I am no big intellectual. I have always been a "good enough" student with not much effort, as long as I wasn't in a class--like science, math or foreign language - that had right or wrong answers. Unlike most of my classmates at the institutions I attended, I wasn't driven to get As. Even though … Continue reading 229. Adult Ed.
The other day at book group, a friend read out a passage from Ian McEwan's Lessons, a book she had enjoyed: "He said that if he ever had to look at one more Madonna and child, he would 'throw up.'...Within the totality of human experience of the world there was an infinity of subject matter … Continue reading 228. Raffaello
For my birthday this year, Ben had a brainstorm. He had read in the Philadelphia Inquirer about a retired private investigator and law enforcement agent originally from South Philly, James Trovarello, who has developed a small enterprise researching Italian American clients' family trees. Why not engage his services for my birthday present, rather than buy … Continue reading 227. Family Tree
I've always been a sucker for the Olympics. It's probably the only occasion where hearing The Star Spangled Banner gives me goosebumps. I have to confess that I watched the documentary Miracle: The Boys of 80, about the 1980 gold medal US hockey team, and blubbered through the whole thing, as I did watching it … Continue reading 226. Olympic Fever
Full disclosure: I had a chip on my shoulder about Mexico. I last traveled there in 1983, when my friend Debbie and I went for a week in Mexico City and Acapulco. We both got deathly ill; I collapsed on the street and smashed my front teeth landing on the hard pavement, but I was … Continue reading 225. Italy vs. Mexico
It would take unusual chutzpah to compare Italy, a country where I've spent a total of nearly a year over the past six decades, and that looms large in my family's psyche, with little Portugal, where I've spent a grand total of three full days in only one city. But the shoe fits, and here … Continue reading 224. Italy vs. Portugal
It was one of those things that was highly anticipated, far beyond what might be expected on the face of it. After all, it was just another Italian restaurant, in a city filled with them. But its prominent location in the long-vacant Barnes and Noble on Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, and its proprietor, the famed restauranteur … Continue reading 223. Ristoranti
I was chatting with a student in my office at Swarthmore College when she casually mentioned that she was taking a course in fresco painting. I managed to not leap across the room, but I'm sure I startled her with my over-the-top expression of interest and enthusiasm. I asked if I could see her work … Continue reading 222. Fresco class
A recent article in the New York Times described Italians' dismay at the price of going to the beach. The Tuscan beach town of Viareggio In the weeks surrounding the August 15 Farragosto national holiday, when cities and towns clear out and Italians head for the sea, prices for an umbrella and two chairs have … Continue reading 221. Beach Clubs
I am an enthusiastic, if mediocre, cook, with not surprisingly, a special interest in Italian cuisine. So the first minute after Swarthmore College, my workplace, announced a session on pasta-making as part of its Summer of Learning program of fun activities, I signed up. I have tried to make fresh pasta several times over the … Continue reading 220. Pasta School
Gigi's Italia 