I'm eating grandma's potatoes!

Or...how did I get here

Photo attributed to https://anitalianinmykitchen.com/

Hi, and welcome to my blog. It's genesis that started in 1990. No, no, it actually started when I was born third generation Italian American just outside of San Francisco, California.

I grew up with the traditions of my first generation Italian American grandparents. Sunday family lunches after mass (of course cooked in the "second" kitchen...never the formal one on the second floor). Big family gatherings during holidays gathered around the longest picnic tables ...covered end to end with amazing Italian food. Homemade ravioli, pesto, polenta, focaccia (or fugassa, as I knew it). Foods that were very normal for me, but very strange (at the time) to anyone outside of that Italian circle. As I got older I just couldn't believe that none of these diehard Italians had ever travelled back to Italy, and yet I felt such a pull to do so.

And so in 1990, I landed in Florence for a study abroad year. The first thing that imprinted for me was that as we were landing, I recall looking out the window and my first feeling was, "I'm home". Then, following this long day of travel, our group of tired strangers was led into a small hotel dining room for a family style dinner. I only remember one, very distinct thing. One of the dishes they served was roasted potatoes. In our family, we loved grandma's potatoes. Boy did we fight over getting just the perfectly scorched and crispy (yet so soft on the inside) potato wedge when my grandmother made these. I recall putting one of these in my mouth and being stunned! All I could think was..."I'm here, sitting in Italy, eating grandma's potatoes." Probably from that moment forward, the seed was planted that has become a dream to make Italy part of my life.

Many years and chapters of my life later, it was during the COVID shut down that I lost myself in various Instagram accounts that featured "cheap" homes abroad and I began to wonder if the time was right to move forward with these dreams. And so with this blog I plan on capturing this odyssey and, just maybe, I'll find myself...in Italy...making grandma's potatoes.

Do your dreams sound like mine? Leave me a comment and tell me about them. And join me in my adventures!

Photo attributed to https://anitalianinmykitchen.com/