La vita italiana

My husband, a first-generation Italian, is fiercely passionate about the culinary traditions of his homeland. I often get to reap the benefits…and endure the castigations about what is truly Italian, and what is not. The other night, for instance, I …

There was something about Yogi Berra that simply did not attract attention.  Even his military buddies doubted his ability to play baseball, a judgment which was based solely on his appearance.  Not long after being discharged from the military, Yogi …

All great cultures and civilization have one essential thing in common. They all have great road networks. Roads, like rivers, are the viable arteries of life forces that transmit the elements of civilization. Roads carry travelers, armies, wanderers, and true …

Each year I dread September 20. On this day in 1870 Piedmontese artillery blasted a hole in Porta Pia, the fortified gate on the northeastern side of the Aurelian Wall. Black-plumed Bersaglieri routed pantalooned Papal Zouaves, ending a thousand years …

The recent debate in New York City regarding stop-and-frisk has once again put the spotlight back on the city’s Police Department.  The controversial policy endorsed and supported by the lame duck Mayor Michael Bloomberg is being used as a campaign …

Where I grew up in New York, we lived in a community comprised mostly of Italian Catholics. Our neighborhood bordered a Jewish community and I had many Jewish friends with whom I attended school, but none of them were Italian. …

One of my earliest recollections of my father’s town in southern Italy was at nine-years old. The town of approximately 12,000 inhabitants is called Mugnano del Cardinale and it is surrounded by the Irpini Mountains, located just 45 miles from …

Political correctness aside, Christopher Columbus is arguably the greatest and most important explorer of all times, changing the world and the very course of history.  Vespucci, Verrazano, and the Cabots are just some of the other Italians who lead the …

It was a Tuesday, June 6, 1944 when thousands of Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. Among the many young men who fought bravely was a nineteen-year-old kid named Lawrence Peter Berra from Saint Louis, Missouri. He was …

I dropped my husband off at Malpensa in the pre-dawn light, plugged Corso Vittorio Emanuele 135 Naples into my rental car’s GPS, and drove off with one last giddy nervous wave. I still remember the look on his face as …