ITALY’S SEXIEST MAYOR
“I don’t find him sexy.”
“Who?”
“The mayor. The TV’s saying he’s the sexiest mayor in Italy. I don’t know. He doesn’t transmit ‘sexy’ to me.” The 70-year-old woman wanted my opinion.Read More
Calabrian Eateries: Mushrooms
MUSHROOM HUNTING
Whenever I think of mushrooms, I think of the little old Italian woman who picked the wild ones growing in the front yard of our house in suburban New Jersey. She would always knock on our front door and ask permission. The first time, my mother hesitated, not knowing if they were poisonous. “No! They are good, very good, “ she responded, or at least that’s how we interpreted her enthusiastic gesticulations.Read More
An American Thanksgiving in Italy
THANKSGIVING ABROAD
“What are you going to do for Thanksgiving?” If it weren’t for the e-cards from family and friends, Thanksgiving could easily pass unnoticed when living abroad. Everyone has heard of the holiday. The colorful images of robust turkeys, friendly native people and buckle-shoed Pilgrims have even lent a certain popularity to what may be America’s most characteristic celebration.Read More
Calabrian Eateries: La Festa di San Martino
SAINT MARTIN’S DAY
November 11th is celebrated as Saint Martin’s Day in many European countries. Historically, the feasting marked the end of the agrarian season and initiated a period of fasting that eventually became Advent. Saint Martin or Martin of Tours lived in the 4th century, started out as a Roman soldier, left the army to became a monk and ended up the bishop of Tours. Best known for sharing his military cloak with a beggar, who subsequently came to him as Jesus in a dream, St. Martin is the patron saint of beggars, tailors, children, soldiers, geese, innkeepers, vintners and France.
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Calabrian Eateries: Trattoria in Cosenza
GOOD FOOD FOR A GOOD PRICE
Every once and a while you happen upon a restaurant that you want to tell everyone you know about—friends of friends of friends, in modern parlance. But then you stop and say to yourself, Read More
Reggio Calabria’s Musical Instrument Museum
“There are things that don’t burn.”
One year ago today, Reggio Calabria’s Musical Instrument Museum was torched. Musical instruments and scores went up in flames. However, as was affirmed by a young boy on the evening of the solidarity march held shortly after the heinous event, “You can’t touch music, therefore, it wasn’t burned.” Read More
Calabres, Calabrese, Calabresi??
CALABRESE VS. CALABRIAN
When people ask me what my book’s about and I start talking about Calabria, the word calabrese often comes up. “So does it have something to do with calabres?” At first I was surprised that many people seemed to have more of a familiarity with an Italian form of a word than its English translation. I then came to realize that, whether heard spoken by a friend or co-worker or seen written on a restaurant menu, the original Italian term may actually be used more frequently than its English counterpart. Read More
Reflection: Lining up Today’s Pixels With the Columns of Ancient Greece
THE BOOK COVER
PUTTING TOGETHER A BOOK for publication takes a lot of thought and requires many decisions. For obvious reasons, much care is given to the cover, but the interior layout, choice of fonts and typesetting is equally important as that’s where the reader ultimately will spend most of his time. The book cover, however, gives the first impression, sets the tone.
I wanted to incorporate one of my photos. I had many to choose from—the mountains, the shore, the city, the countryside, the people, the food, the art… The difficulty would be selecting just one. Read More
Welcome to my Blog
BUON GIORNO!
This is my first blog post. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until about a month ago upon reading a “how to” article that I learned where the word blogging came from—web logging glided to leave off the “we”, just in case you’re anything like me. Looking at it now, I suppose I should have figured it out years ago, but one day blogging was just there and it was assumed that anyone under the age of 70 should know what it was all about. Well, I’m now in the process of learning what it’s all about. Read More