~ Returning to my now Italian home ~ Writing a book about real people and the real time you spent with them can be stressful – especially when you wrote it without them ever pre-reading a single syllable. Add to that the fact that there is a language barrier between everyone involved and you might …
My bags are packed and I’m ready to fly~
What will 2011 bring? Ah, the last post of 2010 and what a year it has been! It started off with our house being published in House Beautiful’s Feb 2010 issue. With that came a huge designer-blog interest and led a publisher to my then manuscript of Beyond the Pasta: Recipes, Language & Life with …
An evening spent around a table~
Earlier in September I spent a wonderful evening at The Book Shelf in Winona, Minnesota, where owner Chris Livingston hosted a book signing event for my book Beyond the Pasta: Recipes, Language & Life with an Italian Family. The event was actually a dinner and discussion. Larry, Colleen and their staff at the Blue Heron …
“Suckered” into loving breakfast~
My second day in Seattle started off with the unusual. In the block up the street from my Seattle hotel was a restaurant named Lola. It came recommended as a great dinner spot by my publicist, who had been to Seattle two weeks prior. “Go to Lola – one of the best meals I have …
La Macchina di Santa Rosa~ una grande festa!
There was a huge festival in Viterbo, Italy, last night (Sept 3) … La Macchina di Santa Rosa (literally translated: Saint Rosa’s machine). Mere words will not do it justice. You may be wondering how a patron saint can have a “machine” and — “What in the world is it?” The “machine” is an over …
On the way to the top~
See and download the full gallery on posterous Put one step in front of the other… The final push is on to have the book make its September 1 release date. The journey from now until the book’s launch next week has me feeling like I am climbing a tower in Italy … I am …
Everyone – dive into the pool!
See and download the full gallery on posterous Hmmm, trunks or no trunks?! It is summer and it is hot. And the heat reminds me of a day trip we took to Paestum, Italy. Paestum is south of Naples…actually south of Salerno in the Campania region of Italy—close to where the “laces of the boot …
Where’s the beef?
See and download the full gallery on posterous Discovering the Italian sandwich~ Recently a friend e-mailed me asking for a “big, fat, greasy, wet, sloppy, Italian Beef Sandwich recipe.” Sadly, I had to tell him that the only place I have ever eaten something like that is in Chicago—and never in Italy. That isn’t …
Buona festa della madre
Happy Mother’s Day~ My very first trip to Italy was in 2001. Richard and I took our mothers with us for a 10-day trip in Tuscany—Siena, Florence, Cortona, Montalcino, Rome, and many other little towns along the way. It was the trip of a lifetime; so much so in fact, that I talk …
Lunch in Venice~
See and download the full gallery on posterous I Love You—now hush~ Yesterday Richard sent a book title to me that perfectly captured a lunch experience with a French couple that we had in Venice. But before that, let me tell you about one of our first lunch experiences in Venice—a very popular inn and …