Heritage

Panettone: soft, fragrant, with its melt-in-the-mouth texture, it is perhaps the most popular cake we eat at Christmas. Traditional with candied fruit and sultanas, or reinvented, with chocolate, fruit, nuts, and creams of all types, it has several contenders across …

Holidays are all about sharing and making memories if you ask me. Sharing, because we end up spending a lot of time in the company of our family, definitely more than the rest of the year,  and that means sharing …

“I was raised in a home with my Italian immigrant grandparents: they had a very important impact on my life. Neither of them had formal education, but they taught me more about what was important in life than any school …

AH! Il Presepe! Quintessential tradition of the Italian Christmas, it brings together Faith, history, tradition, and art. The first was created by Saint Francis of Assisi, our Patron Saint, to represent the birth of Christ and offer another way to …

 In the narrative of the Gospels, the birth of Christ doesn’t take up much space: the focus, as those among you who went to catechism as children may remember, is all on the last three years of his life, those …

Italians live longer, we know it: the people of the Belpaese are among the longest-living in the world, along with other Mediterraneans like the Spaniards, and the eastern masters of longevity, the Japanese. There are some parts of the country …

Milan, the beating heart of Italian economy and fashion, the trendsetting city, the birthplace of Manzoni and panettone, the home of the most famous gothic church in the country, the Duomo, and of one of Leonardo’s most precious works, the …

“Would you like fries with that?” may not be as modern a phrase as we think. You’ve probably seen the recent headlines extolling the full excavation of a gloriously intact fast-food joint, or thermopolium, in Pompeii. Virtually undisturbed save for …

Twenty-four hours: that’s how long it took to Mount Vesuvius to obliterate Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Oplontis from the face of the Earth. Twenty-four hours and two devastating phases: the first buried Pompeii under meters of ashes; the second, some …

2021 has been rough. Not as rough as 2020 but I am not that sad to see this year go. While we are sitting and gorging on panettone on two different sides of the Atlantic, I reckon our New Year’s …