I am passionately in love with Italy and everything Italian!!! I am 100% Italian from parents who immigrated from the beautiful shores of Lago Maggiore in Northern Italy. I can’t get enough of all things Italian! Everything enthralls me, and I want to share my thoughts through this blog. I hope to share the music, sights, culture, food, and history of Il Bel Paese (the beautiful country). I hope to learn more and more of Italy from the research I will be doing for some of the subjects. Wherever my curiosity takes me, I hope to follow it and share it within this blog! I will be posting random thoughts, tips, recipes, songs…a wild collection of things…but all will have the common theme of “ITALIA”!!! Please enjoy my musings…and leave comments and become followers as well! Thanks for visiting…
Il Mio Tesoro 
Hi Barbara, welcome to the blogging world. Loved the story of your parents’ imigration to the United States. My family imigrated from Germany about the same time, in 1956. Like you I love everything Italian, the people, the architecture, the food, the arts.
Thanks, Gina, for your encouragement. Where in Germany did your family come from? And did they settle in Utah? I love to hear stories about how families got to where they are!!
Hi Barbara,
My family came from East Prussia, by the Baltic Sea, which was Germany before WWII. Where we lived now belongs to Russia
After the Russians took over we fled to East Germany. After my Father was released from Prison, in Siberia, we planned our escape from East Germany and immigrated to the Untied States. We came directly to Utah.
Wow, what a story!!! I hope you have written it down somewhere!! Thanks for sharing it 🙂
What a beautiful happy face! :o)
Just like you, I am happiest when I am in my garden 🙂 Thank you!
Hi Barbara, welcome to the blogging world. Loved the story of your parents’ imigration to the United States. My family imigrated from Germany about the same time, in 1956. Like you I love everything Italian, the people, the architecture, the food, the arts.
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Hi Gabey,
Nice to meet you, and thank you for your comment!
Hi, nice to meet you !
Thanks for visiting 🙂
Hi Barbara, welcome to the blogging world. Loved the story of your parents’ imigration to the United States. My family imigrated from Germany about the same time, in 1956. Like you I love everything Italian, the people, the architecture, the food, the arts.+1
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Thanks for visiting and nice meeting you. I am glad you enjoyed my story…the immigrants’ stories are always intriguing and interesting to learn about. Glad to know that you have a similar history!
Hi, even thou I am Russian I am in love with Italy too and I just came back from Northern Italy and I can’t get over how beautiful the reagion is.
There are also many beautiful places in Russia (I was there once, many years ago in Moscow and St. Petersburg). I am glad you stopped by to visit….please visit again soon. And I hope you have the opportunity to go back to Italy again soon.
I think Italy’s a fascinating country – I’m interested to hear what your take on berlusconi is!!
I have written a couple of posts on the subject!!! I don’t like getting too political, but sometimes it’s impossible!
Ciao,
I came across your site, while researching Italian sites. It’s very nice.
I’ve just started a blog about learning Italian, called Learning the Italian Language.
I’m just wondering if you would mind putting up a link on your site? I can return a link to yours also if you like.
You can check out the website at http://www.learningtheitalianlanguage.com/
Thanks for your time.
Cheers!
Sarah.
Hi Sarah,
I’d be happy to include your link on my blog! And I’d be happy to help you with your quest any time!!! Good luck and I’ll be anxious to hear about your progress.
Regards,
Barbara
Sarah, I’ll link your blog on mine and will informally and occasionally give a helping hand as for my native language, which you define ‘la più bella del mondo’ (the most beautiful in the world). Wow, thanks so much in the name of Signora Italia ;o)…
Hi Barbara, I just found your blog, through lovely Gina…..have been reading your archive posts over coffee this morning, enjoyed them very much…I was born in Italy, and came to Canada with my mother and younger sister….I have done a post on Mom, who is gone now, on my last one…but also posted on my trip last year to Italy….hope you have some time to read them….I shall be visiting often and am now following, N.xo
Hi Nella,
It’s great to meet you! Thanks for visiting and for introducing yourself. I would love to read your blog. Please send me the link! See you soon 🙂
The blog address is http://acornlanevintageliving.blogspot.com. Not sure why it isn’t linking to your blog…send me your email and I will send you the links to the posts about Italy….lovely to meet you as well Barbara, N.xo
I am trying to find a rhyme that my Dad used to do with my Sister and I. It started out with
Chistu voglio pane,
Chistu si dici non ce ne
Chistu si d camini cu mia
Voglio Insengiare la via
We want to know how it ends……
I’ve never heard this rhyme, but maybe someone else has. Do you know what part of Italy this may be from?
