On a recent mid-March Spoleto guided tour, my tour guests and I spotted a shop window displaying perfume bottles flanked by branches of yellow mimosa tied with yellow bows: In harmony with…
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If you read my recent note on Giuseppa making her homemade fettuccine, you’ll already know that the best in the rural cuisine of Umbria reigns in the farmhouse kitchen of Giuseppa, in…
In the Deruta countryside, Giuseppa opens home and heart to all. When you arrive, Giuseppa comes out of her house, perhaps with her two beloved Jack Russells and that welcoming smile says…
A box of Carnaroli rice in the kitchen cupboard, a pot of meat broth on our stove, a hefty chunk of orange winter squash on the table and snow flurries and biting…
Years ago, when Pino and I worked the land here in the hills outside Assisi, our rural neighbors taught us how to prune our vineyard, harvest our olives, scythe field greens for…
Prosciutto, pancetta, salami, salsicce, coppa, barbozza. The names unite in an enticing rhythm, so appealing to your ear. Even if you’re a vegetarian. When I dropped in recently at the house of…
Steps away from Naples’ Gothic Church of Santa Chiara…..….. ……the Baroque Gesu’ Nuovo church sits in solemn splendor on the Piazza Gesu’ Nuovo. The “New Jesus” church (the name deliberately distinguishes it…
In the difficult years following World War II, in the working class district of Naples, i quartieri spagnoli (“the Spanish quarter”)…………many a creative napoletano became adept at the art of arrangiarsi (literally, “to arrange…
The Basilica di Santa Chiara in Naples is a regal church…..– and not only for its elegance but for the purpose of its construction: to house the bodies of the royal descendants…
Crowded and colorful, bustling, energetic, and animated, gritty and crumbling – no panoply of words can ever describe Naples’ Quartieri Spagnoli. The street network of the “Spanish district” was set out in the 17th-century…