Tag : American Academy in Rome

…today and frequent evenings around 17:30 is the great gift of warmer days, later sun sets, stone pavers that hold the days heat, and a critical mass of friendly yogis – especially newly arrived friend Gaby – willing to hoof it up to the top floor garden yoga studio overlooking the city for an hour ..

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…whose ceiling is laden with the most sumptuous depictions of all variety of fruit and vegetable was painted by Raphael at Villa Farnesina (1510), and was the highlight of a day that began with the third in a series of talks by Leonard Barkan at the American Academy in Rome on “Food Culture and High ..

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…is something I started messing around with a few months ago (featuring a miniature landscape of tufa rocks and scavenged blocks covered with pieces of moss varieties gathered on daily walks) on the part of the roof where water stands after rains or plant-watering and in today’s morning light it is looking picturesque out my studio ..

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…from the Roman Rooftop Homestead is very good indeed, with the happy plants beginning to climb up the pea-stake branches that were just installed for them, and today I notice the first peapods hiding in the bright green foliage, and then, as often happens when first discovering something, you begin to realize it is e..

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…or ‘black cabbage’ (a loose-leaf Italian cabbage, or kale) has been on our plates almost every day this winter, and today will be no exception, as I harvest the lastest tangy dark leafy green bounty from the back garden where I help out Wednesday mornings when I can – and ‘cavalo’ is an extra expressive ..

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…will present the series of ink on paper portraits he has been working on for the past four months while in residence at the American Academy in Rome (my neighbor down the hall on the top floor) of various members of the A.A.R. community – displayed in a grid of frames in the bar along ..

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…from the trees out back are keeping me buzzed on a daily infusion of fresh citrus – when I arrived in September  it was the grapes and figs – later it was the persimmons – and this Spring and Summer I’m looking forward to availing myself of the Roman classics: artichokes a..

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…is good, they are devouring my kitchen scraps (about 3 pounds a week), turning it into sweet smelling fertile black-gold worm casting compost, and reproducing like crazy (lots of little babies) – all from the comfort of their plastic bin which feels like the essential heart of the Roman Rooftop Homestead, the highlight of each ..

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…has been created in my East studio window this morning, providing a new winter retreat for my rooftop plant refugees as sub-freezing temperatures arrive in Rome  evidenced by the ice forming in the Academy fountain out in the courtyard below….and hey, it just started to snow (which is only supposed to happen every 20 years?), ..

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