rita cipalla

The beautiful walled city of Volterra, an ancient Etruscan town some 45 miles southwest of Florence, is famous for its well-preserved medieval ramparts, museums and archeological sites, and atmospheric cobblestone streets. Fans of American author Stephanie Meyer know it as …

Maria Lucia Luongo is a woman who takes joy in the simple pleasures of life: cooking, fashion, yoga, friendships. For the past 70 years, life’s twists and turns have taken her from her roots in Naples to the city of …

From 1978-1993, Virgil Fassio was the publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of the city’s two daily newspapers until it closed in 2009. His position there capped a 46-year career in newspaper publishing that included major dailies, such as the …

For nearly two decades, Daniele De Michele has celebrated the spirit of Italian grandmothers, calling attention to their collective knowledge about food, cooking and local culinary traditions. Originally from Puglia and now living in Rome, De Michele is an author, …

Rank heists, police chases, beautiful actress, cruel gangsters, crooked cops and social criticism: Marco Ponti’s newest film, Reckless Life (Una Vita Spericolata), has a little bit of everything in it. The film is a combination of madcap comedy, pulp fiction …

Fresh, intuitive and original, Leonardo Lanzolla’s artwork mixes semi-abstract objects, geometric shapes, bold colors and organic forms to create a universe that is pulsing with life. He uses a process called sgraffito, a technique with roots in Renaissance Italy, where …

Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz recently credited Italy with inspiring two of the most pivotal moments in his professional life. The first was in 1983. Schultz, at the time director of retail operations and marketing at the original Starbucks roastery, …

There’s a new public park in south King County that owes its existence to Italian immigrants and a truck-farming enterprise once called Duwamish Gardens. In 2008, city officials in Tukwila, Wash., purchased an historic homestead inhabited for nearly 100 years …

Seattle’s Pike Place Market is a must-see tourist sight and one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers market in the nation. Its roots go back to 1907 when a handful of farmers, many of whom were Italian, trucked their …

Pizza is one of those ubiquitous food items that can be prepared in so many different and delicious ways: crusty or chewy, thin or thick, square or round, white sauce or red. In fact, today’s pizza is made in much …