It is so crazy to see how commercial Italy has gotten since I moved here in 1984. Simple holidays have blown up to opportunities to spend money. What started in Rome as a festival for fertility in pagan times was converted to the day for lover’s in Cristiantity. I believe we should celebrate love more…

February 2 was the date you took your candles to the church to be blessed. The blessed candles gave you light if you lost the lights during a storm and protected you from lightning. When someone died, they used to leave the person on their bed with candles around them at home to be visited…

November 11 is the feast day of San Martino, from Tours, France. He gave away his wealth to the poor. He is often depicted on his horse, giving his half his cape to a homeless man. Venice celebrates this with a cookie. It’s a simple sugar cookie recipe, they have cookie cutters shaped like this…

One of my favorite things to do is to be in a place for a festival. Traveling around Italy these past 35 years, I have been lucky to attend a lot of festivals. Food is always a part of any festival in Italy, be it a state holiday or a church holiday. Today is the…

February 2 is the Candelora festival. You don’t hear about it actually being celebrated much in Tuscany where I am, but rather used to know if winter is over. The roots of the festival go back to Roman times, the goddess Febris or the Etruscan god Februss, the month of February was time to purify…