KEY WORDS

La vigilia di Natale (Christmas Eve)

Natale (Christmas)

Santo Stefano (Saint Stephen, Dec. 26th)

Capo d’anno (New Year’s Eve)

Epifania (Epiphany, 6^th Jan.)

Buon Natale (Merry Christmas)

Buone Feste (Happy Holidays)

Felice/Prospero Anno Nuovo (Happy/Prosperous New Year)

Babbo Natale (Santa Claus or ‘Father Christmas’)

Gesu’ Bambino (Baby Jesus)

Tre magi (3 wise men)

La Befana (A present-delivering old woman, on a broom!)

Presepe, presepio (Nativity scene)

Regali (Presents)

Calza (Stocking)

L’albero di natale (Christmas tree)

Panettone (Dome-shaped Christmas cake with candied fruit, originated in Milano)

Cenone (big dinner)

Chiesa (Church), Santa messa (Holy mass)

Lenticchie (Lentils)

Italian Christmas Traditions & Practices – A Survey

What follows is a synthesis of their answers. Following my summary are the actual answers of my friends, in original form. Take a look; see what you can understand. Buona lettura!

Decorations (Decorazioni) /day-cohr-ahts-yohn-ee/

As a rule, Italians do not much decorate their homes for the holidays, except for a nativity scene, and perhaps a Christmas tree, but it will usually be small-ish, possibly a live tree still in the pot, and not super-loaded with ornaments. In the downtown areas of cities and towns there will be lights and other decorations along the street. Larger cities will be especially lit up, and some have begun using LED lights because they are energy-saving and less polluting.

Mistletoe (Vischio) /vees-keeoh/

During the Holiday Season it is an old tradition to give Mistletoe, especially the last day of the year. It is often dipped in gold or silver paint, and it is given as a symbol of good wishes, or ‘auguri’. One of my friends reported that, “a large bank in the downtown has mounted a huge ‘vischio’ and they invite whoever wants to stand under it, and two nice girls take pictures while people kiss one another…”

Ah at long last! An Italian spell-checker….. free & online!

Tho I am pretty good at spelling, I am NOT the world’s best typist… and so as a writer, the spell-checker is one of my favorite tools.

I’ve long wished I could have a spell-checker for Italian at my fingertips (living in the States and having an English version of Word means that the built-in version only checks for accuracy of English spelling).

So, I recently went searching for an online spell-checker, and lo and behold, I found one that is not only free of charge, but doesn’t need to be downloaded AND doesn’t cause all kinds of annoying pop-up windows to open on my computer.

Yaay! No more worrying whether I doubled a consonant unnecessarily!

No more typos! Try it yourself: http://spellchecker.net

18 dicembre 2009

“Si Chiama Pietro, torna dietro!”

This is a popular and silly idiom/rhyme. What it literally means is “It’s name is Peter (Pietro) and it comes back (torna dietro). It’s a little non-sensical… and is used when you lend something to a friend… it’s a tongue in cheek way of slipping in the fact that you want the item returned… and it is funny because Pietro rhymes with dietro.

So let’s say you lend your friend a book… and you say, jokingly “Si chiama Pietro (the book’s name is Peter/Pietro) and it comes back to me (torna dietro)! Try it next time a friend asks to borrow something!

Buon giorno!

In Class #7 we began prepping for our hands-on cooking tutorial next week. We covered:

1. Italian words for food and cooking
   
2. Conversations in Italian about Thanksgiving and what we are grateful for
   
3. The Italian recipe for Spaghetti Aglio, Olio, Peperoncino (garlic, oil, red chili pepper spaghetti) we will cook next week!

Homework (aka Funwork) for next week –very easy– watch the videos on my blog post “Cuciniamo–Let’s Cook” to get a feel for what we’ll be cooking in class.

• – Start time– 6:30pm, directions will be sent by email
  
• – This will be our end-of-class celebration
• – You must RSVP so I get enough ingredients
• – Hope to see you there!
  

Ciao–

As I  gear up for my “holiday & food” end-of-series fall Italian conversation and culture classes, I have turned to the web for inspiration in preparing lessons on my personal favourites of simple and yummy Italian cuisine.

The two most basic and easy of the Italian ‘primi piatti’ (aka first courses or pasta/risotto dishes) are “Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino” (Spaghetti with garlic, oil and red chili pepper) and another classic, “il Soffritto” (which can be roughly translated as the ‘under-fry’) that is the threshold of many an Italian “sugo” (sauce, aka “salsa”).

Here, the links to some of the most authentic, useful, and/or amusing videos I came accross in my ‘ricerche’ (searching). You’ll note that in each aglio-olio-peperoncino video, each cook uses their own slight variations.
- Enjoy and ‘buon appetito’!

1. The classic: Spaghetti aglio, olio, peperoncino
2. The classic + grana: Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino
3. The classic + parsely: Spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino
4. Yet more aglio, olio, peperoncino!
   
5. Funniest video, most elaborate version: Aglio, olio, p…
   
6. Soffritto
7. More Soffritto