We recently headed back to the Mugello valley for a weekend with the warm, welcoming Manetti family (and, of course, Mamma Gianna’s cooking is an enticement, too). Funghi ended up being a…
Last white grapes still to be picked[/caption]“Poco ma buono” , wine experts unanimously declare the 2012 vintage. The lack of rain and intense summer heat hampered the proper maturation of the grapes,…
July 26th isn’t my birthday but farm friends will be calling in any case to wish me “auguri, Anna” on my onomastico (name day): July 26th is the Festa di Sant’Anna, the…
Ragazza/ragazzina (“girl/little girl) – chiesa/chiesina (“church/little church) – stella/stellina (“star/little star”) are logical pairings but zucca/zucchina (“squash/little squash”) doesn’t quite work out: La zucchina (“zucchini”) is not related at all to the…
“Giugno, la falce in pugno” (“June, the scythe in the fist”), says an old Italian proverb, re-echoing the days of scything hay manually. Times have changed: at Peppe and Gentile’s farm two…
Now over eighty, Raffaello started painting his maiolica masterpieces as a young boy. Massimo started young on the potter’s wheel, too, creating the vases, pitchers, urns Raffaello still decorates. At a young…
“La gallina vecchia fa buon brodo,” (“an old hen makes a good broth”) says an old Italian adage, lauding the wisdom of a sage elderly woman. But an old hen does make…
Feeling itchy and sweaty, scratched arms and legs, and hands pricked by thorns can all herald bliss: When you scramble up out of the woods, scratched hands clutching a big bunch of…
With January 17th and the Feast of St. Anthony, Carnevale (Mardi Gras) took over here in Italy and will reign until martedì grasso (“fat Tuesday,” the day before the beginning of Lent…
“Buono come il pane” (“as good as bread”) is how the Italians describe a good-hearted, generous person. For the Greeks, bread was “the food of the gods”, for the Anglo-Saxons, “the staff…