Today is Ferragosto. Ferragosto is a national holiday in Italy and many cities empty out to go to the beach, or the mountains. In days gone by, foreign tourists were faced with many closed stores and ghosts towns/cities for much of the month of August. These days you will still be confronted with much quieter tourist locations, but many locales will cater specifically to those natives who opted to avoid the crowds . . .
Continue reading →My husband is a Scots-Italian. Did you know that even was a thing? I didn’t until I met him 23 years ago. But interestingly, there is a LARGE community of Scots-Italians. My husband’s family was part of a substantial migration of Italians who left Italy for Britain in the early 1900s. Both sets of his grandparents headed to the “Big Island” of sorts to raise their children. The Italians who left Italy for Britain frequently became businessmen, and in Scotland, they gravitated towards Ice Cream and Fish and Chips. There was a time when it was stereotypically accurate to assume that the “chipper” was an Italian.
Continue reading →Yesterday I told you about our experience with the bomb! As we were walking back home, we took a stroll through Centro Storico to get a glimpse of it totally empty. We were not disappointed. Here are a few pictures of our beautiful town.
Continue reading →Our town loves a good festival. Honestly, from May until October there is something going on every single week. This weekend we were looking forward to a 3X3 Basketball Tournament that was to run from Thursday through Sunday. Sunday turned into a “maybe”, because today, Sunday, the Army was removing a WWII bomb from the river near the railway bridge coming into our town. It was discovered in March. Some folks ask me why it took 2-1/2 months to finalize the removal. The bomb had been there 74 years, and if undisturbed would pose no immediate threat, so it was decided that a calm and well planned evacuation of the town was in order! So today, almost the entire town (5000 of the town’s 7000 inhabitants) was evacuated for the procedure. The final day of the basketball festival would be at the mercy of the removal efforts of the army.
Continue reading →My husband Joe and I have been living in Italy off and on since May, 2016. For the first 14 months, it was more off than on. For those first 14 months, we were here in Italy for a total of 219 days. Only once in that time did we come “close” to hitting the 90 in 180 days rule, and when we flew out through Germany on the 89th day the German immigration officer perused my passport for a good 3 minutes before letting me through! It felt like 30!
Continue reading →Chicken salad with warm and cold fennel Tonight I made a new recipe that sounded interesting for a cold night that needed some “crunch”. It’s a very simple recipe that takes about 30 minutes to throw together. It combines raw … Continue reading →
Normally when I’m up at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving morning it’s to get started with the cooking. But this year, Italian bureaucracy has given us a new way to celebrate the holiday. On a bus to Parma. As … Continue reading →
Last week this display caught my eye at a local supermarket. An American Burger Sauce. Tucked in between a truffled porcini cream and balsamic vinegar. Two very typical items in Emilia-Romagna where we live. But this Old West American Burger … Continue reading →
We’re always told that BorgoTarese “just want to be happy and have fun”. That sounds like a reasonable aspiration to me! We arrived back home on Thursday, and Friday started the celebrations for La Sagre delle Castagne – the Chestnut Festival! I love parties, and I love chestnuts, so that was fine by me. The music was a bit loud Saturday night while we were trying to get over our jet lag, but being happy and having fun requires sacrifice 🙂
Continue reading →My friend Sarah and I were having a conversation last night. Me: Today is jet-lag day, and tomorrow we’re going to Pisa – for IKEA – but also for Pisa 😉 Sarah: Really, Pisa for IKEA? That’s funny The closest … Continue reading →
