“I remember my Yorkshire grandmother, when as a small child I asked her if she used herbs, went very tight-lipped and said well there was pennyroyal … She had had a hard life, a brutal husband and too many mouths to feed.”

Pennyroyal is Mentha pulegium, a mint whose Latin name indicates that it was once used to deter fleas and other insect pests. For Gillian Riley’s grandmother, and women since at least the time of Aristophanes, it was probably more useful as an abortifacient. Which was why I saw red when a respected food blogger in Rome referred parenthetically to “mentuccia (pennyroyal)”. But I need to backtrack.

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I'm not sure how long I've been waiting to see Beasts of the Southern Wild. There was a great article some time last year that made me write down the title and scour my usual haunts from time to time, each time coming up empty. So when a friend casually mentioned that she'd seen it here in Rome, a...

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Confetti, in Italian, are the sugared almonds given to guests, traditionally at a wedding, when the sugar coating is white, and now extended to pink or blue at a baptism and red at a university graduation. "A quando i confetti" is apparently a cute way of asking when one is going to get married....

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A Ken Loach comedy? For the first half hour or so that seemed unlikely in the extreme. Oh sure, there were laughs as the Voice of God tried to prevent a harmless drunk falling under a fast-approaching train. But as the beak sentenced the four stars to community service, and awful sudden violence rai...

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It is difficult to find, and impossible to park once you do, but Sforno will make it worth your while. I'd heard a bit of buzz about it, but what finally tipped the balance was a review in Puntarella Rossa. OK, she thinks the location is "convenient". Perhaps it is for many; we rounded up some chums and made plans for an expedition.

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