Italy

I fell deeply in love with Italy during my first trip to Europe on my own at seventeen. The extraordinary physical beauty of the place combined with the cultural richness entwined in everyday life spoke to me. I went back home, changed my major from music to Italian literature and returned the following year to study at the L’Università per Stranieri in Perugia. It was the first time I had an apartment, the first time I gutted a chicken, and the first time I felt “launched” into adulthood.

My fascination with food and cooking which at the time was seen as kind of odd in LA, was completely natural in Italy, a deeply entrenched part of life actually. And so I felt I had found a place where I was comfortable and could grow. I returned nearly every year, made friends, continued to study and explore and now it simply feels like my adopted additional home. The Italy I first grew to love was just beginning to emerge from the difficult war years. People, even in cities, were still deeply linked to the countryside. That meant that I was surrounded by knowledge of and appreciation for products of the land. Everyone was/is food obsessed in a primary, non-performative way.

So much has changed in the fifty plus years since that first trip but the beauty of the landscape, the architecture, reverence for good food and the embrace of the people has not.