Franco & Livia in their Monti neighborhood kitchen

…was conducted this morning with Livia and Franco – who met when they were 14 and have been married for 53 years – in their cozy long-time quarters (inherited from previous generations) in the Colosseum adjacent neighborhood of Monti where he used to own the local newsstand, so it’s hard to walk with Franco more than a step or two down Via dei Serpenti without a friendly greeting – and being a former runner, and living through the war years in Rome surviving on potato milk soup, I was surprised to hear about his very simple austere tastes, eating little meat, mostly dishes like pasta in bianco and very precise small portions (exactly four biscotti every morning).