La Cucina Italiana and Blog from Italy’s Recipe Contest

Here are the results of the first ever cookery contest held on Blog from Italy which was held in conjunction with the US version of prestigious cookery magazine, La Cucina Italiana.

It was a pretty close run thing, but the taste testers, including yours truly relished their taste testing tasks, and graded the resulting recipes on the basis of:

• the overall appeal of the recipes,

• ‘Italianness’

• originality and suitability to the fall season.

I suppose you must be itching to know who the outright winner is, and thus the recipe which tingled our collective taste buds the most.  Here goes: … Continue Reading

Magazines Are Dead, Hello Web

One of Blog from Italy’s aims is to tell the world about the good things you will find in Italy.  Good things like Calabria for example, where fellow blogger Cherrye runs a bed and breakfast.

Now, why that funny title to this particular post?  Quite simple.  The web is a much better place to put the hours of hard work writers and journalists spend running up well written informative articles which are often supported by the endeavours of professional photographers.

The magazine articles look impressive, trouble is though, they die.  They become forgotten about almost as soon as the next edition comes out.  That impressive collection of creativity which is a magazine becomes consigned to a bookshelf, or worse, ends up in the bin.  How sad.  It’s almost as if all that effort has gone to waste.

Sadly too, there is no way the writer of the original article can tweak it, update it and increase its longevity.  This is why the Internet is much, much better than printed magazines, newspapers, or even books. … Continue Reading

Terrorism Will Bloody the Streets of Italy

A former Italian president, one Francesco Cossiga, strongly believes that terrorist acts of the type commited by Italy’s Red Brigades will once again sully Italy’s streets.

This evening when we tried to watch the RAI news, for some reason each of the three RAI channels were blank.  My Italian other half commented ‘There could be a coup d’état, and we won’t know about it’.  The funny thing was she was not joking.  She really does seem to fear that Italy’s current masters are planning something extreme.

… Continue Reading

Italy’s Education System Reforms

It’s true, Italy’s education system does need to be revised.  Mariastella Gelmini, Berlusconi’s Education minister has come up with a basket of reforms, which on the face of it, do not sound too bad.

However, what appears to be scaring teachers, like Blog from Italy reader Melanie Segal, is the fact that around 83,000 teachers are likely to find themselves without work.

Italy’s school pupils and university students have also been out on the streets protesting against Gelmini’s reforms.  So what is all the fuss about? … Continue Reading

Italy’s Poor Coders

Those who moonlight are usually doing a second job to make ends meet, often because they have work which is low paying, or because they need to find a way to pay off financial commitments, such as mortgages.

While in a restaurant here in Milan with some friends not so long ago, I came across a rather unusual moonlighter.  Indeed, she belonged to a category of worker who in today’s increasingly hi-tech world, I would never have expected to see doing two jobs to try to get by.

So, just what job did this particular moonlighter do during the day? … Continue Reading

Villa Sibillini Country House B&B, the Marche

Via Sibillini

If you’re looking for a place to stay in the Marche region of Italy - Pam and David Bates would love to welcome you to their Italian country house.

Discover the REAL Italy – hilltop towns are spied around every corner, wonderful churches, museums, caves, mountains and lakes abound.

Wander through their website and imagine the most relaxing break in the unspoilt and undiscovered region of Le Marche, Italy.  Or stroll around the garden, whilst helping yourself to fruits from their trees.  Then you can unwind by the pool overlooking the spectacular Sibillini Mountains.

… Continue Reading