Italy

Suddenly, New York is awash in futuristic bike-stands, leading to typically New York laments.

Maybe it was a fad. After all, the torre pendente (leaning tower) of Vernazzano is just across the border from Tuscany, and was also built way back when. Granted, not as glorious or beautiful as its more famous counterpart in Pisa, but leaning nonetheless. Truth is, while the architects did of course know what a… (more)The Note Another Leaning Tower…? appeared first on ItalianNotebook.

Matthew McConaughey has an actor's movie breakout in Jeff Nichols' "Mud."

Fountain by the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, in Piazza della Stazione (Train Station Square).(Why are we posting about Pisa? Click here for an answer)Versione italiana

The legacy of literary Paris is dense enough to make days pass in haste.

May’s ‘Food and Wine Interview’ is with Alida Zamparini, author of the food blog ‘My Little Italian Kitchen’ selected earlier this year as one of the Top Italian food blogs and websites to follow in 2013. Alida says: “I love to cook and I love to eat! I am an Italian living in England and like most Italians I am food-obsessed. I love to re-create dishes my mum would do for me as a child. The greatest reward is to be able to share your cooking with the people you love most. I believe in ingredients which are locally sourced and in season whenever possible as this is the secret for the greatest tasting meals. Let’s go back to how food used to be, made from wholesome, good ingredients. Let’s embrace the slow food movement. Taking time to cook yourself a decent meal should always come as a priority. After all we are what we eat!” The Questions and Answers: 1. Can you remember the first dish you learned how to cook? I started cooking as a teenager; my favourite hobby was baking during the long Italian school summer holidays. I first started baking simple cakes and only later moved onto cooking proper meals. My first proper dish was a simple pasta with fresh tomato sauce which I actually did with the help of my mum. Making proper passata takes a bit of expertise and experience. My family, having always been a voracious one, would polish up everything very quickly. That was certainly rewarding and made me want to cook more! 2. What three things are always in your fridge? Parmesan cheese, eggs and lots of radicchio or salad. I use Parmesan daily; a pasta without it is like a cake without a cherry on the top and I like my green leafs with every meal. You always need eggs in the fridge for cooking or in case you feel inspired to bake a cake. Inspiration for baking can come when you least expect it! 3. Best cooking advice or tip you ever received? Good things are made slowly. You cannot rush too much in the kitchen. Slow cooked food always tastes better than something made in a hurry. 4. What inspired you to create your food blog? Did you have a clear idea from the start? Being a full time mum has helped me improve my cookery skills. Weaning my two babies was when I really began putting all my beliefs into practice. I took great pleasure in making little meals from scratch. Sourcing organic and fresh ingredients daily, quickly became a job on its own along with an extraordinary euphoria and excitement for cooking, which was growing stronger and stronger; I just could never get enough of it. Fresh and healthy meals turned into little projects for me! As the children grew out of the weaning stage, I began cooking different meals every week so I decided to start a website about Italian cookery that would allow me to share my recipes and get feedback. 5. What do you know and think about other food bloggers? It is amazing how much you can learn from other food bloggers. By having a food blog you become part of an online community, you can make virtual friends who share the same passion for food and be inspired by their creations and ideas. There are many talented people out there who have lots to offer. I often see better recipes on blogs than anywhere else. You know that it is passion driving them and that’s why many blogs stand out. 6. Let’s talk favourite things, recipe and why? I love to involve my children in cooking . We often bake together and children are so keen on learning especially when there is pastry, cakes and pizza, a little bit like play-dough! Also we enjoy days out to farms and places to show them where food comes from. My favourite recipe is pizza. I make it every week. I love it because it is a treat for the whole family and if there is any left over it will taste even better the following day. 7. Ingredient? Olive oil! There is very little I could do without using olive oil. Of course this is a key ingredient in Italian cooking and most recipes require olive oil. It is light and easy t

