L'Americana

Soundtrack for the Winter Solstice

2011-12-21T17:55:00.000-08:00

Though these are images of Calitri the Charlie Brown Christmas theme is playing in my head.

Maybe it's the forlorn nature of the imagery or the lack of Christmas lights on via Fontana - Teresa's tabacchino being the only doorway with any festive color - that pulls me back to memories of my childhood and Charlie Brown or the imagined memories of my grandmother's childhood a century ago played out in shades of gray here on this street.

The winter view is from my balcony. The circle of land marked out in the snow a gentile but constant reminder of her spirit. The circle and the land around it for as far as you can see down the slope is still owned by zia Maria & the Cicoira family, direct relatives of mine. Parenti lontana.

Teresa is parenti lontana too, but by marriage. Cicoira nonetheless. I walk by her tabacchino almost every evening on my way home to my front door. It is a tiny space filled with a small sampling of just about anything you might need. The kind of goods the little ladies of the lane might stop in to buy last minute, being close at hand and open late. When I asked Teresa not too long ago how many years the shop had been here, she thought quietly for a moment, then calculated the ages of her mother (recently passed) and her grandmother (long gone) and replied, softly, '90 years'. Ninety years ago my grandmother Angelamaria and her brothers & sisters would have known & frequented Teresa's tabacchino on via Fontana too.

I love it here.

Ghosts of Italy

2011-11-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

Today is my grandfather's Birthday.

Both my grandparents were born in November. Angelamaria on November 21 and Nicola onNovember 12. In Italy birthday rituals are reversed. That is, on the day, family and friends receive gifts from the honoree. It's usually a simple affair. In Calitri they bring the cake for the family for desert or offer their friends a drink or a coffee and a pastry at the bar.

From my first discovery of Calitri a decade ago, up to this week when I finally made residency in the town, I have received a hell of a line up of gifts from the ghosts of my grandparents. I call them centennial gifts and here is why:

In November 2000 I made my first foray into the village of Calitri and discover V.C. 1900 - my greatgrandfather's initials - carved into the keystone of via Fontana, 21. Turns out it is the birthplace of my grandmother Angelamaria Cicoira.

It's November 2005 and the 110th anniversary of Angelamaria's birth. Nearly one hundred years to the day I am offered her childhood home on via Fontana - field stones set by hand by her grandfather, kept in the family for generations.

November 2007. The centennial anniversary of Nicola Paolantonio's maiden voyage to the new world. Age 17. He lands in NY harbor on July 4th 1907. Nearly one hundred years to the month on November 22, the New York Times publishes 'The Journey Home, Making a New Life in the Old Country' about my reverse journey to live in Calitri. The story focuses on my lost and found grandmother. I'll make a guess that the paper goes to press the evening of Nov 21, her birthday.

On November 11th, the eve of his 30th birthday, Nicola signs a Declaration of Intention from the Department of Labor renouncing his allegiance to King Victor Emmanuel of Italy. This year in the same week in November, not without some classic Italian twists & turns and then some extra personal effort ( or was it a gift? ) I achieved residency.

So. Here I always felt it was I who was honoring the ghosts of my grandparents for making the reverse journey to Calitri but seems it was Nicola and Angelamaria all along honoring and guiding me....Happy Birthday Pops.

Casa per casa

2011-09-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

My new house number! In the tradition of arts of Calitri it is, of course, ceramic, personalized with a photo that has become my logo ...

Antionetta's Omaggio to Andrew Wyeth

2011-07-21T07:37:00.000-07:00

Antionetta's double-loggia cantina is a just few steps from mine tucked away in a little vicolo off via Fontana. They were once both dwellings of a sort. Hand cut into tufa rock a hundred or more years ago, the grotto caves were gradually enhanced with terra-cotta floors and oak beamed lofts. Arched stalls & hand hewn wood boxes built to house the family pig chickens & other live food stuffs. Cubby holes laid in for kitchen utensils. The comforts of home? Now they resemble brigands roosts. Housing a world of odds & ends collected over a lifetime (or several) ... Her's is a lot cooler.

