ROME 22/06 – Day 17: SPLAT!

In Rome the sun rose at 5:32 and it will set at 20:51.  The Ave Maria is to be rung at 21:15 for the Curia and 21:21 for the rest of Rome. Today is the Feast of Santi Marco e Marcelliano, who were Roman martyrs in the 4th c.  Their bodies are in San Nicola in Carcere, where I served as a seminarian and was ordained a deacon.

I was in the neighborhood where guys play chess in the afternoon.  No, I still haven’t stopped to play yet.  They set up outside a bar which has a large and shady fig tree.  Thus, the place is called the Pizza der Fico.  As I was watching a game, I caught odd, vertical movement out of the corner of my eye followed by a distinct *splat*.

Ripe figs were falling off the tree about every minute or so.   All around us and among us.

I did not, as the Lord did, curse the fig tree, since it is clearly doing its job.  I did, however, back out from under it.

You would need to wash up after getting fig-splatted.  So…. remember the wonderful Dominican Soap Sisters in Summit!

And, please, if you are shopping online with Amazon, use my links to enter. Thanks in advance. It really helps me out.  US HERE – UK HERE  I haven’t been mentioning often these days some of the groups I really like to help out, the monks at Norcia and Le Barroux, etc.  And the earnings this month from the Amazon affiliate have been way down. Thank you if you are remembering without prompting.  I’d rather not have to mention it at all.

Also, for those of you who contributed to my Rome Sojourn for June, I have been regularly saying Holy Mass for your intention as special benefactors.  I also have the intention at the altar of all you who are so kind as to donate and pray for me.

A member of the chess club had planted the fig.  I find it charming that these guys went to the effort to put a plaque up, even such a humble one, perhaps homemade by a member.   I hope they pray for him too.  Perhaps in your goodness you would right now.

When I go into the churches here in Rome and see the funerary monuments and inscriptions, I often pray for the person.   Sometimes there are specific requests. Yesterday we saw one in the inscription at the Ponte Sisto.  Here is one that talks directly to you, as they sometimes do…  The angle was a little hard.

A D G
LECTOR SISTE
NEC VIVVS NEC MORTVVS
HIC HAEREO HIC MOEREO
FILIO ERAM DESTITVTVS
CONIVGEM AMISERAM
HIC
FILIO REDDOR
ET A CONIVGE NON SEIVNGOR
ET DVM
MORTVOS SPECTANS
MORTEM EXPECTO
PRAE TIMORE LAPIS
HVNC LAPIDEM ERIGO
NEC SENSV CAREO
NAM ET IPSI LAPIDES
SVAS LACRYMAS HABENT
GABRIEL PRATVS ASTENSIS

SAECVLO XVI
POST MORTEM REGIS VITAE

To the glory of God.
O, reader, stop! / Neither alive nor dead / Here I am stuck, here I grieve / I had been left by my son / I had lost my wife / Here I am returned to my son / And I am not separated from my wife / And while / Looking at the dead / I await death / like a stone out of fear / I erect this stone / But I’m not without feeling / In fact even these very stones / have their own tears / Gabriel Prato from Asti
In the sixteenth century / after the death of King of life

Speaking of Kings…

In the afternoon I caught part of Round 1 of the Candidates Tournament in Madrid.  The winner will face Magnus.

There was a lot of drama yesterday.  I really felt for poor Ding Liren, who had such a hard road to get into this competition.  He wasn’t at his best and lost to Ian Nepomniachtchi … with white! I don’t really mind when Nakamura loses, as he did to Caruana. I’m pulling a bit for the Hungarian, Richard Rapport, though he is unlikely to emerge on top unless something extraordinary happens.

There was exciting action, of course.  High drama.

Supper involved telline and lupini.

Oil, wine, garlic.  I like to let it simmer for a while to get all that garlicky goodness.

Get the parsley ready for chopping.  There may be traces of a singular Gin and Tonic in this photo.

I soaked and purged the little beasties for about 8 hours, changing the salty water a couple of times.

Put them into the hot pan, cover, wait a little while.

At this point I carefully left them out and into a bowl, leaving the liquid behind in the pan, which I reduce, with just a touch of starchy pasta water.

Telline are smaller than lupini, which are a kind of vongola, though vongole are a little bigger.  They also siphon differently, but that doesn’t matter much once they are in the pan.

Meanwhile, here are a few cool things.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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3 Comments

  1. VForr says:

    Father, yesterday I showed my mom all of your daily Rome posts and she made an observation which led to an inquiry. There are not many people in the photos of the streets that you take. May that be because of the time of day you were taking photos? Have the tourists returned to Rome?

  2. acardnal says:

    I’ve never eaten clams.

  3. PostCatholic says:

    So this being pasta alla telline, what would I properly expect if I asked for pasta alle vongole?

    [Vongole are different critters. They are larger, for one thing. Telline can be pretty small, like your thumbnail. Vongole can be as large as the first joint of your thumb. Telline are “sweeter”. They are also different in respect to how they siphon water. But I have not made a study.]

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