This time: Roma every day

1) Please introduce yourself (Name, Location, Age, where do you come from)
My name is Eleonora Baldwin, I live in Rome, Italy and I am not telling you my age! I am a dual nationality American born and Italian raised citizen of the world.

2) Which countries/cities have you lived in?
At different times of my life, I have lived in Rome; Naples; Bologna; Playa del Carmen (Mexico); KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa); Los Angeles and Pebble Beach, California (USA).

3) What is your blog about?
I am the author/editor of four blogs. The first one I started in 2009 is Aglio, Olio & Peperoncino and it deals with Italian cuisine, recipes, food tradition, Italian lifestyle and slow travel. Another very popular and newer blog (the one you met me through) is Roma Every Day, a photoblog in which I capture the Eternal City’s essence and daily life through my lens.

4) Why are you blogging? Do you have any goals with it?
I started blogging to learn. And I did. I learned that seeking exposure for my freelance writing, and luring potential publishers into considering my book is only what initially drew me to blogland. I learned that soon enough, I was coming back each day to learn more. My blogs all began as experiments, and now they have matured into regular journals of not merely things I cook and photograph, but also ones that I feel, that stimulate me, and that I actively live out.

5) Your favorite Italian meal?
A simple one, improvised and in the company of friends. Wine, bread, olive oil, good conversation, music & few key basics.

6) What is your favorite Italian song?
Hard to pinpoint just one, really. I’m an opera fan, so anything by Verdi, Puccini, Rossini… But of course I also enjoy Elisa and Giorgia’s warm voices, the first works by Pino Daniele, Giovanni Allevi’s enlightened hands, Vinicio Capossela, and Paolo Conte’s bountiful and elegant repertoire.

7) Do you have recommended links concerning the subject of your blog or Italy in general?
Slow Food, ICNOS Adventures, italyMONDO!, Home Food, The American in Italia, Italian Notebook … there are so many more to list here, so please visit the blogroll in my websites’ sidebars!!

8) Anything to add?
Live and cook with passion, laughter and abandon: it makes everything in life taste better!

This time: Valle nuova

1) Please introduce yourself (Name, Location, Age, where do you come from)
Giulia Savini, I’m 37. I was born and brought up in Milan and currently live near Urbino, Le Marche.

2) Which countries/cities have you lived in?
When I was 18 I moved to Urbino and studied Foreign Languages at Urbino University. I lived in Madrid (Spain) for 8 years and now I’m back to my organic farm and country in www.vallenuova.it, a few km south of Urbino.

3) What is your blog about?
My blog is about my life at Valle Nuova, my farm and organic country inn in Northern Le Marche. I post photos of the area, tourist information, recipes and some news about life here: from newly born kittens to updates about our eco-goals. I recently started a series of posts of photos from friends and past guests: “Valle Nuova through your eyes” (it’s really interesting seeing my everyday reality through someone else’s eyes!)

4) Why are you blogging? Do you have any goals with it?
I started blogging because I needed a space to add information that I thought that my guests would appreciate, without the hassle of updating my website all the time.
My experience says that an informed guest is a happy guest so I try to let people know as much as I can about this place and what we think is important, this way guests start knowing us before arriving here and past guests can read about us after they left.
This contributes creating a relationship between us and the people that visit Valle Nuova that goes well beyond a normal innkeeper/guest relationship: this is the best thing about my job!

5) Your favorite Italian meal?
Given the season my first thought is: Torta Pasqualina!
Part of my family is from Genoa and this is a typical Genoese Easter dish: a gorgeous savoury pie filled with artichokes, eggs, fresh cheese, garlic and herbs. It’s one of those things you only prepare for people you really love because it’s very time-consuming, but it’s oh so good! It also reminds me of my granny… yes, she loved me enough to cook this for me quite often!
I’ll post the recipe on my blog soon!

6) What is your favorite Italian song?
Anything by Fabrizio de André.
For instance this beautiful atypical love song: Un chimico (The album is based on Edgard Lee Master’s “Spoon River Anthology”. The co-author of the music is composer Nicola Piovani, who later on won an Academy Award for his soundtrack of Roberto Benigni’s Life is beautiful).

