Archive for 'Uncategorized'
Facciamo un Picnic Posted by Serena on Apr 9, 2011
Saturday morning was the beginning of a beautiful warm spring day. Not a cloud in the sky, a chorus of birdsong, lucertole (lizards) scuttling about over the terrazza and darting into shady cracks in the old stone walls. "Stavo pensando" dice mio marito "perché non invitiamo Claudio e Annalisa a fare un picnic su da…
Aprile Posted by Serena on Apr 6, 2011
Principali Festività (Main Festivals) According to the Roman historian Varro, Rome was founded on the 21st of April 753 B.C. (see my blog https://blogs.transparent.com/italian/buon-compleanno-roma/). Every year Rome celebrates her birthday with l’infiorata di Piazza di Spagna i.e. by covering the Spanish steps with blossoms. The 25th of April, Festa della Liberazione (Liberation Day), is a…
Specchio di Primavera Posted by Serena on Mar 21, 2011
Bentornata, Primavera! (Welcome back, Spring!) What better way to celebrate the official beginning of Spring than through the words of a great poet? Salvatore Quasimodo was born in Modica (Sicily) on the 20th of August 1901. After completing his engineering studies in Palermo, Quasimodo travelled around Italy following “il lavoro che dà da vivere” (the…
17 Marzo 1861 – 2011 Posted by Serena on Mar 18, 2011
Yesterday, the 17th of March, we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy with a national holiday. The history of the unification of Italy is long and complicated, but in a nutshell: The official birth of il Regno d’Italia (the Italian Kingdom) took place on the 17th of March 1861, and Vittorio Emanuele…
Le Paludi d’Italia Posted by Serena on Mar 6, 2011
The Italian Marshlands "Pigra, limosa, fetente, orlata di dense gramigne, la vasta palude sogghigna in faccia al sole". "Lazy, slimy, fetid, bordered by dense weeds, the vast marsh sneers in the face of the sun". These words, written by Gabriele d’Annunzio in 1879, portray the hatred and disgust felt by people at that time for…
101 uses for an orange! Posted by Serena on Feb 24, 2011
In my last blog I mentioned that I recently bought a twenty six kilo crate of arance rosse di Sicilia (Sicilian red oranges). Even after I had made ten jars of marmalade, I still had una marea di arance (a mass of oranges, literally ‘a tide of oranges’) to dispose of. So I decided to…
L’Arancia Rossa di Sicilia Posted by Serena on Feb 20, 2011
My husband Geoff is mad at me at the moment simply because I ordered a box of oranges! Well, I must admit that I went slightly over the top. It’s a twenty six kilo crate that, luckily, I’m sharing with my friend Annalisa. So, yes, we have oranges everywhere, both in the kitchen and the…