Kitchen Sessions

2011-07-13T03:27:00.001-07:00

A hot night in early July with plenty of pizza and beer and the voice of Filomena D'Andrea like that of a young Edith Piaf emanating from my tiny kitchen, urgent, soulful and real. Percussionist (& poet vocalist of La Banda della Posta) Virginio Tenore and on guitar Enzo Perna from Rome. Stay tuned for their USA debut ....

Tiny kitchen, big ideas.

Vesuvius from a room with a view....

2011-06-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

spent april may & june living and teaching in passionate Napoli where on any given day you could wander into a church and find a Caravaggio (behind some pointed iron gate sure, but there to see & wonder over) eat three or more gelato's a day or get a ride along the lungo mare on the back of some moto, any moto, to work or back again to arrive 'home' to this view of Vesuvius out the window of a 16th century palazzo nestled in a bend up on via Posillipo ...

thank you Dora & Sergio see you soon

San Vito Martyr

2011-06-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

Auguri di San Vito Martyr

San Vito, whose cult is widespread in Basilicata, Sardinia and Sicily and from Rome to Prague is among the 14 Holy Helpers. The events of his life are not well known though his martyrdom is remembered and celebrated throughout Lucania where several villages honor him as their P
atron Saint and many many sons are named Vito. Hi DAD. On the walls of the map room in the Vatican Museum, back in the 1400's,
Calitri was once included as part of Basilicata or old Lucania.
Like the two mythic California's and the oft-rifts btw San Francisco and Los Angeles over water, culture, and other consequential things, Calitrani would like to succede from the regione of Campania and re-join Bascilicata - better to benefit from Basilicata's regional funds and lasciare corrupt spending in Napoli, no doubt, but that is another story.

Click on the title to hear
Vinicio Caposella's Il Ballo di San Vito or
Briganti di Terra Otranto's Pizzica San Vito on the Taranta Channel

Temperanza e' Prudenza

2010-12-15T07:01:00.001-08:00

Prudence, close companion to wisdom. Temperance, the art of leading.

I found these two 17th century guache paintings from the Divine Mysteries gracing a wall down in the crypt of the church of the Immacolata Concezione, which sits on a windy precipice on a north eastern promitory of Calitri. They were salvaged in the days or weeks following the 1980 earthquake that all but destroyed the original early 17th century structure. Every year at Christmas the ProLoco hosts a regional'Presepiando' or Neopolitan cresch exhibit in the halls of the crypt. Artists participate from towns all around Alta Irpinia, Campania, and Bascilicata, with their creative interpretations of The Feast of the Holy Family, while in the streets above, the town hosts their annual 'Presepe Viventi' on December 26th with live manger and 18th century village scenes played out in stone grottoes and old
houses all around the centro storico.

Auguri di Santa Lucia

2010-12-13T06:58:00.001-08:00

Auguri di Santa Lucia December 13th

these images are of the late August procession honouring Santa Lucia
select young women carry her dias from the
little chiesetta just outside of town on the hill overlooking the Valle Ofanto up into the old village and back again
- was a beautiful summer's afternoon -

Non vogliamo emigrare

2010-12-07T03:55:00.000-08:00

the 30th anniversary of the November 23, 1980 earthquake in Alta Irpinia, Italy was commemorated with two major photography exhibits in Calitri

Photo-journalist Vito Galgano's images of the procession of

Venerdi Santo among the ruins in Calitri cover the first and successive years after the earthquake - the exhibit was sponsored by the 'Confraternity Immaccolata Concezione's 300th Anniversary' mounted in the Casa del Eca

Non vogliamo emigrare...1970's anarchic sentiments of a populus no longer willing to leave their villages...

