The New Gastronomes

TWO CAFFÈ E TE STORIES–
or Just a Confused Australian!

An aside…
I love the fact one can buy a pastry in any style of café/bar in Italy and it is always fresh, soft, and absolutely melt-in-the-mouth, as it has been made barely hours before.
The cafe/bar at the Bra train station is no exception. A rather colourful place at [...]

 
There’s a unique joy when you suddenly realize you’ve communicated with ease, not just a concept, but something of yourself in another language. That hasn’t happened for me in Italian yet.
 
In the meantime, I have the best teachers in the shops and markets of Bra. Rosana at the Piazza Giolitti farmer’s market sells the most [...]

Coming from a small village in the middle of nowhere (aka the Venetian countryside), I am used to making it short and clear when asked about my geographical origins, answering, “I live close to Venice.” This is even more efficient if I have to explain it to a non-Italian audience, but it can be tricky…. [...]

Swaying slowly, the pollen danced through the air as I arrived in Bra, my new home for the next year. Taking in the scenery of the quiet little town, I quickly stumbled upon Gelateria Gianduja. Unable to speak Italian, I could only point to the flavor fragola (strawberry) that I wanted and then try to utter [...]

One Saturday, in the middle of August, it rained all day in Bra. I didn’t leave the house. I took stock of the perishables, which needed to be used before my departure on Monday morning. Milk, cheese, and veggies. I had intended to work on my pasta-cooking repertoire while living in Italy, since in the [...]

Maybe it was the smell wafting through the air of steak cooking over charcoal fires, or maybe it was the hunger in my stomach, but as I walked through the small town of Cortona in the Tuscan countryside, I couldn’t help thinking of the unique view that I had into the lives of the Tuscan [...]

One of my favorite things about our year so far at UNISG is that after class, thought-provoking or not, we all talk about it. With 25 students and three hours per class, we don’t always have a chance to speak and share our opinions, but I know each of us have different ideas, experiences, thoughts, questions, and [...]

For a foreigner diving into life in another country, there is an overabundance of venues in which to encounter culture shock. Grocery stores, banks, bars, post offices, public transportation; practically every outlet that contributes to your subsistence can pose a challenge. However, this is expected. Not necessarily the specific shock, but the reality that some [...]

 IT ALL STARTED WITH ONE BOTTLE.
When I arrived in Parma, neither knowing what my new home for the next year would look like, nor who my new two flat mates would be, I was excited just like before a first date. I knew their names and where they were from. Curious as I was, [...]

Good, clean, and fair, bien sûr

To all the friends who envy us, I offer some consolation: being a UNISG student in Parma/Colorno can be as hazardous as it is joyful. Premature signs of aging, funny belly, hangovers, anxiety—long is the list of injuries that slaughter us on the battlefield.

But we cannot have that, [...]