Italy's First Female Racer Was a Driving Advocate for All Women
Maria Antonietta Avanzo only wanted two things in life: she wanted to win, and she wanted more women to find their niche in racing just like she did. Avanzo, like many female racers, fell in love with her first set of wheels at a young age. Born in 1889 in Italy, she hopped on her father’s De Dion-Bouton tricycle nearly as soon as she could sit upr...
Livin’ la vida locavore: Stasio’s Italian Deli
I have a confession. I’m obsessed with anything and everything Italian, to the point where I’ve secretly wished my family was from Italy just to justify my obsession. I adore the hyper-local attention on ingredients, customs, boisterous gatherings with mounds of food, the language. Some people are Francophiles, others Anglophiles. But me, I’m an It...
Medium Rare Trip to Italy: Cinque Terre
I hope Cinque Terre always stays a little bit under the radar. That it remains in that "Italy's best kept secret" category. So, I figure, what better way to keep things secret than to go out there and publish a 1,000 word blog post raving about it. Cinque Terre means "The Five Towns" in Italian. Each town has, maybe, a few thousand residents. To go...
Il Cenacolo: the men and now the women
This year, 2018, marks the 90th anniversary of San Francisco’s premier Italian cultural club, Il Cenacolo. This impressive and important milestone was celebrated on December 7th with a stunning Christmas Gala at the St. Francis Yacht Club. In attendance were members, their spouses, and several notable guests including San Francisco Italian Consul G...
Restaurant review: Tony Tutto Pizza still pleasing people through pizza
In keeping with commonplace thoughts of warmth, generosity and mirth come holiday season, it brings me joy to write about the second rendition of Tony Tutto Pizza. The mid-October reopening in downtown Ross has brought a sigh of relief to those who had to face the disappointment of the original pizzeria’s closure in Mill Valley in early 2017. Greg...
The Passion of Mike Piazza: How the midlife crisis of a baseball Hall of Famer led to the demise of a 100-year-old Italian soccer club
When Mike Piazza arrived in Reggio Emilia, he was greeted as a hero. It was June 18, 2016. Everyone remembers the exact date. Piazza had just purchased a controlling interest in A.C. Reggiana 1919, the Italian city’s soccer club. Few locals had heard of him. Even fewer understood his Hall of Fame career catching for the Mets, Dodgers, and three oth...
The Sacred And Profane In Italian Popular Culture
A feature of life in Europe and North America over the past fifty years or so has been an attempt to blur the lines that separate opposite sides of long-established binaries: man-woman (gender roles and identities), culture-nature (anthropogenic climate change), and right-left (bipartisan populist politics) are just some examples of the binary stru...
Pizzeria Delfina Touches Down in Downtown San Francisco
It’s officially possible to get a taste of Mission favorite Pizzeria Delfina in downtown San Francisco: Annie and Craig Stoll’s fifth location is now open at 688 Mission Street, joining Pizzeria Delfinas in Pacific Heights, Palo Alto, and Burlingame. The new restaurant offers 46 dining seats, 14 counter seats, and will eventually include a 22-seat...
The Blood-Right Citizenship System That Creates A Shortcut To One Of The Most Powerful Passports
Italian citizenship is for many South Americans an appealing loophole that leads to an easy visa-free entry to many countries, first and foremost the United States. Passports are not all worth the same; they are ranked according to their power of letting citizens into the largest number of countries without a visa, or with as little bureaucracy as...
Larry Racioppo’s Photographs Document Decades Of Change In Brooklyn
Photographer Larry Racioppo loves his native Brooklyn and has made it his life’s work for nearly 50 years to document the borough’s transforming neighborhoods as well as his family and friends who have called it home. His latest book, Brooklyn Before, Photographs 1971—1983, was released earlier this year and illustrates a very different, pre-gentri...
Harnessed horse unearthed in ancient stable near Pompeii
Archaeologists have unearthed the petrified remains of a harnessed horse and saddle in the stable of an ancient villa in a Pompeii suburb. Pompeii archaeological park head Massimo Osanna told Italian news agency ANSA that the villa belonged to a high-ranking military officer, perhaps a general, during ancient Roman times. Osanna was quoted on Sunda...
Neighbors give emotional goodbye to Sabatino’s on Northwest Side
After 49 years, Sabatino's is closing its doors for good. A red awning on Irving Park Road has long marked the entrance to the Italian-American institution on the Northwest Side. Its sign, which for decades displayed congratulations for weddings and graduations, now simply reads, "THANK YOU FOR 41 YEARS." A festive and busy lunch hour was served wi...