Photographer Vito Galgano worked with Mimmo Jodice in the 1970's & 1980's & now teaches in Calitri

Photo Editor's interested in Vito Galgano's images can email me

Vinicio Capossela & The Banda della Cupa

2010-09-10T03:27:00.000-07:00

Sunday September 5th, I read Oscar Wilde's poem/story 'The Nightingale and the Rose' on stage to 2000 Vinicio Caposella fans & cittadini di Calitri as an introduction to Vinicio's original song 'Con Una Rosa' - was a blast... www.viniciocapossela.it/ The Banda della Posta and The Banda della Cupa accompanied

Cento Passi

2010-05-17T03:49:00.000-07:00

This summer Codella Consulting will hold my Creative English Classes in the far upper reaches of the Centro Storico of Calitri inside a restored room in the 16th century Palazzo Nicolais in vico Tornillo - takes one hundred stone stairs (cento passi) straight up! to arrive from my front door in La Cascina. Ostiatim... The vico Tornillo Palazzo is one of the last remaining intact Palazzo's in the village with 20 rooms, 3 grottoes, even a small chapel...and one of the first places I explored in the old village by permission of La Portressa (in the foto below), camera in hand - ten years ago

'Cento Passi' - a personal play on words is, I found out, an important Italian documentary film

whose protagonist, the poet Peppino Impastato, dedicated his life to speaking out against the Sicilian Mafia, and suffered the consequences. They said the distance between the poet's house and the house of his zio - a reputed mafiso - was 100 steps...

see link attached in the title

'Tra la casa di Peppino Impastato e quella di Gaetano Badalamenti ci sono cento passi.'

Ricamatrice

2010-05-10T02:17:00.001-07:00

... una ricamatrice sewing lace in a quiet corner of the Centro Storico ...

Calitri's team 'mARCHingegno srl' is engaged in the cultural development of Alta Irpinia and in providing tourism services for Americans interested in discovering small towns away from mass tourism, and for those who want to rediscover their Italian roots ... Join the town this September for their annual Festa and discover a world apart ...

mARCHingegno's 10 day package tour 'An American in Calitri, Discovering Small Treasures' includes travel & accommodation to visit the ancient village nestled among the green hills of Alta Irpinia in Campania ... Come. Visit. Vi aspetto...

Contact me or Luciana at info@marchingegnosrl.it www.marchingegnosrl.it

La Cascina, The Little Bronx of Calitri

2010-03-31T03:35:00.000-07:00

I live in La Cascina, the little Bronx of Calitri's Centro Storico. So called for the location in the old village - small stone houses built well below the Palazzo's of the 1600's, well below the gentry and the castello of an earlier time. And for the little ladies of the lane who keep a watchful eye on all that goes on from their balconies or front doors and who still speak the ancient dialect of their neighborhood ...'cian 'cian ...

Yet La Cascina is still coveted for its warm lanes full of sun and life ... Most days are quiet, though I've witnessed somber religious processions, a old man pulling a pack donkey or a young one selling brooms, neighbors putting up jars and jars of fresh tomatoes the salsa cooked over wood stoves (faccio buccac) or preparing for the vendemmia, all in the piazzetta just out my front door ...

Antique ceramic vase in a cantina

Roman Poems

2009-11-09T12:21:00.001-08:00

Roman Poems and slow living for 2010 .... My late January return to Calitri will re-trace my very first journey to the hilltop village nearly ten years ago.

Landing in Rome, I'll head to Pompeii and Sorrento where I'll register for a teaching post at Sorrento Lingue, then maybe take a breathtaking Sita Bus ride down the Amalfi Coast ... I will be back to creating a sustainable life of slowliving, slowfood and slowtravel - a little slow vino wouldn't hurt either - as my life on via Fontana and Italy (slowly) re-enters my bloodstream ...

(San) Canio's Books

2009-09-19T06:52:00.001-07:00

Ran into Maryann Calendrille, an old friend and Southampton College alumni, who owns the best bookstore in Sag Harbor, Canio's Books - which is thoroughly ironic since San Canio is the patron saint of Calitri. Will be meeting the original owner Canio Pavone on Monday. Turns out he is a descendant of Acerenza, a hill town southeast of Calitri and returns every year for their festa for San Canio on May 25th. How's that for a coincidence??

