Viktoria and I have a simple answer to where to go on your first trip to Europe: Tuscany. "What about Paris, the City of Lights?" No Paris and no lights. Indeed, no frogs, no snails, and no midnights in a café drinking cognac with Hemingway's enthusiasts. Buy your ticket to Florence and, perhaps, visit Paris next time. To clarify, Viktoria and I are NOT the latest members of Francis Mayes' fan club. Quite the contrary, we frown upon the hordes of zealots that go to Cortona to

When is the perfect time to get married? First, you need to find someone that wants to spend the rest of her of his life with you. But still, there are other variables to consider. In Italy, in the last decades, the average wedding age has stretched beyond thirty years. Especially for the males, it's hard to leave the comfort of their Italian mom's home. One may argue that economic factors, too, had significant implications in delaying the departure of Italian children from t

Where am I? Does it matter? What I know is, That I dream of you, My dearest Tuscany, An impossible place to forget. I am back in my hometown, On a cool spring morning. An elderly lady sits on a balcony, While I walk down the street, Crossing paths with smiling people, Chatting nonstop. All around me are vivid colors: Flaming red terracotta, Ponds of olive green water, Sculpted tan rock, And a sparkle of bright light, Of mystery and intellect. Behind the bell towers, The rolli

Most species of penguins are monogamous. They will mate with the same penguin, season after season. It is a beautiful, loving relationship, one that I have the fortune to see embodied in my family. My parents have been married for over half a century. Of course, I don’t want to compare my parents to penguins, but sometimes in my family, we laugh about it. My father would instead wish to resemble the dynamic of two sparrows, chirping at each other and rubbing their beaks. He d

During the Paleozoic Era lived two cavemen brothers named Mario and Luigi. Every year they would go on a special hunt along with four of their cousins, two uncles, and fourteen nephews. They sought an animal that was the most dangerous of the time and yet the most delicious. They hunted a dinosaur called Sausage-osaurus. Upon their successful return, the cavemen’s grandma used her secret recipe to prepare everyone’s favorite “homemade” dish of grilled Sausage-osaurus, paired

I will never forget the guy I met years ago, who was sure that pizza had been invented here, in the heart of America, by Chuck E. Cheese. No joke. Obviously, he has not heard of my homeland country, Italy, the cradle of pizza. As you know, pizza is a simple dish originating from Naples back in 1889. Maybe the U.S. feels a sense of ownership due to their very creative toppings that have definitely deviated from the classics. How could they think of adding BBQ chicken or pineap

This past May, Sam and I were visiting his family near Florence when his sister suggested that instead of going to the center of the city as we normally do during our annual visits, we should visit the village of Vinci, Leonardo’s birthplace. “What a great idea!” Sam and I enthusiastically exclaimed as we welcomed this change in plans. Besides our curiosity about where the master came from, it was only a one-hour drive and an exciting new place for us to explore. And since th

I think we can all agree that not all bread (and pastries) are created equal. You know that feeling, as soon as you take a bite of freshly-made, warm, crispy, and delicious bread. It is a rush of pleasure flowing through your body, and your taste buds start cha-cha dancing in your mouth. It is incredibly satisfying for us humans to eat good bread. There have been a few countries dominating the bread-making art, and Italy is certainly on top. Especially the Italian bakers in F

All of a sudden, one can find countless blogs and articles about biscotti. But I am not here to discuss just any kind of biscotti, but rather the Biscotti (with an uppercase B) from Prato, the town that I am from, a few miles north of Florence. It's okay if cookie connoisseurs overlooked the real story of biscotti till now because once they read our blog, they'll know. Biscotti are made with a few simple ingredients: flour, almonds, eggs, sugar, and yeast. But the secret lies

In Poor Richard's Almanack, Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Beauty, like supreme dominion, is but supported by opinion.” The perception of beauty in the past few decades has been dominated by the physical appearance of highly paid and praised supermodels. However, the factors determining beauty have been argued among men and women for centuries. One of the first praised beauties was Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, the most charming woman of the Renaissance who became the model for Bot