It’s been a busy few weeks but I hope to post more frequently before our trip to Italy in July.  I’m sure there are many of you getting ready to vacation soon and I’m certain several of you are heading to Italy as well.  It’s often difficult to brainstorm  on what gifts to bring to your Italian friends and family and what to bring back to your loved ones from Italy.  We always want to bring back gifts that you can’t easily find here in the States… which now a days is a difficult task!

If you’re headed to Venice, a Venetian Mask makes a great gift! I have several Venetian masks, which are wonderful to use as decoration or as an easy and classy costume.  I have used mine several times as a Halloween costume.  So, if your travel plans include Venice this summer, make sure to pick up a few Venetian masks!  Oh, your not going to Venice this summer?? Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about you!  Italyville has teamed up with 1001VenetianMasks.com to give away a $50 gift certificate towards a purchase of one of their masks.  They have a great selection of beautiful masks on their website, so make sure to head over and take a look.

Me with my Venetian Mask on Halloween

One of my favorites!

Here’s what you need to do to win the $50 gift certificate.

• You need to leave a comment on this post
• And either retweet this post (upper right corner of the post) or mention the giveaway with a link on your blog or facebook page.

You need to do both… if you don’t have a blog of your own or a facebook or twitter account… get one, they are all free!   You have until (updated: extended until Friday June 18th at 5pm EST.)  1001 Venetian Masks only ships in the US, so if you win and are not in the US you can give the gift certificate away to someone you know who does.  I’ll be choosing a winner at random.  Good luck!

It’s not unusual to see old abandoned homes in southern Italy… so when we took a walk to see my uncle’s childhood home (not far from his own) I asked him who owned it and why it was abandoned.  The answer was that he did, along with his brothers and sisters.  It was left to them by their parents and since they all had either moved away or had homes of their own, they couldn’t decide what to do with it.  They had refused offers from business men, families and countless others because no one could agree.  I’m sure there are many similar stories all over Italy.  So what once was alive with voices and daily chores is now silent and overgrown… but if you look a little deeper, beauty still lives there.

I did a post on Italian doors a while back… but something else caught my eye this time around:  Fountains.  Fountains can be found all over Italy in many different styles and in many different places.  Some Italians find the fountain they think has the best tasting water and go back again and again to fill up bottles and jugs.  I went to a fountain in the mountains this past trip with my cousins that was about 45 minutes from their home… we passed plenty of fountains on the way that obviously didn’t have the quality drinking water they were looking for.

These fountains however, are the ones that dot cities and towns.  Most aren’t used very often anymore but I imagine people would actually come to these fountains for water once.  Even though they aren’t used as they once were, there’s a certain beauty to them. Don’t you think?

Feroleto Antico (CZ), Calabria

Feroleto Antico (CZ), Calabria

Pizzo Calabro (VV), Calabria

San Michele (CZ), Calabria

I remember washing my hands and drinking from the fountain above when I was a kid in my father’s hometown of San Michele.

I’ve been saving this fantastic photo for the holidays…. the photo was submitted by Julie at Julie Richey Mosaics. Julie took this photo in Florence while living and studying there.  Fantastic Photo Julie and thanks for sharing!

So I managed to wipe out my entire hard drive last week… to add insult to injury, I have a back-up drive but never got around to hooking it up.  All my photos (that I didn’t upload to snapfish) including some of the “fantastic photos” I had yet to post (sorry) and much much more.  I also had several emails from readers that I hadn’t replied to, so my apologies to you if you wrote to me and I didn’t reply.  Damn you hard drive!  But life goes on.

After roasting my hard drive, we roasted and jarred some red peppers.  Here’s the link from last years post on how we roast our peppers. It’s a simple process that is time consuming but  well worth the effort!

From my inbox:

*Joe C. from New Jersey has a couple fig trees that have produced a whole lot of figs (lucky Joe!) and he’s looking for a fig jam recipe.  I don’t have one but maybe someone can help Joe out.

*Michele D. asks for the family sopressata recipe…. let’s not get crazy Miche.  How many times do I have to tell you… there are no recipes.

*The Debate continues… I’m talking about THE DEBATE – Sauce vs. Gravy.  Todd thinks Gravy is cRaZy and Stacy grew up using Gravy in Boston.

* “How to be a Good Italian Daughter” by Antoinette LaVecchia is playing in New York City.

As I mentioned in my recent post about Italian food, some of the best recipes come from Italian creativity when times are tough (la cucina povera) in southern Italy that was pretty much all the time… well, times are tough everywhere!  but don’t let that stop you from making delicious Italian food.  Pasta Pie or pizza di macaroni is a great way to make leftover pasta into a great new recipe.  This recipe was created for exactly that reason… as you may know, Italians don’t cook the “correct amount” of anything.  It goes something like this at my house, “how many people are we?… 6?  we’ll need 3 pounds of pasta.” So when there’s a pound of pasta left over, what do you with it?  (Yes frat boy, you could eat it cold.)  make Pasta Pie!

There’s no reason to wait until you have leftover pasta though… Pasta Pie is a great treat anytime!  especially in the summer.  Check out this monster my brother-in-law made this past weekend.  This is 4 pounds of pasta deliciousness.  Everyone has their own recipe, amounts, types of pasta, etc.  I don’t have the exact recipe (hint: there is no exact recipes in Italian cooking, the sooner you realize that, the happier we will all be) but here’s the basics of how he makes his… which was delicious!

He uses different types of long pasta (spaghetti, bucatini, etc.) if you use short cut pasta it tends to crumble easily.  The different pasta types also help make it less dense. Cook your pasta and let it cool and drain well.  Then beat 12 eggs per pound of pasta (no, that isn’t a misprint… 12 eggs per pound of pasta, I never said my brother-in-law wasn’t cRaZy) apparently my sister only had 24 eggs to add to the 4 pounds of pasta so it didn’t come out exactly how it should have (so 48 eggs would be the correct amount here?… C-r-A-z-Y!)  Add the eggs, grated parmigiana, salt and pepper to the pasta and mix well.  In a humongous frying pan (obviously) add olive oil and let the pasta mixture cook until golden brown (the trick is to move the pasta around so that it forms in the pan) then take the lid of the pan and flip the pasta.  Let both sides get golden brown and you have yourself a Pasta Pie.  I wouldn’t recommend starting with a 4 pounder… you might want to make a 1 pounder first.  You can also add other ingredients as well… sopressata, ham or whatever your creative Italian soul is feeling.  So have yourself a slice of Pasta Pie, a fresh summer salad and a glass of wine.  Enjoy and buon appetito!