'Sag Harbor, the old whaling port on the south fork of Long Island, is second only to Greenwich Village as America’s premiere literary village. From early visitors James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville to twentieth-century settlers like John Steinbeck and Wilfrid Sheed, this unique town has been a magnet for America’s best writers, journalists, and playwrights. Canio's Books has been gathering place for writers and artists for more than 25 years.' ... MC

Summer & Winter V.C. 1900

2009-09-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

Eccoli! The first in a series of photo books of personal images created over ten years of life in Calitri, are now in print and available for friends, family and enthusiasts.

Calitri Campania's Gem, Summer & Winter, V.C. 1900 represent a select edit, a photographic poem to this small mountain village in Alta Irpinia.

Icons Oracles & Ruins, Southampton NY September 12

2009-07-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

I will be returning to the town of my alma mater this September with a curated group show of photography from Los Angeles. Benson Keyes Arts will host Icons Oracles & Ruins. Jim McHugh, Claudia Kunin and Connie Conway will show their latest work. With a little luck the show will travel to Verona, Italy and perhaps on to the Castello Museo in Calitri, bringing my new vocation full circle to my new venue in Alta Irpinia Italy.

Palos Verdes Book Talk

2009-07-10T16:56:00.001-07:00

The room was packed at the Historic Malaga Cove Library for my improvisationally styled first Book Talk. Was a breeze! Stories & photo slide show of my ten years of life and love in the town of Calitri were warmly welcomed and enjoyed by all. However the highlight of my day's experience was learning that the venerable memoirist Frank McCourt of 'Angela's Ashes' fame gave a book talk at Malaga Cove some years earlier...Wow, nice company. (Maybe this was a gift from another (venerable) Franco, who is sorely missed...)

Pompeii or LA?

2009-04-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

Would love to have been in the waterline as these two athlete's strode by or anoint them pre/post competition ... in this life, or my past! From The Getty Center Malibu.

I fratelli di Venerdì Santo

2009-04-02T16:12:00.001-07:00

It is settimana santo in Calitri. Among the religious traditions of the village, the most suggestive are those related to the weeks of Lent. They begin before sunrise. Townsmen gather in the streets of the Centro Storico and offer genuine testimonials, popular yet true, with respect for the tragedy of the Passion. These ancient traditions culminate in a cappella songs used to accompany the procession of the statue of Christ carried along the ascent to the Calvary Chapel seen clearly from my balcony. On the link provided are some of the songs, harmonious and rustic, recorded onto tape in the mid- '70s by Tonino Zabatta....vintage Calitri.

I fratelli e Don Vincenzo Cubelli (di spalle) mentre cantano il Venerdì Santo

calitritradizioni.it/canti_religiosi.asp

Pompeii Cartolina

2009-01-12T17:01:00.001-08:00

Found this vintage postcard - a modern archaeological gem - on a kiosk rondel in a snack bar, a few yards from the entrance to the village of Pompeii. Mailed it to myself...

I migliori di Buon Natale

2008-12-11T10:39:00.000-08:00

This is the cresch of my childhood imagination somewhere in a grotto near Naples, cradle of most all Italian-American origins. Calitri hosts their own 'Presepe Vivende' each year.
Live manger and turn of the century village scenes hosted in grottos and empty houses in the Centro, with the villagers and local farm animals as the cast. The town is cast too, back to an age long ago. There is no movie theater, but this live theater. Snow falls. The smell of hay. Wild mistletoe. Crowds quietly snake in lines through the narrow lanes, waiting for a glimpse of Jesus Mary and Joseph....

zio Vincenzo's Cinque Cento

2008-07-31T19:20:00.000-07:00

Once my goods arrived in port and were driven down from Livorno, zio Vincenzo came by to haul away zia Concetta's old things. He simply tied the kitchen table (should have kept that), the crystalliere, the old and incredibly comfortable wool-stuffed mattress including head board to the top of the tiny Fiat (one at a time) or folded them inside and then drove them down via Fontana. That wagon is amazing. It's nearly as old as I am. Maybe. I often see zia Maria and Vincenzo zipping around town and country in it like two high school sweethearts getting their daily chores done...

