Spring is in the air and it is that time of year again when lemon trees bloom and the Sicilian air is fragrant with Fiori di Limone which then turn into big juicy lemons. The Sicilian climate and fertile volcanic earth creates a long growing season and the gathering of lemons takes place over three periods. First is the Autumn harvest Primo Fiore f...

It’s a snowy Saturday afternoon in Rockford, Illinois. My grandfather, Ignazio, is all but pressing his ear against the Zenith radio to hear the Metropolitan Opera broadcast of La Boheme, starring Bidú Sayao and Ferruccio Tagliavini. He pleads with me to sit with him and listen to the music of his country, which he deeply misses. No doubt the opera...

When one thinks of frontier justice or violent lynchings in the United States, it conjures the specter of lawlessness in the old West or the anti-black intolerance of the Deep South. This is inevitable, not only because of the magnitude of such atrocities, but because of the attention brought to them by modern American society, which largely sprung...

«Mi chiamo Favola Cinquemani, chista è la mia storia. Una storia siculish. Dicuno chi parru siculish, halfu miricanu e halfu sicilianu». Questo l'incipit del romanzo Zia Favola. Una storia siculish di Cono Cinquemani, appena dato alle stampe dalla neonata casa editrice Aut Aut Edizioni. Protagonista del libro e voce narrante è Zia Favola, un person...

I got to do this summer what all Italian Americans dream of.  I visited Italy and met for the first time, my Italian relatives. I have talked about this on our blog and the podcast and detail the trip in my forthcoming book 40 Days in Italy con la mia Famiglia – but nothing can explain these moments like a video. So the video above is a glimpse int...

Debbie Pigno delivering Italian cookies to Giovanna Clausen for the Independence Italian Cultural Museum cookie sale in conjunction with the Independence Sicilian Heritage Festival. The festival began Friday and runs throughout the weekend with food and live entertainment in downtown Independence. Hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. t...

L’11 e il 12 marzo prossimi, in occasione dell’anniversario dell’omicidio del poliziotto italo-americano Joe Petrosino, l’Ersu di Palermo e l’Associazione “Joe Petrosino Sicilia” promuovono il Joe Petrosino Celebration 2017, giornata commemorativa nei luoghi che videro ospite il celebre poliziotto durante il suo soggiorno nel capoluogo siciliano, 1...

A few months ago, I came across my mother’s cannoli recipe, which was typed out on two now-yellowed pages and still stapled together. The xeroxed copy dates to the late 1970s, when Mom used to teach cooking classes in her New Jersey kitchen. She had given it to me eons ago, along with copies of her recipes for egg pasta dough, Bolognese sauce, stuf...

The most recentreport on internal migration presented during Southern Economics Day reaffirms a long-held belief: southern Italy is losing 100,000 of its young prople every year. It's as if a town with a population of 20,000 was leaving Sicily every 365 days. Speaking to young Sicilian researchers living abroad, we observed a willingness to go back...

American-born Paul Baccaglini is Palermo's new president ahead of his fund's takeover of the Serie A club. Maurizio Zamparini announced he was stepping down last week after 15 years in charge and Palermo confirmed Baccaglini's appointment on Monday. Baccaglini, who was part of an attempted takeover of Palermo last year with Frank Cascio, is buying...