As I've mentioned earlier, Italians love to scold. They'll shake their heads, wag their fingers, cluck their tongues at you for all kinds...

I've just been looking through old notes about my experiences years ago in Florence, when I took an 8-week crash course in Italian...

My visit to Fossacesia this fall was full of wonderful surprises. The surprise of having friends here who only months ago were strangers...

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...

This unusual and simple pasta dish is one of my favorites. There’s a bit of Moorish influence in the Italian kitchen, and the Abruzzo...

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...

Well, life got in the way of posting over these last weeks, so I’m picking up again with my July trip. Sorry that it qualifies now as a...

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,...

It's a kick to meet expats and hear about their towns and experiences. I'd found Mark, a transplant from Seattle only two years ago, in...

Festooned as it is with ivy and bougainvillea (or some other flower I've decided to call bougainvillea) and packed as it is with cool...

Dense, flavorful, and comforting sagnette e fagioli is the Abruzzo region’s take on the better-known pasta e fagioli (or pasta fazul in...

Near the end of my trip this spring, I had a coffee date with Elida, a young Canadian with roots in Fossacesia whom I’d met in one of the...

The following Monday, Victoria and I took a 45-minute road trip to Tornareccio. Victoria wisely suggested we use Google maps, which I...

Wrought-iron bed that three people can fit in, Sketches of horses where artist has written… Since I left off talking about the artisanal...

Victoria’s and my first jaunt was to Guardiagrele, one of two villages in Abruzzo that I know of (the other being Pescocostanzo) where...

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...

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...

After my night in Rome, I headed to Fossacesia. As I wrote in my last post, I’d arrived in Italy feeling pretty crummy. By the time I got...

Well, friends, Romans, and others who get the idea... I’ve shamefully neglected this blog for weeks, in part because I’ve been low on...

I love homely contadino food. Always have. Show me a garlicky tomato sauce or thick bean soup or almost any mashup of humble ingredients...