A Project Before Departure ...

So a month or two before leaving in May, I began to do database searches: Italy/fiction, Tuscany/fiction, Umbria/fiction. And when they began pouring into Central, in the courier boxes from hither and yon, I brought home armloads, stacked them in our livingroom and announced:
"All reading and viewing from here on in has to be set in Italy."
Some highlights?
The Miracles of Santo Fico, by D.L. Smith, The Food of Love and The Wedding Officer, by Anthony Capella and the mystery series by Magdalen Nabb featuring the delightful, self-effacing and intuitive Marshal Guarnaccia.
But wait!
I shall create a bookshelf to showcase them for you ...

Reading Over My Shoulder

Years ago, as I sipped my capuccino and read my book, someone asked, "Have you read any Kaye Gibbons?"

A couple of weeks later I had.

So I posted a note on a scrap of paper from my purse on the handy dandy bulletin board:

"To the woman who recommended A Virtuous Woman. I loved it. Thanks! Try her Ellen Foster. Also, her latest is 'On Order' at the library."

The next time I was in, there in the margins of my already tiny note: "Charms for the Easy Life. Her best yet!" (Though I liked Virtuous best.)

A pre-Twitter Tweet at my favourite coffee shop!

And now you'll see that I am trying enter into the Web 2.0 experience by way of my love for all things Italian. Here, in this blogspot, I will be able to muse and dream and share my love for the books and movies set there; the food and coffee, wine; the scents and textures; and the memories and pleasures of our family's dream-come-true trip there in May of 2009.

Remember?

Remember the amaretti and croccante cookies displayed in the glass-fronted cases; cannoli stuffed with sweet ricotta cheese; the smell of the best coffee in the city; the little tables squeezed against the length of the narrow shop? The owners back in the kitchen making the confections that filled their cases. She: tall, big hair, commanding; he: short, round, gruff, generous. Staff out front making the espresso and capuccinos.
The first and still unmatched coffee shop in Kingston.
And there was a bulletin board just inside the front door posted with the usual ephemera: business cards, 'Lost: one pink mitten with yellow stripes'; 'Apartment wanted downtown'.