The idea of 'ferie,' or summer break, is a long tradition of which all Italians, including myself, participate. It's a time to relax, reflect and recharge.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I adore summer entertaining. For a dinner party at the farm, I might prepare homemade fettuccine with porcini mushrooms, soft-shell crabs, spinach from the garden, and lemon tarts with fraises des bois for dessert.
Spring Break is very strange. I grew up in France, so I don't know Spring Break. That doesn't exist in Europe.
We are the last remaining country to allow ourselves two breaks in the season. You just have to look at England, Italy and Spain, they play right through the season. We on the other hand take six weeks off in the winter until the end of January, and that is a luxury.
Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.
We have a house in Umbria that we bought just before we went to America. That meant we couldn't go there as often as we thought, but now we're back, we're going to start using it more. I love the light, the countryside, the language and the fact that children are accepted everywhere. The Italians get passionate about everything, too.
In Italy, they add work and life on to food and wine.
I love the simplicity, the ingredients, the culture, the history and the seasonality of Italian cuisine. In Italy people do not travel. They cook the way grandma did, using fresh ingredients and what is available in season.
Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.
Nothing except time is wasted in Italy.
In Italy it's full-on stardom when you're a cyclist - eating in restaurants for free, it's great.
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