Fammi una domanda September 2024
A sudden change of seasons + an entrancing show all about the art of craft
I got a email recently that began with the line “With just four months left in the year” Gulp. How did THAT happen? Wasn’t I just buying bikinis and sunscreen and looking forward to 9pm sunset beers on the way home from a day at the beach? Summer ended rather abruptly this year with a drastic temperature drop last week. The light has changed and the air has cooled. The roar of the cicadas from the garden below my terrace have quieted and now I can hear the boats passing on the nearby rio and kids coming and going to school. It won’t be too much longer until I hear the fog horns in the distance.
We started the month with a tiny family trip to Anzio/Ponza/Rome. Stretching out the very last days of heat and languor of this year’s Italian summer. We had bowls of Paola’s famous Cupitiello and finally took Dani to La Marina for lunch. We jumped into that deep clear turquoise sea and ate our fill of boat pasta. We ordered more cold beers and bowls of potato chips at Bar Maga Circe than was necessary. For this year. I filled my suitcase with oregano and glass jars of tuna. There is a small bottle of island Mirto in the freezer for when I am missing my favorite island. On our way back north we stopped in Rome for a few hours and drank too much coffee and had a long lunch with all of our Roman favorites at the always perfect La’Amatriciana.
Now I am home in Venice. Noah and Dani are back in Los Angeles. Mark is at the library near Campo San Lorenzo studying for his Italian drivers license exam. Federico the plumber is singing along to his playlist downstairs in the corte. The balance has shifted and now my days are more filled with work than beach. We have had a few intense storms and heard the rare eerie wail of the aqua alta sirens. Click the box below if you want to know more about aqua alta in Venice. I can finally open the windows and the shutters during the day, we had our first dry cold Bora wind and I even had to wear a jacket the other morning!
Are you coming to Italy soon? Or planning a mid-winter trip? You can ask me anything in the comments.