Archive for October, 2011
L’Incubo di Acqua e Fango Posted by Serena on Oct 31, 2011
Here in northern Toscana and Liguria we’re all still pretty much in a state of shock after last week’s devastating flash floods, and in terms of blogging it’s difficult to think of much else. In our little village near Pontremoli we were pretty much cut off from the rest of the world for a few…
Maltempo Flagella Nord Italia Posted by Serena on Oct 28, 2011
A couple of days ago I wouldn’t have imagined that I’d be able to publish this blog today. On Tuesday we were hit by monsoon like rains which caused horrendous flash flooding and widespread damage. Up in our little village in Lunigiana things seemed pretty bad as walls started collapsing, the telephone and internet stopped…
Fare le Corna Posted by Serena on Oct 26, 2011
Watching a live concert of our favourite Italian heavy metal band, Lacuna Coil, I was struck by the fact that the audience were all facendo le corna (making the horns), a common hand gesture here in Italy, especially in Napoli. I did a bit of research and discovered that the gesture was made popular in…
How to say ‘I love you’ in Italian Posted by Serena on Oct 24, 2011
Apparently one of the most frequently asked questions on internet search engines is ‘how do you say “I love you” in Italian… or Spanish, or German, or Greek, etc. etc. Well, this must be good news for international relations, and it’s certainly a lovely antidote to all the scaremongering perpetrated by politicians and the media…
La Fame di Mimì Posted by Serena on Oct 21, 2011
Povera Mimì la Gatta, ha un po’ di problemi digestivi e l’ho messa a dieta stretta di riso e tonno, ma lei è molto schizzinosa e vuole solo i suoi croccantini. Resiste per quasi un giorno e “poscia, più che ‘l dolor, potè ‘l digiuno”! (Dante) = Poor Mimì the Cat, she has a few…
La Caffettiera Napoletana Posted by Serena on Oct 19, 2011
The other day my friend Annalisa, who is in the middle of moving house, opened one of her packing boxes and found my dear old caffettiera napoletana that I had lent to her sometime ago. La caffettiera napoletana is not very common anymore in Italian households, but until the Fifties it used to be the…
La Polenta Posted by Serena on Oct 17, 2011
La polenta (also known as polenda or pulenda) is an ancient dish made from cereal flour which is the traditional staple diet of the contadino (peasant farmer) especially in the northern Italian regions of Veneto, Lombardia, Trentino, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The name polenta comes from the Latin word ‘puls’, a type of polenta di farina…