I normally drink my cappuccino in the morning, at breakfast, without thinking about it. In between sips I am calculating how much I owe the gardener this month, or trying to organize my day, step by step. This morning instead, I want to think about it: it’s not a bad cappuccino, this creamy concoction I
If you are lucky enough to be driving south along the the Tyrrhenian coast, at sundown, you will witness a spectacle like no other: the Mediterranean sun descending above the sea becomes an orange red,---- much the same as the over-ripe blood oranges that have suddenly become so popular in our supermarkets around Christmas time----and
Years ago when I first visited Tropea with my father I could not have anticipated my dad's reaction as we approached this gem of a town along the southern Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria! It was to be a little sightseeing detour for me, from Filadelfia, where we had come for a brief visit to family
As a teenager, many years ago, I had visited Pizzo with my father. Then, to my greatest delight, I had found a small town with a main piazza that by sundown had transformed itself into a hip and happening place for young people to meet. The summer months brought all kinds of returning families to
photo by Bruno Spagnolo Somewhere you’ve never truly been is to the Calabria I know. It is the Calabria that persists without regard for the omnipresent fist of the ‘Ndragheta; it is the Calabria that picks itself up after each devastating earthquake, and the Calabria that despite its poverty and the pathetic and brutal attempts on
If I’m late with my blog post, I have good reason; as varied and off the wall as these excuses are, they are the “honest-to-god” truth! I wish, in fact, I had had such solid justification for my late assignments and sundry essays when I was in university. I couldn’t have made this up even
The Rustici Leccesi or Salentini are the finger-lickin'-good snack/appetizers found everywhere in Salento, from bars to restaurant takeaways. The first stop for a day at the beach or picnic is to buy some tasty rustici for the kids in tow, and even, perhaps more especially, for the grownups. These flavourful morsels are made of crispy
We are driving from Gallipoli, across to the east coast of Salento, and to the easternmost town of Italy, Otranto. The landscape, its farms and stone walls, is a kaleidoscope of intense colours; the red earth and blue sky, the endless verdant olive groves and trees; these rooted to a parched brown earth that perhaps
I remember climbing on the backrest of an old settee in order to look out of our third floor window at Piazza dell’Unità to see the other children already on their way to the Sala Cinematografica Cola Di Rienzo (today, a Bingo palace) for the costume parade. It was not the first time I too
It's almost Carnevale. Tuesday, February 17, to be exact, will mark the last day before the Lenten season begins. In Italy, like in many other places around the world it is a time of frivolity,, fun and fantasy. The Carnival of Venice comes to mind: a moment in time when all the exhausting cares of