Revered Rural Rite: La Veglia

For Roosevelt, a “fireside chat” denoted intimate dialogue with the people. The fireside chat – called “veglia” (“vigil”) – was always an intimate moment of life in central Italy’s rural culture. I miss those years of the “andare alla veglia” (“going to keep the vigil”) at our neighbors’ farmhouses on winter evenings, where so much rural lore and rural wisdom was passionately shared by our farm friends around the fireplace.
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Houston Cooking Class Escapes the Evil Eye (Mar 1, 2011)

Never put a loaf of bread on the table upside down: porta male (“brings bad luck”). Everyone will jump up to turn it over, making the corna sign (“horns”) against the mal’occhio (“evil eye”). Bread is sacred. Never throw out leftover bread. Porta male. Countless Italian dishes with breadcrumbs as well as bruschetta and panzanella (old-bread-cold-salad) solve the challenge of what to do with stale bread.
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Three Times a Charm at Phoenix Cooking School (Feb 23-24, 2011)

“The school is held at the beautiful home of Chef Barbara Fenzl and every month she gets an extraordinary chef in and teaches you several recipes which you then get to try…”, says a review of Les Gourmettes Cooking School in Phoenix. I was the “chef” for three events at the school on February 23 and 24th. Owner Barbara Pool Fenzl, trained in France and renowned cookbook author who has appeared on cooking shows on PBS, booked the classes months ago, filling them immediately.
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Lightning Strikes in Phoenix (Feb 22, 2011)

About two days before my scheduled arrival in Phoenix, Angela, an old friend from my Santa Clara University days, emailed to ask if I would enjoy a “real Mexican dinner” with her upon arrival in Phoenix. I emailed back “great!”. Three hours or so later, Angela emailed to ask if I would like to do a cooking class instead for twelve of her friends at the home of another friend!
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Detouring from the Menu in Lagunitas (Feb 20, 2011)

Spontaneity makes any cooking class even better! Howie and Dave specialize in hosting fun cooking classes with a good mix of guests – and their own additions to the menus I send on ahead. This year the day before the class – my second time at their cozy home off a road through the woods in Lagunitas – Howie called to tell me that the eggplant I needed for one recipe and the green beans required for another did not meet her standards.
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Umbrian Bounty in Belmont (Feb 18, 2011)

Again this year in Belmont, CA., Nada generously opened her home and heart to an enthusiastic cooking group drawn together by Anne – who I first met in 1971 when she brought her (then!) second-grader Katie to meet me, “the new teacher” on the first day of school! Anne, who ever thought we would be cooking together years later?! Three other mothers of my beloved 1971 second-graders joined in on the class this year, too (our second time re-connecting “around the burners”)….and a couple of fathers joined in the feasting at the end of our class. Che bello!
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