Under the gelso tree...

2008-07-21T19:43:00.001-07:00

Rapone, Basilicata. It was nearly midnight before we started dinner. Ten artists of various trades and talents gathered on the countryside estate of ceramicist Vito Natale, organized by the inestimable Concetta Di Cecca. The gelso tree seem to glow from within. Tiny yellow orbs dangled or dropped to the earth, sweetened our palates before the first course. Salt cured pork and sharp pecorino, chilled homemade white wine - a local falenghina - pasta gently tossed in fresh tomato 'salsa' and fruits of the sea, then coaxed to our plates by Concetta's brother Michele. Poached Orata followed, seasoned to perfection by Vito Z. Plenty of hearty bread and greens. Fresh peaches chilled in cold water and the dolce from Vito's brother - a maestro of pastries, in Calitri - Bar/Pasticceria Zabatta. The thick stone slab was first cool then warm to the touch as the evening waned, fireflies competed with stars...Some of the artists work can be viewed here - www.zabart.it or www.ceramichegrafio.it

La tabaccaria...

2008-07-18T05:05:00.001-07:00

A few steps from my door near the old forno is Teresa's tabaccharia. Summer or winter, Teresa's tableau seems a constant on via Fontana. The table set out front draped with white linen greets the procession of San Antonio as they walk by.

Lenzuolo su balcone....

2008-07-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

June in Calitri ...

Warm summer breezes, pale blue sheets, and a host of marshmallow clouds just over my balcony ... I sit here after a brief afternoon nap contemplating nothing, waiting for my ship to come in, literally.

Domani, or doppo domani ... We all know in Italy nothing is within our control ...

So when the plates and silverware have stopped clinking, I begin my stroll through the quiet lanes of la Cascina and the centro storico, wandering and waiting for the town to re-emerge from it's post-pranzo reposo ...

This blog-post today comes one month after the feast of San Antonio on June 13 and the lovely mini procession that slowly winds right by my door on via Fontana ... from June 1st to the 13th church bells are rung by hand each afternoon from the chiesetta at the base of the hill.

The sound of their music permeates the atmosphere for nearly an hour, then vespers are sung by village elders...until the feast day, when two masses are said in the overflowing small yellow church. Afterwards bags of fresh baked and blessed bread, the bread of San Antonio, are passed through the crowd.

Safe. Serene. Soulful.

2008-03-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Auguri di San Giuseppe ...

She's leaving home...

2008-02-23T09:06:00.001-08:00

... bye bye

Yes. Leaving one for another. Home. Up here on 'the hill' where I have lived 'lo these past 14 years...The Hollywood Sign to my left, the Capitol building to my right. One up and across, the other down and below, the hill. Tony landmarks to be sure. But, home. I've gazed at them both - come rain or come shine. Home of the Beatles & Frank Sinatra's legendary recordings. The stuff that dreams are made of. Fante's Bandini -esque. Ruscha's LA scapes, his Standard Stations. Stegner and Mary Austin's lost untrammeled West. But now to move on...it's time. That's me in the red car heading out of town. East...and beyond that, to another hillside, home.

The Journey Home

2007-11-30T08:56:00.000-08:00

Those two brave kids. My grandparents. Leaving a deep landlocked village on a hillside precipice warm with Italian life. The handsome husband pulling what can only be surmised as a pliant supplicant new wife – having waited perhaps for years for the moment of his decision, his assurance that he could pull it off in the new country. Or was it her they were waiting for? Her corredo? She had had ample time to be sure. So no, they were not waiting for her home and hearth goods to be secured. And what could they bring aboard ship but a satchel or perhaps a trunk? No, it was he. Sure of his ability to provide in the new country – ample time having passed. Maybe he asked his mother to find him a suitable girl once he was ready for marriage. His first journey was before age seventeen with the three elder brothers; then traveled back and forth bringing back or sending back money for the remaining family. With that money they buy land and build their village homestead. They remain there for a while. Their rock solid father - my great grandfather - in the one photo his head and neck the size of a large field rock, this comparison not doing his stature justice I am sure. His countenance much like my grandfathers’ was that of a field marshal in full command of his brood. All boys. My great grandmother in photos seemed a great beauty. With full head of lustrous black curls full lips impeccably embroidered black skirt vest and white blouse. In this traditional dress beside the hearth I am certain maintaining full disclosure for her family. What they imagined would come could not have been foretold. How we have now grown up could not have been dreamed. But they did embark, the four boys together leaving their beloved parents and their countryside behind.