Visiting Loreto Aprutino’s Festa di San Zopito got me more interested in the stories behind the monumental, 13-tonne white ox with his carefully trimmed and polished hooves,  multi-coloured ribbons and bells looped high over its head as it was led round the streets by an Abruzzese bagpiper, a Zampognari, whose job was traditionally a shepherd. For those not up-to-date with the Christian calendar (like me!), Pentecost was taken from the Jewish harvest festival celebration, Shavout, when 50 days after Passover the law was received on Mount Sinai, a week of refrain and a day of non work.  The Romans fashioned this into the Church’s birthday, Pentecost; instead of law, a time when the Holy Spirit descended and entered into the apostles on Whitsun or in Italian Pasqua rosatum, named after the priest’s red vestments, a colour symbolic of the Holy Spirit, those who receive their first Holy Communion on this favourable day wearing white. After reading Noel’s post about the event, there was a v short Comment referring to the Romans.  It seems they loosely wrapped up two of their April festivals into this new feria (non work day), the celebration of Ceres, Cerealiais’ who was, Jupiter’s wife, and goddess of fertility and whose followers wore white.  The Romans believed that it was Ceres who taught man to plough and sow, unusual because it was juxtaposed with the people’s favoured offering, the white ox, to her husband, Jupiter. Ovid, Fasti, Book IV: April 12: The Games of Ceres “Ceres delights in peace: pray, you farmers, Pray for endless peace and a peace-loving leader. Honour the goddess with wheat, and dancing salt grains, And grains of incense offered on the ancient hearths, And if there’s no incense, burn your resinous torches: Ceres is pleased with little, if it’s pure in kind. You girded attendants lift those knives from the ox: Let the ox plough, while you sacrifice the lazy sow, It’s not fitting for an axe to strike a neck that’s yoked: Let the ox live, and toil through the stubborn soil.” Floralia was the 6-day lascivious celebration, part of which became May Day, banned by the Pilgrim Fathers, and celebrating Spring’s baroque blossoms, it was a time to wear nothing(!) or highly colourful clothes red, green, yellow and floral wreaths.  A descendent of the flower offering remains in the traditional red flowers left at Church on Pentecost to signify the renewal of life, remembering family and friends no longer here and of course the warmth of the summer and blessed crops. Ovid, Fasti (V.185-190) “You start in April and cross to the time of May One has you as it leaves, one as it comes Since the edges of these months are yours and defer To you, either of them suits your praises. The Circus continues and the theatre’s lauded palm, Let this song, too, join the Circus spectacle.” San Zapito was a child martyr interned in Rome’s San Callisto catacombs in 300 AD Relics were brought in ornate box to Loreto in 1711, an arm and the skull donated by Pope Clement XI.  They passed a farmer, Carlo Parlione who complained that he had to toil granite fields on Pentecost, asking where the damn justice was in that.  Apparently the convoy shrunk back from such double blasphemy, but at that very moment, the farmer’s oxen walked toward the entourage ignoring the farmer‘s calls and knelt as if he wanted to pray. “A miracle”, they joyously proclaimed and the farmer repented, returning home to observe the Pentecost. The Festa di San Zopito is now a colourful 2-day festival celebrating this oxen moment.  The trained ox, nicknamed the ‘White Knight’ wearing a scarlet cloak with images of the Saints, carrying those same relics, kneels and gives praise in specific areas of the town as he is a tramite (vehicle of the divine).  A local primary schoolgirl stands on its back representing San Zopito, with floral wreath, silver wings, a red carnation (representing the Holy Spirit and harvest) in her mouth and carrying an umbrella to pro

