Traditions

Brimming with cultural vigor, strength and resilience, Caltagirone is the heart of the authentic, wild southeastern Sicily. The scenic town is a small slice of heaven just 40 miles from Catania that proudly acknowledges its multi-layered past. It remains a …

Christmas time is usually associated with special recipes that quite often are traditional to our family. Along with Christmas cake and Christmas pudding, mince pies are an essential part of my Christmas celebrations. Mince pies are part of a type of …

If you are familiar with all that’s trending on YouTube, then  you may know The Pasta Grannies, a channel with more than  400.000 subscribers where each video is  dedicated to Italian nonne and  the  way they  make traditional, delicious pasta …

Before pasta, there was Lady Salad. Today we can taste all kinds of spectacular insalatone or large salads, yet the first to prepare raw leafy vegetables drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and cumin were the Ancient Romans. The root …

Wheat fields have decorated the rolling hills of Tuscany for thousands of years. Interspersed amongst linear vineyards and silver-leafed olive groves, the golden grain has nourished generation after generation, just as it continues to do so today.  In recent decades, …

Baked anelletti pasta is a recipe traditional to Palermo, but it is a dish that holds a special place in the hearts of almost all Sicilians.  If you visit Palermo and you hear someone say “timballo,” then rest assured: they …

What would a trip to Rome be without a selfie in front of the Trevi Fountain and the traditional tossing of a coin in its light blue waters? Who hasn’t stood in awe of our capital’s beauty from the Gianicolo, …

“Parla come mangi!” (speak as you eat!) is a common way to invite someone to speak in a simple manner and without using too many words. But do Italians really speak as they eat? Considering that we love our food, …

The time has come to uncork those jars and taste the “red gold.” What are we talking about? Of the ch’nzerve (a huge pantry that contains bottles of sauce) of tomatoes. Readers from Puglia will immediately recall that yummy memory: …

The year was 1921, the place Ellis Island. My maternal grandmother, single, arrives into port from Napoli on the ship Patria to be with her sister Concetta, living in Brooklyn. My grandfather, who had come to America in 1911 from …