Quadri di Estate

2007-06-14T08:35:00.001-07:00

It seems I may have come to this small village in Campania in reverse. Arriving for the first time in late November just after celebrating Thanksgiving alone on a rooftop in Rome - savoring the best tuna fish sandwich I had ever eaten in my life.

Thanksgiving was on a Thursday as usual. But in Rome it was just another day and just another panini to the young confident guy behind the counter.
Fresh arugula, crisp capers and olive oil smothered the pink tuna on thick-crusted bread. Bought with a bottle of white wine at a crowded corner deli outside Campo dei Fiore, the sandwich was big enough for me to split into two meals. But rather than find it sodden a few hours later - and really enjoying my prosaic solitude on the day of American family feasting - I devoured both halves sitting on a folding chair with the sounds of the neighborhood wafting up to the roof.

It was the last day of the closing week of the Jubilee Year, 2000. All week the Eternal City had seemed quiet and withdrawn, her museums and churches nearly empty. The couple in the window below my perch were just boiling the water for their pasta. I poured myself another glass of wine and thought of my parents and my first daring adventure away from home alone on the holidays.

In a week I would find myself in Calitri. And the simple days of rooftop wine and panini would be over. Not to mention freedom from familial responsibilities. I was meandering along on a personal journey that would lead me to discover another world and fairly change the course of my life, but that wouldn’t occur to me until much, much later...

Fatto raccontato...

2007-03-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

C'era una volta un Re seduto su un sofa. Che disse alla sua dama 'Racconta mi una fiaba' ...E la dama incomincio - 'Impicchera uno jordi con una corda d'oro. E un privlilegio raro. Rubo sei cervi nel parco del Re, vendendoli per denaro, mentre la maga circe dopo aver trasformato i valorosi guerrieri di Attila in maiali disse loro: Porcellini voi siete dei porcelli, e mentre radio Tirana trasmett musiche Balcaniche Vulcaniche danzatori Bulgari a piedi nudi sui carboni ardenti. E il lupo lanciava un grido sotto l'ombra della luna, annunciando l'imminente ed inevitabile, arrivo della streghe'

The valle d'Ofanto

2007-02-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

I entered the Centro Storico through an original city gateway at one end of Piazza della Repubblica. The arching-stone galleria leads you in towards what was once the private courtyard of the convent for the Sisters of the Benedictine Order, inhabited solely by nuns until the 1600’s. Once through this gateway my whole sense of the town is transformed. Gone are the expansive panoramas; the dramatic vistas of the valle d'Ofanto and mountains in the near distance, curtained with morning fog or hidden by clouds at eye level. Inside the stone walls of the town the horizon is all but vanquished. Replaced by rows of stone houses on narrow cobbled lanes with only slices of sky overhead between the rooftops. The houses are not hard to appreciate; each one witness to an age long ago, their doors either weathered and abandoned, or only seemingly so, with some evidence of an elder or two residing there.

The January sun reflected off the white washed walls of some grand patrician houses as I climbed higher through the labyrinth. On via Giuseppe Tozzoli a double wooden portico lay open to the lane. The cavernous entryway seemed a passage to an epoch long past. Unlike the damp dark courtyards of centuries-old buildings I'd visited in the heart of Naples - echoing with women’s voices from apartments above - inside here was silent. The walls were sun-bleached dry and crumbled. Weeds grew out of the stone and ironwork several stories overhead. No voices lived here now, nor it seemed, had they for many years.

