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“Stab straight downward, and then wiggle it back and forth a bit.”My palms grew sweaty inside the black rubber gloves and my pulse quickened. I raised the knife and took a deep breath. For the ninth year, Market Hall Foods in Rockridge had acquired one of two giant wheels of the Italian cheese Crucolo that make their way to the United States each y...

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When you visit a Bay Area coffee shop, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that you’ll be able to order some form of espresso on the menu, whether as a latte, a cappuccino, a macchiato or an americano.  Some 45 years ago, that was not the case. That’s when an Italian elevator repairman in Oakland named Carlo Di Ruocco—new to town and yearning for a t...

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Måneskin have added 2023 tour dates in conjunction with their new album, RUSH! The newly planned concerts are set at large-scale venues in Europe and North America from September into December. Måneskin is currently on tour in Europe and will tour their home country of Italy in July. The band will be performing across seven countries in the America...

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Thursday March 2 | 6:30 PM. FIVE SHORTS AT THE NEW PARKWAY THEATER (474 24th St, Oakland, CA 94612). Introduction by Dr. Cristina Farronato, Lecturer and Language Program Coordinator, Department of Italian Studies, UC Berkeley. All shorts are subtitled in English. Free Admission | Registration required here. LA MIA MILANO by Nadia Ali (24 min). IDR...

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BORN IN THE ITALIAN PROVINCE of Alessandria in 1868, Giovanni Battista Ratto sailed as a cabin boy on a schooner to Buenos Aires when he was just 13 years old. After some time, the Bay area appealed to Ratto and he moved once again. There, he met a prominent produce farmer who took him under his wing and gave him a job. Eventually, he married and h...

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Ah, the 1960s. For many enthusiasts, that was one of the best decades for automotive design. During those years, iconic models such as the Ferrari 250 GTO, Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale, Lamborghini Miura, or Aston Martin DB5 were introduced.It was also a time when Frank Reisner, a former chemical engineer born in Hungary, raised in Canada, and educated a...

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Longtime patrons of Oliveto, the 35-year-old Oakland Italian spot that closed with great fanfare at the end of last year, got a surprising message in their inboxes in recent days. “OK, it’s not actually over,” the email began. According to the message, the restaurant’s cafe operation quietly reopened last week, an unexpected coda for a restaurant t...

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Rockridge’s Market Hall will never be the same. Oliveto, the iconic Oakland restaurant that carved a path for Cal-Italian cuisine within the farm-to-table movement, is shuttering at the end of 2021 after a 35-year run. “We’re tired,” co-owner Bob Klein told The Mercury News Thursday. “Running a restaurant these days is really difficult. The pandemi...

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Without the pandemic, the 100th anniversary of a prestigious Italian club in California, founded in 1920, would have been celebrated last year: the Colombo Club. The round-figure anniversary called for major celebrations, but we know that 2020 didn't allow for that. There is, however, a book that celebrates the club's history, and this year it will...

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Back in 1919, a group of 22 young men from northwest Italy’s Piedmont region got together most evenings at a house in North Oakland to drink wine and play cards and bocce. Similar smaller gatherings took place at other Piemontese family houses in the area. By 1920, the men’s exuberant energy overwhelmed their hosts. “So we kicked them out of our ho...

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