7) Do you have recommended links concerning the subject of your blog or Italy in general?
www.athomeintuscany.org, madonnadelpiatto.com , bellavitaitalia.blogspot.com, creativestructures.blogspot.com

Plus a few that I see have already been included!

8) Anything to add?
Thank you for your interest in my blog! I really like the choice of interesting blogs including some from off-the-beaten-path areas of Italy. I second Valerie’s suggestion: try explore new parts of Italy and let Italians from those areas surprise you with their warm welcome!

This time: Our year in Italy

1) Please introduce yourself (Name, Location, Age, where do you come from)

Until last November Carol and I lived for the last 34 years in a suburb of Washington, DC where I was an architect and Carol was a pastry chef and, in later years, a school librarian. In our first blog posting I told the background story of how we became Italophiles in 1974 and our dream of living in Italy. In November we sold our house and moved to Florida (near Orlando) where the winters are warm and sunny and we could implement our plan for Italy.

2) Which countries/cities have you lived in?
Prior to living in the Washington, DC metropolitan area we lived in Naples, Italy where I served in the U.S. Army at the NATO Headquarters. Before that, we were students at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia. Coincidently, we both grew up in the suburbs of New York City but did not meet until we were at Virginia Tech.

3) What is your blog about?
Our blog will chronicle our everyday experiences and observations of life in Italy. Our immigrant grandparents were working people with only basic educations and did not keep diaries to record their experiences of living in Italy and immigrating to America. We grew up thinking we were “Italian” but in reality we were “Italian-American” which have social, cultural and intellectual similarities and differences. Our blog will attempt to illustrate and explain those similarities and differences.

4) Why are you blogging? Do you have any goals with it?
The main reason for our blog is to stay connected to and share our experiences with friends, family and our neighbors in Washington, DC and Florida. With our travels and experiences in Italy we hope to collect interesting stories, cooking recipes and insights into Italian traditions and culture to use as a basis for a home-based business when we return to Florida. The business plan is in its conceptual stage and I am developing the details a little at a time.

5) Your favorite Italian meal?
Your question about our favorite Italian meal is like asking Michelangelo what is his favorite color to paint. How can there be one favorite with all of the available choices? Each region of Italy offers so many wonderful dishes (and each cook has his or her own variation on each dish) that one life is not enough time to enjoy them all. All we can say is that the simple foods prepared in the home (usually by a grandmother) with the freshest, best ingredients are the most enjoyable.

6) What is your favorite Italian song?
Depending on the mood of the moment, our tastes in Italian music range from Vivaldi, Rossini, and Verdi to performances by Pavarotti, Peppino di Capri and Zuccarro.

7) Do you have recommended links concerning the subject of your blog or Italy in general?
Some other sites we follow are listed on our blog.

8) Anything to add?
I hope that answers your questions. I am new to blogging and self-taught; I obviously have much to learn. Thank you for your interest in our blog and hope you enjoy our future postings.

This time: Due baci in a pinon tree

1) Please introduce yourself (Name, Location, Age, where do you come from)
VALERIE FORTNEY-SCHNEIDER, age 43. I grew up in Ohio but spent most of my adult life in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is the place in the US I consider “home”.

2) Which countries/cities have you lived in?
I have lived in Ohio, New Mexico (yes, it’s part of the US, even though many Americans don’t realize it!), Italy, and now Virginia. In Italy we lived in Anzio, Ascoli Piceno, and the Cilento coast. We just purchased an apartment in Basilicata near my ancestral village.

3) What is your blog about?
2 Baci in a Pinon Tree is about our travels and daily life in Italy – and all the adventures, foibles, joys, frustrations and observations that gives. We have been attracted to the lesser known parts of the country, so I focus heavily on that.

4) Why are you blogging? Do you have any goals with it?
It started out long before I moved to Italy as a sort of “practice ground” to motivate me to write more and to put it “out there” for public reading, something I had been hesitant to do. Then as we planned and undertook our move it became a chronicle of our experiences and the people we met along the way.