Postcard from Calitri

2007-01-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

I was in the little paese on the hill for Christmas. For Italians the holiday is all about the presepe - and not about how many shopping days left, thankfully. The weather was cold and wintry though sadly it did not snow on the hill once. I am a big believer in snow at Christmas even so my Calitri experience was all that I had hoped for, with fresh Christmas trees and little tiny lites throughout the town, wild mistletoe to hang over the door (collected together in the woods with my own wild man Peppino,) the aroma of homemade breads and cakes in ovens nearby, and a surprise gift from zia Maria - the biggest rosary I have ever seen!

My October article in 'The American' was re-published in the town magazine. The December launch marked the re-birth of Calitri's journal 'L'Ofanto' after 2+ years lying dormant. With new editorial staff headed by a close friend and professor of letters in Latin, Enza Cubelli, new manifest logo and design and my own b/w photos on the front and back covers, you can see it here @ www.calitri.net/pro_loco_intro

The presentation of the new publication was held in the town meeting hall the Casa dell'Eca -built in the 1930's with fascist government funds of none other than Benito Mussolini and fully restored just last year. With full attendance the hall was buzzing with mostly townsmen, few wives, the newly elected mayor and his staff, the staff and officials of Calitri's chamber of commerce, the Pro Loco, as well as local (and regional) artists, architects, professors and writers, family and friends. After the initial introduction, I was asked to speak. Va-clempt, (sp?) nervous, and barely able to hold my own in my adopted language, the room none the less erupted in applause. I was overwhelmed. Italians love their home towns and are keenly proud when outsiders adore it with them.

Our New Year was celebrated with intimate dinner parties, dancing and fireworks. From my balcony in la Cascina in the centro storico, we could view the midnight-black hills of nearby communities of Basilicata ablaze with fuochi artiginali.

In memory of zio Giovanni

2006-12-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

Tramandare. Since my first visit here in Calitri I have tasted very good homemade wines; at the tables of my uncle’s Giovanni and Vincenzo, and one morning in February while navigating the narrow vias and vicolos of the centro storico. That morning, I paused to greet an old woman whom I met near a small corner chapel that I had admired yet never been inside. She just happened to be the widow of the pastor of chiesasetta Sant Antuono, and, naturally, had the key to the church on an iron ring just inside her front door. After the tour of the one room chiesasetta - probably the private chapel of a once noble family of the palazzo nearby - she invited me across the lane to her deep and rough-hewn cavern for a glass of wine. It was just past 11 am. The grotto was musty and damp and crowded with tools for the vendemmia - handmade utensils and instruments and coiled black hoses hung on the stone walls. Wine-stained wood barrels and green glass bottles of assorted shapes and sizes and a large wine press stood tucked in a far corner. A single bare bulb hung from a wire. Her middle aged son climbed down from a loft on a hand-tied ladder as we three gathered in a small damp space between the artifacts and from the three barriques stored deep in the back of their cantina, we tasted his wine.

I Vicini

2006-10-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Tucked high up and away from most other Centro Storico residents off vicolo San Nicola, I met an elder woman tending to tasks inside her cantina.

Her woolen layers ward off the early morning damp that seep into the cavernous stone grottoes in this ancient hilltop village. Her calico cat patiently waits nearby for breakfast.

Below, il vicino strolls the low grade of via Fontana just out side zia Concetta's front door. Signore D'Angelo is a cestaio or basket weaver and has kindly gifted me a few of his recent wares.

zia Concetta cooks

2006-10-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

Zia Concetta came to collect me one cold morning to sit with her as she prepared us a midweek pranzo.

Inside her warm kitchen the unmistakable aroma of my childhood filled the room. Atop her wood stove ragú simmered in a small cast-iron pot.

With camera in hand, I watched closely as she finger-rolled fresh macaroni on a large wooden board. L'Cingul. Growing up on Long Island I never witnessed fresh pasta made by hand. When I asked her if I could help she gently declined my offer.

"But why not, zia?" "It tastes better with only one pair of hands."