Returning to the tiny island of Ventotene – off the coast, just south of Rome – is always a bit like coming home. I feel it as soon as we stepped off the hydrofoil at Ventotene’s port yesterday evening. Pino just ahead of me, pulling our small suitcase, At the port in veiled evening light,…
On August 2nd, Piazza Inferiore San Francesco was closed off, Italian police of various branches and military surrounded the piazza, eyes roving everywhere. An entourage of armored cars with darkened windows pulled up – and Italian visitors under the piazza porticoes asked each other quizzically, “E’ qui la Regina Elisabetta?” No, it wasn’t the Queen…
It’s hard to decide which is the highlight of a rural banquet with Giuseppa in the family farmhouse near Deruta: her rural goodness, cooked up with such passione – or the warmth of her welcome..? Not long ago, a Connecticut “extended family” feasted on homemade pasta with meat sauce of veal, pork raised right there,…