Archive for the ‘Art & culture’ Category
Auguri e Buon Polpette in 2009!
2009.01.04
As the green grass of Umbria freezes, there is no better time for making Polpette piccante in sugo sul Polenta. Served with a glass of grechetto, in front of your roaring wood stove, there is no better way to while away the winter months in a coccoon of comfort food.
My recipe feeds 2 hungry […]
Filed under: Art & culture, Italian cooking, everyday life, italian recipe
Naples: 45 Minutes to Capri; don’t miss the boat.
2008.10.17
I had a fleeting moment of empathy for the Roman PR whiz (IHT’s vocab choice) Claudio Velardi who was retained to solve Napoli’s image problem.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/16/arts/kimmelman.php
Having survived four interminable years in Napoli, I am qualified to offer my 2 euro cents worth of advice to Mr. Velardi as to how to chisel away at Naples’ […]
Filed under: Art & culture
American Girl @ Madonna Concert Roma
2008.09.21
On Saturday, September 6th Madonna came to Roma.
I must admit to feeling really old having started listening to her in the era of Lucky Star and Borderline. In fact, I remember my friend Zan having the single record of Borderline that we listened to over and over again before bolting off to […]
Filed under: Art & culture, Madonna
Food + Wine = Love
2008.08.19
I am on my second glass of sparkling white something-or-other-Orvieto swill from a spout, which is purchased from our neighborhood enoteca; the same enoteca on the corner, sandwiched between the butcher and the picture framer, where the neighborhood afficionados line up at 9:00 am for the opening, ‘cept Mondays when the enoteca has a day […]
Filed under: Art & culture, Italian cooking
Romania is the new Italia
2008.05.19
I just returned from a whirlwind tour of Romania, first Bucharest, then Cluj, then Oradea, then back in that order. Guess what? I wasn’t once robbed or worse as many Italians warned I would be. In fact, on two different occasions, I entered into a gas station and overpaid, not noticing that […]
Filed under: Art & culture, romania, travel
Out of India…
2008.04.14
…just barely, we left India on Saturday at about 2 am after a rather terse airport encounter with security over a certain colleague who insisted on checking more than 3,000 kg. in luggage acquired during a month’s travels in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
In somma, there was never a dull moment in India, and […]
Filed under: Art & culture
American Girl is on a work furlough in Chennai, India
2008.04.09
Greetings from “Incredible India,” (their travel motto, not necessarily always how I describe it). It is very hot and steamy here, but I am cloistered in a nice eco-hotel conference room during the day, discussing microfinance related laws.
Life in India, from what I observe is misery for about 80% of the population–the rest live […]
Filed under: Art & culture, Current events
Wanted: One Canon lawyer Needed for Moral Guidance on Vatican’s New Sin List
2008.03.10
Italy is a blogger’s dream, consistently creating such fun, commentable content. The lastest gem comes from the Vatican (.va) in the form of a not-to-do-new sin list, which includes:
1. “Bioethical” violations such as birth control
2. “Morally dubious” experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich […]
Filed under: Art & culture, Current events
American Girl from Chicago Guest Blogger: in dolce attesa in Roma
2008.03.03
Italy, and Rome in particular is well known to expats as one of the last places to withstand the reach of western customer service principles. Many explanations have been offered for such a lack of customer friendliness and indifference: It could be apathy. It could be ignorance, or simply lack of competition […]
Filed under: Art & culture
San Remo is over … who knew it had started?
2008.03.02
In years past Italian households throughout the country were glued to San Remo broadcasts and would plan their lives around being in front of the TV, kids washed, husbands fed in time to tune in. Now, the organizers are scraping to have live bodies in front of the TV, lest the record companies withdraw […]
Filed under: Art & culture, Current events
