Capturing the soul of the city he loved
When the city began bulldozing the Los Angeles neighborhood he loved—the neighborhood he lived in—Leo Politi protested in the only way he knew how. He made art. Bunker Hill had captivated his imagination from the moment he arrived from Fresno in the mid-1930s and set up his easel on Olvera Street, sketching portraits of tourists to make a living. O...
Aglianico in Its Own Right
Wines made from the aglianico grape were virtually unknown to much of the world just 25 years ago. They have made great progress since. Now they are merely unappreciated. That may sound like faint headway for a red wine with structure, lively acidity and the ability to age and evolve. Perhaps it is worth trying to accelerate that trajectory so more...
Rocky Marciano's Career Began With A St. Patrick's Day Bout In Holyoke, Mass.
Seventy-two years ago this St. Patrick's Day, Rocky Marciano — one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time — came to fight in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It was a turning point in his life. A friend set Marciano up with the Holyoke fight. It was 1947. He had just gotten out of the Army and was digging ditches for the gas company in Brockton, Mas...
Tammany Scene: Society holds dinner celebrating Italian heritage
Members of the American Society of Italian Heritage celebrated the Festa di San Giuseppe, or Feast of St. Joseph, during a recent dinner at Benedict’s Plantation in Mandeville. President Frank Simoncioni welcomed the group and led in prayer, and members enjoyed a buffet-style feast including a variety of meatless, Sicilian-style dishes. Many wore r...
Eataly punta ad 1 miliardo di euro di fatturato, con Nord America che vale più di Italia ed Europa
Partire dall’Italia per far fortuna in America. É la storia di tanti italiani, ed è sempre più la storia di Eataly, diventato in pochi anni uno dei marchi di punta del made in Italy del vino e del cibo nel mondo, che partito da Torino e diffuso nel mondo vede, oggi, per la prima volta, il Nord America contare più dell’Italia e dell’Europa intera, i...
'Queering Italian Cinema' to be topic of March 25 lecture
Ryan Calabretta-Sajder, assistant professor of Italian and film at the University of Arkansas, will present "Queering Italian Cinema: The Case of Ferzan Özpetek" at 4 p.m. Monday, March 25, in 110 Business Building on Penn State’s University Park campus. Calabretta-Sajder was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Calabria in Italy in 2017 and is...
Painted Renaissance volumes on view at Yale’s Beinecke Library
A dozen volumes on display at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library are shelved side-by-side with their fore edges, not their spines, facing out. It is not a case of curatorial malpractice — far from it. Those exposed fore edges form a gallery of miniature paintings from the Renaissance era — portraits of the volumes’ celebrated authors...
Eduitalia Scholarship 2019
Application for the Eduitalia Scholarships 2019 are now open and available on the website of the Embassy of Italy in Washington DC by clicking on the Eduitalia logo placed on our homepage. Applications are open to students who will take the Italian AP exam 2019. A total of 22 grants will be awarded. The grants will cover accommodation in Italy for...
Food column: Pizza, pizza
Pizza may have originated in Italy, but it has become an American favorite. According to PMQ Pizza Magazine, the United States pizza market grew to $45.1 billion in 2018, and there were 75,243 pizzerias in the U.S. alone. The fact that a pizza magazine exists speaks to the immense popularity of pizza. The worldwide pizza market has also expanded to...
James Gandolfini's Son Visits Iconic Booth from Sopranos Finale as He Prepares to Film Prequel
Michael Gandolfini is stepping into his father’s shoes! In January, Michael, 19, signed on to play a younger version of Tony Soprano — the iconic mobster his late father James Gandolfini famously played in The Sopranos— in a prequel movie to the series. Michael recently got into character by visiting the real-life restaurant booth where The Soprano...
FAI Spring Days build a bridge between cultures
The Italian Environmental Fund (FAI) is holding the 27th edition of its "Spring Days" initiative on March 23 and 24, with more than 1,100 sites open especially for the occasion, including 296 religious sites, 227 palaces and villas, 30 castles, and 50 villages across 430 towns and 20 regions. Andrea Carandini and Marco Magnifico, FAI president and...
How 'Peasant Food' Helped Chef Lidia Bastianich Achieve Her 'American Dream'
Lidia Bastianich has a devoted following from public TV cooking shows, her cookbooks and her restaurants. In her memoir, "My American Dream," which just came out in paperback, she describes how she came to love preparing food and how being a refugee and immigrant shaped her life. Those two parts of the story are interconnected. The year she was bor...