5) Your favorite Italian meal?
Wow, tough choice…I’ve had so very many wonderful meals! I guess I’d have to say that my favorite of all time was the enormous pranzo that my newly-discovered cousin organized for us at the last minute at an amazing country restaurant where everything was homemade exclusively with local ingredients. It was a thrilling meal because of the food, the company, the owners and their little boy, and the excitement of discovering family ties in southern Italy.

6) What is your favorite Italian song?
Another toughie. I adore the music of Giovanni Allevi. I listen to him and am amazed at what one man can produce from a piano. Of his music, my favorite songs are Panic and Go With the Flow. For pop/rock genre I really like Ligabue. His voice is gravely and sultry. I like Niente Paura and Cosa Vuoi Che Sia about equally.

7) Do you have recommended links concerning the subject of your blog or Italy in general?
For travel planning my go-to site is Slow Travel. Lots of great information, articles, and a helpful forum. The Italian government’s official travel website isn’t too bad www.enit.it. The ItalyTutto blog has an exhaustive list of blogs from all over the bel paese, enough to distract you from work (speaking from experience, unfortunately!). If you’re looking for unknown places, festivals and food experiences, visit my other site, Italy Panorama: Glimpses of Undiscovered Italy for some real gems you’ve never heard of before.

8) Anything to add?
My advice is to break out of the mold and cliches and go explore the beautiful places beyond the tourist centers. That’s where you can make some real connections and experience daily life like an Italian.

Diesmal: kortissimo

1) Bitte stelle Dich kurz vor (Name, wo lebst Du, Alter, woher kommst Du)
Mein Name ist Katharina Kort, Mitte 30 und gebürtige Rheinländerin (Düsseldorf).

2) In welchen Ländern/Städten hast Du schon gelebt?
Da ich meinen Traum, nach dem Abi ein Jahr um die Welt zu reisen, nicht verwirklichen konnte, habe ich versucht, mein Studium und Berufsleben als lange Reise anzugehen. Dabei hat es mich nach Kalifornien (Los Gatos), Perugia, Bonn, Mailand, Düsseldorf, Brüssel (nur ein paar Monate) , New York, Frankfurt und nun seit fünf Jahren erneut nach Mailand verschlagen.

3) Um was geht es in Deinem Blog?
Es geht um die kleinen (deutsch-) italienischen Momente im Leben, um Kuriositäten aus Italien, die ich in meiner Arbeit als Korrespondentin für eine seriöse Wirtschaftszeitung nicht verwenden kann, die aber dennoch berichtenswert sind.

4) Warum bloggst Du? Verfolgst Du damit bestimmte Ziele?
Ich blogge, um den Menschen mit Italien-Affinität mit kurzen Einträgen ein Schmunzeln oder auch ein Nachdenken abzuringen. Ich halte mich dabei absichtlich kurz (Kortissimo kommt von cortissimo), weil wir alle viel zu wenig Zeit haben. Ich blogge auch, um in Kontakt mit Italien-interessierten Menschen zu treten.

Und letztendlich ist es ein verzweifelter Versuch, auf der Höhe der Zeit der bleiben.

5) Was ist Deine italienische Lieblingsspeise?
Spaghetti alle vongole und Fisch in fast jeder Manier

6) Was ist Dein italienischer Lieblings-Song?
Im Moment „A te“ von Giovanotti. Aber das wechselt bei mir häufig.

7) Kannst Du einen Link bezüglich des Themas Deines Blogs oder über Italien generell empfehlen?
Wer sich für Mafia-Themen interessiert, sollte ab und zu bei meiner Kollegin Kirstin Hausen www.sositalien.wordpress.com hereinschauen.

Wer sich für Wirtschaft interessiert und Italienische spricht, sollte La Voce www.lavoce.info unbedingt unter seinen Favoriten haben.

8) Möchtest Du selber noch etwas hinzufügen?
Das Faszinierende an Italien ist, dass es trotz allem funktioniert.