There are a few evocative Christmas foods that elicit childhood memories from a simpler time. Christmas and childhood are intertwined and that festive feeling of families coming together to celebrate the season is one that no child forgets. For some people Christmas means roast chestnuts, roast turkey, goose or beef, traditional cakes, tarts and puddings…
The most underrated city in Italy
Forget everything you have heard about Palermo. Erase the memory of every mafia movie you grew up on. Just as we don’t define people by their affliction don’t judge Palermo by its parasitic disease. The vast majority of Sicilians are not Mafiosi and dislike the mafia even more than you. There is a small but defiant group…
The best edible gifts are here
It may be a bit strange but the first time I had these traditional Italian chocolate dipped dried oranges and figs was in Sydney, Australia. I probably passed over these several times before in Italy without realizing it, as I am a bit of a purist when it comes to chocolate. I like pure dark…
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Solidarity
This is the new national motto of France. We were all innocent until a few days ago. How long ago it seems. When the news spread of the events developing in Paris, Beirut and Baghdad, every single one of us put ourselves in the shoes of those poor terrorised people and of their families. I,…
And we win the award for…..
My husband and I were discussing hypothetically spending a year living in different parts of Italy. The natural question was, which regions were best at which points of the year? The early summer we decided was best for the beaches of the Amalfi coast in Campagna, Sardegna and Sicily. The late summer we would prefer to avoid…
The freshly pressed olive oil is starting to trickle in
We were back in Liguria again this year just in time for the beginning of the olive pressing season. Last year we arrived to find a depressing situation- olive trees suffering from leprosy with sparsely hung olives, mostly malformed or infected by fruit flies. 2014 was the first year in generations that Italian families that…
Fruit of the dead?
Halloween is approaching. Most people outside of America know about Halloween from the movies but the idea is starting to catch on with varying degrees of success. Last year during Halloween, we were in a small town in Sicily. A small group of young boys were trying to go trick or treating (“dolcetto o scherzetto“)…
A recipe your mouth will thank you for
So we are ostensibly in Piemonte to visit family and introduce the newest addition to the family. Fortune has smiled on me as my husband’s family live very close to the one place the very rare and intoxicating white truffle (tuber magnatum pico) is found. While most people have heard of the chocolate truffle, a few cognoscenti know…
4 unmissable towns in Umbria…and what to eat
Umbria has amazing light. The landscape is a patchwork of green, yellow and brown. The vineyards, fields of yellow sunflowers, hay bales dotting the plains, brick towers and cypress trees jutting towards the sky, white and yellow wildflowers line the country roads and fallow fields lie in between the shimmering olive groves, creating a stunning…
The ancient rediscovered dish of Tuscany that reminds me of Jessica Simpson
The name Jessica Simpson is associated in my mind with the Dukes of Hazzard movie and Chicken of the Sea (arguably the most famous brand of tuna in America). Jessica, having the incredible misfortune to be famous after the invention of the internet and thus have every dumb thing she says replayed over and over,…
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