It’s my first day in Rome. I’m here for a film festival near Rimini, but more on that later. Right now, I just want to talk mozzarella di bufala and San Daniele prosciutto and about that old woman at the open market who cackled when I was unimpressed with her son’s grapes. He was excited to have me try them, but to be honest they weren’t as good as what we get in Cali, so I shrugged to let him know I wasn’t moved. His mother (the old Italian woman) cracked up, then came at me green fig in hand. Put that in your mouth her looks said and so I did. Now, we’re talking. I took five figs and two plums to go with what I had procured from the salumeria and cheese joint on the corner.

Things happen quickly here. I’ve been in town less than twenty hours, and I’ve already got an offer from a Bangladeshi juice vendor to write poetry together and get rich. He spotted me in the open market and called out “filosofo” (philosopher). Then called me “Tolstoy” for good measure. Amazing how far a crumpled fedora and a little gray in the beard can get you. He should have seen me during the pandemic when I looked like the Rabbi at Billy Gibbon’s (ZZ Top’s guitar player) Bar Mitzvah. He might have called me Socrates if he had caught that action.

Just follow the river and you can’t go wrong (that’s another first line but I put it in the middle). In this case the river is the Tiber, which has been flowing since Marlon Brando played Marc Anthony. I walked along it, not knowing where I was going but fully convinced I would get there or somewhere better. I have a Buddhist approach to travel, even in a Catholic country.

Speaking of religions I’m bivouacked in the Jewish ghetto on Via Di San Simone, a tiny gash of a street that dead ends into a five-hundred year-old stone and marble staircase leading up to my hotel, which isn’t even really a hotel it’s more like a small monastery with snazzy bathrooms.

The taxi driver who dropped me off (a barrel chested futbol fan, cursing the criminal immigrant and awaiting Mussolini’s return--my projection not his words) couldn’t get me to the door, so he just dropped me in the general area, a sweltering Italian Casbah with narrow stone streets and ceaseless gelato.

Now what? My GPS wasn’t working and would have been useless to me if it had, so I went full 20^th century and started asking shopkeepers for directions. After a bunch of clueless head shakers (they had never heard of Via di San Simone) I got a live one ready to accept the challenge (he had the time because his gelato and coffee joint was being crushed by the competition next door). He gave me great directions. So good I only had to ask four more people ‘til I finally got there.

A melting old Jew wandering the Jewish Ghetto I was relieved when the front door code worked, and I stepped into the cool cave like confines of the non-lobby/breakfast room. Stone floors, heavy-beamed wood ceilings, stained glass, wrought iron. Ikea was not consulted.

Last night after dinner (around 10:30) I walked home back toward the castle on the river which is the landmark that I can already find my way from. I saw some cookies and pastries in a window and stopped because it was open, and I hadn’t had dessert and because I am the kind of person who when in Italy for the first time stops when he sees cookies in the window. (Ok, I don’t even need to be in Italy for the first time).

There was a young cat in there. Slicked back hair and a lot of face, maybe twenty-one.

“What should I get?” I ask him.

“Canoli”

I look at the canolis they are small and pistachio.

“What’s that?” I say pointing to a green blob studded with whole pistachios.

“That’s our proprietary creation.”

He says this in English but with an accent. He gives me a taste. I’m excited about his creation. I’m also excited about the cheese in the cheese case and the salumi in the salumi case. Well, it’s late at night so I’m not excited but I am enthused and curious and doing what I like to do best, which is discuss something I am passionate about with someone who is equally passionate, particularly when they are strangers.

He starts slicing cheeses. One with truffles, a stiff, flaky pecorino and another Roman table cheese (as they are called in Casa della Mozarella on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx). He’s got a rustic cone-shaped Ricotta salata that looks very 18^th century and I just want to start boiling water for pasta as soon as I see it.

He keeps the cheeses coming then hits me with a slice of a simple Milano salumi, then something with finochia. I just had dinner, but when it’s happening, it’s happening, and you don’t play shy.

I get to my hotel with my bag full of treasures (from this afternoon, not last night and the kid with the face). A beautiful ball of bufala, eight slice of the San Daniele (I ordered six but it was so buttery I succumbed to two more). A slice of harder cheese, dealer’s choice. Then over to the grilled and marinated eggplant (two different kinds), some artichoke hearts and marinated peppers and that’s lunch for a growing boy. Yeah, go head, throw in a hunk of bread. Do I need a teeny can of olive oil or I can use what’s in the Eggplant? The old salumi master nods about the oil from the eggplant.

There are two other young ham cutters there but they don’t want to make eye contact even though I let them know I’m open to conversation. They are both on their phones and I imagine that they are pimps on the side because they have that energy. Meaning they are all business and not up to play around. The only reason someone could possibly not be compelled to talk to me is because he is too preoccupied managing a stable of hookers.

I come back and take a shower after hailing a taxi in the heat. Follow the river I told him, and he does. The Tiber is my friend as is the huge castle that looms on the left, a windowless fortress that has protected whoever needed protection for centuries. “This is good” I say, already the master of my tiny slice of Rome. A city boy is a city boy and it translates.

Back at my pad I shower then hit the lobby where the lovely sixteen year-old housekeeper is vacuuming and being shy. I let her work and dig out my big ball of bufala, the sacred ham, the char marked eggplant, artichoke hearts, roast peppers and a couple of green figs bursting pink.

This to me is living. Don’t get me wrong, I like a restaurant, I do, but to grab a plate and a fork and sit alone at my own temporary table to sample in Rome what I eat in Los Angeles is a glory. It tastes better here and I feel better here and all the first time joy of place and adventure work their way into the flavors, and I have to laugh because fifteen years ago I was dead on a table, laid low by dope and all lost and now here I am in Roma, my philosopher’s beard glistening with grease.