A “memento mori” in San Bernardino alle Ossa
Italian best-selling author Giuseppe Genna has been familiar with San Bernardino alle Ossa since his childhood. Inside the Milanese Baroque church, built in the second half of the 17th century, he was particularly impressed by the human bones – retrieved from an ancient nearby cemetery – used to decorate the niches, pillars, doors and frieze of a c...
Italian culture has relevance at Columbia (commentary)
A recent commentary published on SILive by a disgruntled Italian American indicts Columbia University for its lack of acknowledgment of Christopher Columbus and, more broadly, the Italian American community. As a native Staten Islander currently pursuing her doctorate in Italian studies at Columbia, I felt the need to respond to this very passionat...
The Foods of Puglia in the Mediterranean Diet
Celebrate with us the 3rd Week of the Italian Cuisine in San Francisco! Join Viola Buitoni, Food Advisor for the Consulate General of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute in conversation with Michelin-starred chef Maria Cicorella. Born in Rome and reared in Perugia, Italy, Viola Buitoni had an idyllic upbringing in a family estate immersed in a...
Valentina Marino in “East 75th Street”: New York Jazz with Italian Blood
She has defined the album a “crossover”, that starts from a jazz-like experience and transitions towards folk, pop rock and electronic. With East 75th Street, jazz singer Valentina Marino returns to publishing records after her latest project PhiLovesophy (feel Love, so feel). Six original pieces, written by Valentina herself and composed with a ba...
Oriana Fallaci. An Italian woman, a controvert journalist
Proud, dignified, charismatic, pragmatic: the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who passed away in 2006, was this and much more. A successful writer and renowned journalist, from a cultural point of view she was one of the most prominent women figures. Active feminist, famous for her love/ hate relationship with the dear departed, Pier Paolo Pasol...
Inside Leonti, the Grand Italian Restaurant Replacing Dovetail on the UWS
Chef Adam Leonti will make his long-awaited New York debut with dishes like stuffed rabbit, milk-braised lamb, and salt-baked branzino at his new Italian restaurant Leonti, opening Thursday in the UWS space that once held Dovetail. The new iteration is an upscale venue inspired by Milanese and Torinese restaurants that couple high-quality service w...
Buffalo's Old West Side of the Mid-1960s
When times change, distinct cultural practices and traditions often mysteriously disappear from city neighborhoods and our social consciousness, but they should never be forgotten. That is exactly what happened here in Buffalo to the omnipresent, Italian cultural fixtures on the Old West Side during the mid-1960s: a golden yet turbulent time define...
Flavors from Sicilian family farm live on at Sal & Judy's
Picture it: A farmhouse kitchen in the 1950s Sicilian countryside. At the stove is Marianna Impastato. At her elbow is her son Sal. Atop that stove is a huge pot of simmering onions. As the onions turn translucent and shiny with olive oil, she adds minced fresh garlic; pig’s feet go in and gallons of crushed fresh Italian tomatoes. Who would enjo...
IAP 75: POWER HOUR: A Power Hour History of the Italian American Experience, Part 2 of 4: Italians in America: 1890 – 1941
Hot on the heels of Part 1, Before We Were Italians: 1492 – 1890, of our four-part Power Hour series on Italian American history, join John, Pat, and Dolores as they delve into Part 2 with “Italians in America: 1890-1941.” If you enjoyed Part 1, you won’t want to miss this next chapter in the Italian American story, covering the Great Migration, th...
Ferrante fever hits the States (again)
Across the Atlantic, far from their supposed site of conception, Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels rank amongst the best-received Italian literary series authored by a woman—or rather, a pseudonymous author presumed to be female. The four-book series, centered on the impassioned friendship between two girls coming of age in an impoverished Naples,...
IL Mercatino at Garden Place on Friday
The Garden Place in Norway will host an IL Mercatino, an Italian-style Market, on Friday to raise funds to support the U.P. Honor Flight. The market will be open from 6 to 9 p.m., with the gift shop transformed into a festive wonderland. This year’s vendors include authors Karl Bohnak and Jack Deo with their book “Sunburns to Snowstorms,” featuring...
La Notte della Taranta (The night of the Taranta), a dance performance
As the legend goes, there was only one way to survive the bite of a tarantula and the workers in the fields of Apulia discovered it. When the spider bit you and the venom started to move within your body, you had to move with it and the only way to flush out the poison was to dance. And it was from this story that the traditional dance of the Salen...