Today was a really good “virtual” day. I spent the day with a bunch of English speakers on Zoom – we had 22 people at one time (maybe more total, but never more than 22 on the call simultaneously). It’s a group of English speakers living in Italy.
Continue reading →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.
Continue reading →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.
Continue reading →We just finished Christmas lunch (it’s 3:30 pm) at one of our favorite restaurants (which is closing at the end of the year 🙁 ).
I’m not sure I can even add any words to explain how good it was – so here are the photos, with brief explanations of the dishes!
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” 🙂
Continue reading →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!
Continue reading →As I’ve discussed a few times, I’m deep into our family genealogy, for various sides of the family. While I’m a Zanrè by marriage only, this particular family tree truly intrigues me. I’ve been looking at a way to engage other Zanrè family members, and find some “missing links”.
Continue reading →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.
Continue reading →Okay – this isn’t terribly Italian, but I’m still working on the Italy genealogy. There are cool things there too. I promise to get back to that. In the meantime, this is has been occupying my time, and I need to share!!!
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