Kitchen Cousins (+ new expat family recipes)
While I was hanging with the family in Tuscany, a kitchen renovation was underway back at the house in Fossacesia. That's where I headed...
top of page
At Home in Fossacesia
May 10, 20233 min read
Thinking Pink
Well, while many of you anglophools* were watching a florid Charles shuffle to the throne, I was watching the start of the race that...
83 views0 comments
Feb 2, 20238 min read
Postcards from (and of) Rosie & me
(Wish you were here?) I’d planned this brief January trip to meet with Sergio, the property manager, to go over work to be done this...
211 views0 comments
Oct 30, 20228 min read
More Family Time in Fossacesia!
Well, I’m on a roll. I just had another stay in Italy with family members. This time, I was joined by my nephew, John, and his wife,...
125 views1 comment
Nov 27, 20213 min read
Fill ‘Er Up and "Check" the Oil!
I arrived in Fossacesia in time for il raccolto, the olive harvest. The harvest here came a bit later than usual, in part due to rain...
78 views0 comments
Nov 19, 20215 min read
Inauspicious Beginnings, with a More Auspicious Twist
My triumphant second arrival at the house in the epoch of Covid proved to be a trifle short of entirely triumphant. It started with the...
69 views0 comments
Nov 23, 20196 min read
Harvest Boon
My visit to Fossacesia this fall was full of wonderful surprises. The surprise of having friends here who only months ago were strangers...
229 views0 comments
Nov 11, 20191 min read
Down with the sun, up with the color
Well, I’m just back from 12 days in Fossacesia and recovered from a 24-hour post-flight bug. (Thanks again, bacterial convention that is...
65 views0 comments
Oct 6, 20193 min read
Dog Days Redux (This one's more cheerful)
On Wednesday morning, I had a tea date at my home with Angela, a Manchester native who now lives in nearby Torino di Sangro. She arrived...
61 views0 comments
Aug 18, 20193 min read
The beach is back.
Usually, you can count on July in Italy to bring 31 days of sun. Not this year. On July 10th, I took a pullman from Rome to Pescara,...
88 views1 comment
May 20, 20191 min read
A Few of My FavoriteThings
Wrought-iron bed that three people can fit in, Sketches of horses where artist has written… Since I left off talking about the artisanal...
82 views0 comments
May 7, 20192 min read
Scenes from Fossacesia
Meanwhile, my niece Victoria visited for a few days from Dublin, where she’s spending the year. It was lovely to bond with her outside...
86 views2 comments
Apr 28, 20195 min read
Four Friends and a Few Nuts
My road to a home in Italy, and then to a habitable one, and then to one in which I feel at home has been and continues to be a tortuous...
62 views0 comments
Feb 6, 20196 min read
Not Quite at Home Yet
The more time I spend in Italy, the more I’m aware of what a stranger I am, culturally. It’s funny to say that because I think of Italian...
297 views4 comments
Jan 16, 20192 min read
An unexpectedly brief stay in Fossacesia... and an unexpected and sorrowful goodbye
I got home from Italy last Tuesday night, 15 days earlier than I’d planned. There were so many things I’d hoped to do during this last...
107 views2 comments
Nov 5, 20181 min read
Gekko who’s coming to dinner.
Every once in a while, I see in the corner of my eye something dark and darting, usually high on the wall. It gives me a real start until...
35 views0 comments
Oct 26, 20182 min read
A recurring character
As I begin sketching out posts for this blog, I notice that I’m not consistent in my first-person pronoun. Sometimes it’s “I,” other...
90 views2 comments
Sep 29, 20182 min read
"I have a little house in Italy."
The words are magic. The reality is, too. It’s also terrifying, comical, humbling, and stressful. The magic lies in turning the key and...
1,366 views0 comments
Sep 28, 20182 min read
A Long Way from Rome
People who’ve visited Italy often rhapsodize about how warm and welcoming are the Italian people. I’ve had that experience, too, but not...
167 views0 comments
Sep 26, 20183 min read
How I Got Here
Like so many others who visit Italy, I fell in love with the sound of the language, the landscape, the cobblestones, the moons, the...
127 views2 comments
Sep 22, 20181 min read
The House, Before
I bought the house from an older man named Nick, who’d been born there. He and his wife had emigrated to Canada and remained there for...
127 views0 comments
Sep 21, 20182 min read
When All Else Fails, Go to the Tiles!
When I closed on the house, I, like Frances in Under the Tuscan Sun, had only the dimmest idea what to do next. The similarity in our...
74 views0 comments
Sep 20, 20182 min read
Call in the Cavalry!
As it turned out, the GC wasn’t good enough. Expenses were piling up and work was moving glacially. When my father, a builder and land...
66 views0 comments
Sep 19, 20181 min read
The House, Now
This is the little house as it stands now. There’s still a lot of work to be done, partly to reinforce it structurally because the roof...
110 views0 comments
Sep 19, 20181 min read
Altar, Ego
Perhaps only in a second home in Italy can you have a shrine to yourself at the top of the stairs. Yep, that’s me, sort of — if I were 30...
126 views2 comments
Sep 9, 20182 min read
The House, Someday. Maybe.
The significant work I’d still like to do would be twofold: tame and landscape the outdoor area and extend the house into part of it....
68 views0 comments
bottom of page