I’m grateful for the little reminders of Italia that I encounter here in Seattle, going about my day. Names for cookies and chips. Old ladies wearing tavern jackets in the “pot pie” frozen food section. “Proud to be Italian” License plate frames. Even shrink-wrapped prosciutto piques my nostalgia, though it’s a far cry from having [...]

“We’re having a crab feed on the beach tomorrow night. Do you want to come?” There’s only one answer for that question. “Of course!” This is a great neighborhood: wonderful people in a beautiful setting. I’m back in this little piece of paradise with longtime friends. (I know few people that actually KNOW their neighbors; [...]

Sunday Morning. August 1. (I arrived home yesterday in late afternoon.) Home in the summer chill of Seattle with a 60 degree morning. I slept well with the window open to fresh, cool air. Absolute silence filled the night until the crows started talking as day dawned. No neighbor above me in spike, high heels. [...]

How often do any of us put ourselves in the position to meet so many people in so many ways in so short a time? How readily do we open our lives to the touch of strangers? I came here to Italy wanting to have relationships and experiences, and to gather images. I have done [...]

Journal Entry: 24 Luglio The bus just left Aosta, heading back to Milano. I have been visiting my friends, Ewa and Piotr, in Cogne for two days where the “uniform” is hiking shorts and boots, muscular, suntanned legs, and walking sticks. The street signs are in French [and Italian] and at any time I can hear [...]

On Thursday, the bus pulled away from a 95 degree day in Milano and headed into increasingly blustery skies in the Valle d’Aosta at the far northwest of Italy. (Find it on the map here.) I shot a few crude images through the dirty, tinted bus window as we rolled along, watching the scenery and [...]

It would have been impossible to leave Milano without saying “goodbye” to Mary. Our first meeting is a story in itself, finally happening last March after much anticipation. We’ve seen each other a few times since then, meeting in the little office behind the cemetery chapel. Today I showed up in the afternoon, after the [...]

I’m going to miss my Insalata di Bresaola, my salad of dried, cured (raw) beef. Boo hoo. They can’t bring bresaola into the U.S. from Europe because of the mad cow disease X years ago… But a nice salad with a bed of rucola (arugula), some bufala mozzarella (fresh mozzarella from buffalo milk), tomatoes from Sicilia, [...]

It’s been toasty-o here in Milano lately, with temperatures in the high 80s to high 90s, and humid. When I walk out of my apartment, it’s like walking into a sauna! I’m grateful to have air conditioning. One solution I find at the major hub subway stations around town, is the installation of fans spewing [...]

Octopus as tender as a dream, served warm and simply, with potatoes, olives and olive oil. Fish and pasta prepared and presented with an expert hand. Warm-hearted hosts, all family, welcome their guests into an easy, comfortable dining room in their restaurant alongside the Naviglio Pavese canal: Carlotta Café Bar & Restaurant. If you want [...]

My “History Buff on Wheels“, Angelo, went rolling past me along the canal this morning. In a cycling daze and not recognizing him, I nodded and said the usual “ciao” as one cyclist to another. Mere moments later, he pulled up on my left, took my pace, greeted me and commented that it had been [...]

I have caught and cooked a LOT of fish in my life and I cook it well enough that I’m a snob about eating fish at a restaurant. My friends know this about me. I’ve sent fish back to the kitchen when we’ve eaten together. If we’re at a restaurant that touts itself as a [...]

The little girl was unrestrained and so pleased with herself. She and I both saw the humor of her Minnie Mouse joining Michelangelo’s unfinished Rondanini Pietá. As I think about it further, I wonder which creator, Michelangelo or Disney, has had greater cultural influence? (Many would be aghast at my putting those two in the [...]

Since it’s been so toasty here lately, I took my bike ride in the morning today, heading out from the house just after 8:00. When I got to the field that had been full of rapeseed and red poppies a while back, I saw FOUR jackrabbits out in the field! This time I stopped. I [...]

Megan and I met while struggling through Italian classes together in the winter. We had come here for different reasons, but found ourselves learning what we could together to communicate… and a friendship was born. And now she’s leaving Milano and Italia! Ever since our classes this winter, we’ve been getting together with other women [...]

The grape varieties and resulting wines here in Italy are numerous and quite different than in the U.S. What better way, then, to learn about the wine I’m drinking than to take a wine-tasting class. After attending intensive language classes last winter, I figured I was ready to enroll in the preliminary class series offered [...]

When it’s beastly hot outside, what could be a more perfect lunch than sublimely-ripe melon with culatello prosciutto, and some near-fist-sized, plump, fresh figs? Add artisan pasta dressed with flash-cooked summer cherry tomatoes, olive oil and basil, nibble some ciabatta and sip some rosé on the side. This is how to eat!

Last Friday, after my whirlwind morning in Genova, I continued on to Sanremo for what was likely my last visit with my “landlady” Sandra and her husband, Mauro, before my departure from Milano. I had visited them a couple of times in winter and at my departure then it felt as if longtime friends were [...]

It all started with hat forms on Milan’s Grand Canal. Five weeks ago I went to the Mercatone Antiquariato – Antique Market – along the Naviglio Grande and saw hat bases made of coarse fabric. They are from the Bovone sisters that were making hats in the 1930s. The hats have asymetrical, sumptuous curves and [...]

Two years ago, in exploring one church after another, I noticed cathedral walls laden with silver framed medallions bearing the letters “GR”. Some were tied with a pink or a blue ribbon. There may have been 50 in some churches, or hundreds in others. Here’s a wall in the Duomo of Sienna (from 2008). With [...]