themselves into the local Roman culture. And they did so without embarrassment: some of them filled up several plastic bags with fresh fruits and veggies that later coked together with their mates in the Trastevere dorm.

After doing some food shopping, me and Alessia lead the students to the famous “Forno Campo de Fiori”, a true paradise for pizza and desserts lovers. This bakery shop is definitely one of the best of the city center…it was so crowded that we had a hard time to get in!

The students bought some pizza, bread and handmade desserts…and everything was absolutely delicious!

The next step to become familiar with Italian culture will be learning how to prepare some of the most famous recipes of its culinary tradition; this is exactly the reason why we have decide to dedicate the next two weeks to a series of cooking classes that I will be arranging with the students and that will take place either at the dorm in Trastevere or at the students apartments.

Snow...in Rome!

I was only 3 years old when it last snowed in Rome…it was 1985!

I remember that the first thing I did after waking up, was jumping off the bed and running to the window to see if the snow we had so long expected, had arrived. And my astonishment in front of such an unusual show was great, of course!

My mother saw my anxious expression and she immediately dressed me up for the occasion. I remember having a lot of fun playing in the garden with my sister and with all of the other little kids living in my building.

And finally, after such a long time, Rome has turned white again on Friday morning offering its people and the numerous tourists who visit it a breathtaking show.

Obviously, this event has not only brought joy and amazement but also chaos…a lot of chaos!

We Romans are not suitable for dealing with snow at all…Rain is yet a big problem, mostly for cars and scooters that paralyze the city when it rains…drivers just go crazy! Can you imagine what happens with snow?

But all of the discomforts that this uncommon event has caused to the Eternal City won’t make us want to forget such a special day! Not until the next snowfall, at least!