Hi Barbara, this sounds Sicilian or Calabrese from the dialect I can detect here….I have not heard this before either….I am from Molise but it sounds lovely….N.xo
Hi Nella,
Yes, perhaps you are correct. I don’t recognize the words at all, but sometimes it’s difficult to write in a dialect! Perhaps someone knows something. Nice to see you… And Buon Natale!
Hi Barbara, thank you for following me. Now I have found you and can’t wait to read your wonderful posts!! You have a beautiful website.
Thanks so much for your sweet compliments! I’m looking forward to getting to know each other through our mutual love for Italy! I, too, am looking forward to reading your posts! Thanks so much for leaving a comment here! Ciao…
My pleasure…have a wonderful week Barbara!
You as well! Thank you!
Ciao Barbara,
I found your blog as I was doing research for Italian-themed blogs, and I’m so glad I did! I own Italy Book Tours and I am contacting you today to see if you are interested in spotlighting books on your blog that are set in Italy or written by an Italian author.
Please contact me at italybooktours at gmail dot com. I would love to chat with you more about this since, like me, you’re passionate about everything Italian!
Laura Fabiani
http://www.italybooktours.com
Hi Barbara…thanks for stopping by my blog…I look forward to reading more of yours too!
Buongiorno Barbara, spero di non disturbare con questo messaggio!
I’m so glad to announce the publication of Women can fly, the English edition of my second novel, Donne con le ali, concerning the adventurous lives of the women pioneer of civil aviation between the beginning of the 20th century and the thirties.
Its publication is expected in the next hours with Amazon KDP.
The translation work is due to Maria Hansford (www.hansfordtranslations.com).
The Italian edition is already available in Amazon, in paper format and ebook, as the English one.
I had started writing this book just after the publication of my first novel, Miele e Kerosene (Honey and Kerosene), based on the life of a truly extraordinary person: Joséphine Baker, actress, singer and African American soubrette, native of St. Louis and become famous in 1925 Paris, just after its first appearance at the Théâtre des Champs Elysees.
I was struck by his exuberant personality: in America he moved from extreme poverty to a relative celebrity in the Harlem Renaissance, along with the future Jazz stars. In Europe, she became the most famous star of the first post-war period. When World War II broke out she enlisted in a partisan organization. After the war she became an activist against racism and this caused her enormous problems every time she performed in the United States. He tried to realize the dream of adopting orphan children from all over the world and, in part, he succeeded.
Yet – 30 years after his death – no one seemed to remember anything about this woman.
So I wrote this novel about her, and it was thanks to Joséphine that I discovered how many women had accomplished great feats. In particular, in the field of Aviation: the first pilot woman, the first to cross the Channel in flight, the first to cross the Atlantic, the Andes, the World… among them, Bessie Coleman, the first young African American woman to get the flight licence.
The presence of pioneer women in every field of human activity has never diminished. But, unlike what happens for men, their contribution to human progress is always lessen, or even falls into oblivion.
This was the reason that led me to write Women can fly, and then Silver salts (Sali d’argento, about the life of the photographer and political activist Tina Modotti): to pay a small tribute to all the women who were true pioneers and have inspired subsequent generations.
I would be grateful for any initiative you want to take to give visibility to the publication of the English version of this book, and of course I hope you will like this story.
Luca De Antonis
Hi Luca, thanks for reaching out and good luck with your book. You should get in touch with Laura from Italy Book Tours to set up a tour to promote your book! She can offer good exposure through many Italian themed blogs. Here is the website for contact info: https://www.italybooktours.com/. In Boca al lupo!
Hello Barbara! I just found your blog, well done! I’m an Italian dad who has been living outside of Italy for almost 15 years now and I’ve recently decided to share all I know around Italian cuisine – especially from the South of Italy – on my website italianfoodboss.com and my YouTube channel youtube.com/italianfoodboss .
I’d be grateful if you’d wish to have a look and I really hope you are interested! Do you visit Italy regularly?
Ciao ciao and congratulations again on what you have managed to build in a few short years!
Thank you so much for your comments. My blog is really very simple, and frankly, just a personal cookbook for me! I took a look at your blog and it’s so professional! Tanti auguri! I will certainly give some of your recipes a try. Good luck with the YouTube channel, too. I always like watching videos of how people actually cook the meals. My mom and dad immigrated from Italy many years ago and I grew up with their Northern Italian recipes…lots of polenta and risotto! Haha! But also many simple, yet tasty, meat dishes. That’s what I love about the Italian cuisine – tasty dishes that use fresh ingredients without too much fuss! Thanks for reaching out…in Boca al lupo with your endeavors.