We’ve eaten a lot of ham over the last decade in Abruzzo, at a Michelin-starred restaurant famed for its hand-carved slices, at agriturismi, trattorie et al, but none equalled the home-made prosciutto at Belvedere just outside Loreto Aprutino. Nonna’s ham reached dizzying heights of air-dried hamdom. We found this restaurant, as often the way, quite by accident, perhaps not as glamorously attired or appointed as some of its neighbours, but who cares when you have ham this good! I have to admit a preference primarily for porcine prosciutto’s sultry Spanish sibling Serrano, which is darker and less sweet, and its moody depths take you to all manner of places when eaten. However, Belvedere should be awarded a trillion gold stars for their prosciutto, that was thicker cut than usual and transported us with just one mouthful to hot midnight tapas suppers in Seville accompanying an expensive but so worth it plate of jamón ibérico and a glass of chilled fino sherry. It’s worth mentioning too sitting on that gorgeous plate of antipasti, Nonna’s thinly sliced and jointed and roasted chicken, served with a thin marmellate which, for someone who doesn’t normally like chicken, was a discovery of how good chicken can taste. The owners were incredibly hospitable and even more child friendly than usual for those with babes in tow, though no sign of high chairs. We had a delicious rich sugo, watch out for their peperoncini, those chillies are almost black in their sun-dried intensity! So worth a stop even if it is just to savour ham for a light lunch. Address: Ristorante Belvedere, 10, Ctr. Belvedere, 65014 Loreto Aprutino (PE) Province of Pescara, Italy Phone: +39 085 8289134 No facebook | No website Opening Hours Open for lunch and dinner daily every day apart from Monday Author informationSammy DunhamSammy Dunham is a freelance web marketing consultant. Past lives saw her study in Firenze after which she taught History of Art & EFL and lived in Barcelona & The Bahamas. She combines a passion for travel & photography, food & wine thru Lucciola.me & as co-founder to Abruzzo's 1st Food & Travel Bloggers Weekend,Let's Blog Abruzzo June 2013TwitterFacebook

Guest Post:  by Nerone, the dog   So here I am, just bein’ the good dog, barking’ at cats, takin’ walks, watchin’ the laundry dry (that’s hard work you know…)  And all of a sudden, my friends, the chicks DISAPPEAR!   I told that lady who feeds me, She Who Must Be Obeyed, that we needed to get right on that.  So She talked to my friend Costantino.  I saw him shakin’ his head and all.  I’m thinkin’ bad things happened.  He’s all the time ridin’ around on that big ole tractor, cuttin’ grass.  Maybe he ran over them.  But She said no.  And She said She didn’t really understand what Costo was tellin’ her.  Then the next day She was talkin’ to his wife, Olive Oyl.  She told me that Olive Oyl pretty much said the same thing.  That ‘the chickens’ year was over’.  (What does that mean?)  And that the chickens were peckin’ at their eggs.  And that was bad.   Well!  I’m not surprised!  The way Olive Oyl and Costo go on about the chickens being fat and all.  They were probably hungry!  You know Olive Oyl calls me Grossone.  Really!    I mean she’s (Olive Oyl) all the time worryin’ about weight.  But she’s a strong one.  A few weeks ago before the chickens left, I saw ‘em when they was movin’ that mattress.  She Who Must Be Obeyed and Costo had gotten it down the steps but then the two of them couldn’t get it any further.  So Costo called Olive Oyl to come help.  (He calls her by right name.  I’m the only one who calls her Olive Oyl.  Look what she calls me!)  Any way, she come over.  Now she’s wayyyy taller than either Costo or SWMBO.  So Olive Oyl hefts up the mattress and is in one corner, Costo is in the middle, with most of the weight fallin’ on his head and SWMBO is diagonal from Olive Oyl in the back corner.  So they all three set off, heftin’ this mattress like jungle bearers bein’ chased by a tiger.  Ceptin’ it was the chickens chasin’ them.   Man alive, I just about peed on my tail it was so funny!    Those chickens were good for all kinds of fun and now SWMBO seems to think that they are livin’ somewhere else.   But then… I don’t know what SWMBO did, but I thought She was tryin’ to get rid of ME!         Look what She’s feedin’ me!  That’s not Italian, that’s Spanish!   Well, I have a delicate stomach.  I was sicker than a dawg!  For days!  I don’t know.   Maybe it was just dog flu.  I’m feelin’ better now but I had to stay in from work, protectin’ and watchin’ for cats for a few days.  I was so sick.       And it’s not like I get any privacy.  Here I am in my own room, just tryin’ to take a little nap but She just has to take a picture.        Really, life is so hard sometimes…  I miss my chicken friends.

With headlamps pointing the way, an army of classic sports cars rumbled in, crisscrossed Vicenza’s Centro Storico, then, in an instant, galloped off into the night continuing along a course laid down decades ago and known the world over as the Mille Miglia (1,000 Miles). Although the “invasion” was brief, thousands of Vicentini lined the route… (more)The Note The most beautiful race in the world appeared first on ItalianNotebook.