Author Archives: Danita

What I’d like my US friends to learn from Italy re Coronavirus

Italian Living Posted on by

Our Coronavirus journey began on February 11 when we landed back at Linate Airport in Milano. The death toll in China had gone crazy, and the first death in Europe had happened in France. Italy was on alert. As we walked towards the exit after baggage claim, we were screened by hazmat clothed workers with a touchless thermometer to see if we had a fever. Wow, we thought – that was unusual. The country changed dramatically in the next few weeks as millions were put in “restricted travel” for weeks, and ultimately the entire country went into quarantine on March 11, a month after we returned home.

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Can we leave home?

Italian Living Posted on by

It seems like every day since Sunday, something has changed just a little in our little corner of the world.  On Sunday, we went to our “Sunday bar” for our breakfast.  Sunday we were told that our province of Parma had been added to the “red zone”.  That meant that were were not allow to travel out of our comune, and the bars and restaurants would only be open from 6:00-18:00. 

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Italian word of the year

Italian Living Posted on by

Every year, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper holds a vote for the “most important word of phrase of the year”.  These listings are frequently political in nature, dealing with the “hot topics” of the year.  If you read Italian, here’s their current list to vote from. I’ll just stay out of the politics this year, and vote for “allunaggio” 🙂

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The painful truths in genealogy

Italian Living Posted on by

I’ve been creating my own little “village family tree” using all of the records I can get my hands on.  For one of the towns, the records I most easily have access to are only a single census, and then death records for about two centuries.  Because of that, I was building families first with only their dead children, and then after I had all of the death records placed in the tree, I went to the census and filled in some gaps (the birth records will someday fill in more gaps).  It was tough.

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Tradition meets Instant Pot – Ragù alla Bolognese

Italian Living Posted on by

Living in Emilia–Romagna, I sure love a good Ragù! I don’t love waiting all day for it though! And while not all modern conveniences work well with traditional recipes, thankfully the modern versions of the pressure cooker, and the Instant Pot specifically, are often a wonderful choice for a faster meal that still brings the flavor, texture and consistency of the original day-long process. Ragù alla Bolognese seemed like a perfect candidate for an Instant Pot time slash, so I took it on!

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Things you find in old church records

Italian Living Posted on by

I’m back to scouring church records for insights on Zanrè information.  In doing so, I’ve stumbled on a rather interesting find.

My husband Joe has been friends with one Vinnie Baruffati for about 4 decades.  They had a few things in common in Scotland, one of which was they were both from Italian heritage.  They knew that both of their families were from the same general area of Italy, but never thought too much about it.

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