It’s sometimes difficult to keep on top of your Italian language skills when you’re away from Italy, your family and others that speak Italian.  I find that listening to music and reading are a big help… especially if you enjoy it.  Here’s a song from Alex Britti called “Piove” that I like.  Hope you enjoy it as well.

A few pictures from our big day.

The ceremony location

The Favors (Olive Oil from our family grove in Calabria)

Centerpieces & table names

The Venue

Summer is beginning to make a graceful exit here in New England with some cooler temps and sunny days (which we have been lacking for most of the summer.) I’ve been away from Italyville for a while for several reasons that have kept me busy, busy, busy!  I’ll let you choose the best reason:

A – I was away for work August 26-Sept 4th… and was in Houston, Chicago, Las Vegas and LA during that time.

B – I’m getting ready for another work trip to Miami and Atlanta next week.

C – I’m getting married at the end of the month… friends and family start arriving from all over soon and it seems like the planning never ends!

What do you think?  Busy schedule?  Not to mention that we have been trying to get our tomatoes so we can jar our sauce for the year.  The tomato situation doesn’t look good here in New England because of a tomato blight that has affected many of the local farmers.  We actually visited a local PYO (pick-your-own) farm yesterday and there wasn’t much to pick, so we’re looking into other farms in our area… keep your fingers crossed.  A great site to find local PYO farms in your area is pickyourown.org The site lists farms all over the country that offer PYO fruits & vegetables.

I wish we had these beauties from last year.

I got an email from Johnny Tomatoes yesterday who was jarring some sauce… so I know I need to hustle to get ours done soon, otherwise we go the canned route for the year! You know how I feel about that.  If your planning on jarring tomato sauce this year, here’s a link to last years post when we made our sauce to give you an idea on how we do it.  I’ll start posting more soon.  Til then…

Italians like crusty bread and the end piece of a good loaf of bread.  There is always a battle for the end piece (la tozza) in my house.  I used to laugh when I would hear “PB and J with the crust cut off” … cut the crust off?  why would you do that?  I actually dig out the doughy center!

Italians like bread crust.

On a clear day as the sun sets into the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west coast of Calabria…. you get a truly beautiful sunset and a great look at the volcano – Stromboli.  Stromboli is still very active and had it’s last major eruption August 2, 2008 (according to wikipedia) but is said to be in a constant state of eruption.  That doesn’t stop people from living on the island or visiting Stromboli (Stromboli is one of the most visited volcanoes on the planet… as apposed to the ones on Mars??)   These photos were taken from the balcony of my Uncle’s house during my last trip in March.

Gotta love the Zoom lens!

Here’s a great photo of my friend Paul’s family.  He has a wonderful tribute to his father (pictured center) at his blog, Remembering Paul Valvo.  Hope you are all remembering your mothers today as well! Happy Mothers day!

Click on the photo to enlarge

In March I was in Calabria visiting my family and did a little wild asparagus hunting with my cousin… if you’ve read some of my posts, you know I like to forage for “wild things” so yesterday when E and I were out on a hike with Dexter (our Italian Labrador…. you mean you didn’t know about Italian Labradors??!) We decided to gather some dandelions for lunch and while I was picking and E was taking pictures, the conversation went something like this:

E: how about some asparagus?

Me: What?… did you say asparagus?  You must be mistaken.

E: No, these are asparagus.

Me: I don’t think so, there’s no asparagus around here.

E: I know what asparagus look like.

Me: HOLY S*&%!!

If you’ve seen the video and the photos of the wild asparagus we found in Calabria you can see the difference.  These asparagus look like the ones you would find in the supermarket.  I remember going asparagus hunting with my father when I was young.  He told me that there used to be an asparagus farm in the fields where we would find them, so the asparagus were thick.  There’s a neighborhood in that field now but I assume that there might be a similar story behind these since it was an old farm that has since been donated as a wilderness reserve…  whatever the story, it’s A-OK with E and me because we’re having asparagus for dinner!

These last few days have been in the 90s (30 C) here in New England… and it’s only April.  So since there has been a summer feeling around here, we’ve been cooking summer-like.  Fennel salad is refreshing and one of my favorite summer treats with a nice glass of Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon blanc.  My aunt would make this fennel salad recipe for us in Calabria (although she would just go and pick herself a fennel bulb in the garden.)  Here’s how I like to prepare it.

What You’ll Need:

• Fennel bulb
• Radicchio
• Lemon
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt, pepper and oregano

Chop your fennel bulb into chunks about the size of your pinkie finger.  A lot of people like to shave fennel for salad but I’m not a “shave” kind of guy… I like crunchy bite size pieces but feel free to make it the way you like it best.  Add a handful of chopped radicchio, season with olive oil, salt, pepper, a pinch of oregano and a squeeze of lemon.  It’s a wonderfully refreshing salad and great complement to any meal.

Enjoy and buon appetito!