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I first encountered award-winning writer/photographer Jann Huizenga years ago when a friend mailed me one of her beautiful travel articles that was published in the New Mexican. Jann’s story was about the Val di Noto–an area of southeastern Sicily that’s been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I’d become enchanted with the place while on a Backroads biking trip–oohing and aahing over its fields of wildflowers and herbs, hills of almond and olive trees, and best of all its villages: Ragusa Ibla, Modica, and Noto–which are among Sicily’s many hidden treasures– fabulously adorned with stunning Sicilian baroque architecture. Jann first visited the area in 1990, when it was rundown and virtuallyRead More →

To get to the enchanting island of Ortygia, you cross over a bridge from Siracusa and enter what feels like a way-back machine. Traffic is limited here, so all is slowed down and peaceful. This was the land where the sea nymph Calypso lured Odysseus. A Golden Day here begins at the morning market, that’s not large, yet impressive with enthusiastic vendors and varieties of fish–from glistening sardines to gigantic tuna. It’s also a great place to buy capers or chocolate from Modica to take home. Ortygia’s masterpiece is the Piazza Duomo, rectangular-shaped, flanked by buildings that elegantly showcase the Sicilian baroqoe style. At the center of it all isRead More →

Andiamo…to the island of Sicilia. We’ll begin where I was a short time ago: Catania. It’s the perfect starting point (with an easy airport) to explore places like Siracusa, Taormina, and the Aeolian Islands (all of which I am heading to on a Country Walkers trip–so stay tuned). For many years guidebooks discouraged spending time in Catania, giving it the same treatment as Naples: “ a city in decay, depressing, dangerous, etc.”  It’s now actually a vibrant, youth-filled city  (with a prestigious university), and a Baroque-a-palooza historic center, that’s recently been scrubbed up and restored. Mount Etna rising in the distance provides a dramatic backdrop. And like Naples, Catania is absolutely theatrical–with lotsRead More →

Fate took me to Assisi for the first time in the early nineties. My husband and I were driving from Siena toward Montepulciano and a dense January fog descended. We got lost, argued about whether it was safe to head in the foggy direction (I SO wanted to keep going) and ended up turning towards clearer skies, with me pouting. We got lost again, heading towards Perugia, fought again, and then… there suddenly appeared a pink stone town on the hill, glowing like an oasis… Since we were living in San Francisco at the time, we imagined Saint Francis had lead us to our sister cityRead More →

Through the wonderful way that Italian connections happen,  my friend Carol Coviello-Malzone, (author of Flavors of Rome),  introduced me to Chef Andrea Tiberi, a young, super-talented gentleman who was born and grew up in Umbria–on a farm just outside of Assisi.  Andrea’s passion and gift  for cooking took him up the professional ladder (he’s cooked for The Pope!) and four years ago he moved to the USA to head  up Eatalian, a company that promotes the cuisine of Italy–through catered events and deliveries in the Connecticut Tri-State area. Eatalian also offers fun cooking classes (in collaboration with Select Italy) in a cool Soho Loft space. One of Andrea’s most beloved spotsRead More →

 I was reading  Eat Pray Love–the part where Liz Gilbert describes one of her new friends, (named Elizabeth), and I was struck by this line:  “With an apartment in Rome, a house in Umbria, an Italian husband and a job that requires her to travel around Italy eating food and writing about it for Gourmet, it appears that the second Elizabeth must have saved a lot of orphans from drowning in a previous lifetime.” I guessed (correctly) that this Elizabeth had to be the wonderful writer Elizabeth Helman Minchilli. For decades my Italian travel file folders have been filled with Minchilli’s beautiful articles I’ve clipped from magazines sheRead More →

The trip up to the central piazza of Perugia is a thrilling mix: you’re on a state of the art series of escalators rising over ancient city walls, gliding past humble homes with signoras peeking out as they water their geraniums in their window boxes, an aqueduct, those soft hills in the distance…and then you land in this vast Piazza with the Fontana Maggiore. It’s fun just to stroll about past the chic shop windows,  loads of chocolate displays (no secret this place is home to Perugina, maker of Baci), maybe even peek into the Cathedral of San Lorenzo to check out the chapel where the Virgin Mary’s wedding ring is kept. ARead More →

This title so appeals to me: Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl About Love. The book just came out in June, has been getting great reviews, and what I’ve read so far has been wonderfully entertaining. Author Justine van der Leun is a hip young New Yorker, working as a magazine editor, who flees that world to puruse amore in the rural farming village of Collelungo (central Umbria).  The love affair crumbles, but Justine ends up adopting a dog and thus becoming (in her words) “a weirdo” of the village.  Most Collelungo natives treat dogs as bestie, while Justine follows the American model, showering Marcus with tender loving care. I’m loving reading her honest, witty prose Read More →

I met Kit Burns, founder of Doorways Ltd (a villa rental company) on a group trip to Sardinia  and we instantly clicked. I’m sure you know how these things go. It’s much like kindergarten–wandering over to an easel, where you’ve sniffed out a kindred spirit to join you in fingerpainting. As far as Kit, we were on a mountain ridge at a shepherd’s hut having this amazing lunch–fresh ricotta drizzled with honey, grilled sausages, thin Sardinian bread and delicious cookies –it was all spread out on rustic wooden tables overlooking this gorge. GORGE–OUS! While everyone was happily yakking, buzzed from the great food and wine–I found myself drifting to aRead More →

Marlene Iaciofano and I share the fact that our grandparents both immigrated to America about the same time (early 20th century) from around the same place–mountain villages near Campobasso, in the region of Molise. Who knows…maybe her nonno made eyes at my nonna at a festa when they were youngsters? Or maybe when they landed in America and settled in North Jersey they celebrated together at one of the picnics the Molisani  regularly put on in the parks up there in the summertime… I’m grateful to have met the lovely Marlene during my book tour this past springtime. She’s turned her passion for Italy intoRead More →