AUNTIE PASTA: Baked Fish Pugliese Style

CHIAVARI, Italy – The small fishing town of Giovinazzo is about 10 miles from Bari, in the southern region of Puglia. It’s a pretty place, the fishing is good and in the summer it is very popular with tourists – Italian and foreign.   

 Giovinazzo, Italy

It’s an old town, but exactly how old is still a mystery. It is generally believed there were people living in Giovinazzo even before the Romans came along. If the antique graves from the fourth century BC that were found just a few miles away in Molfetta testify to the existence of a fishing village,  chances are there were fishermen living in Giovinazzo too.

Giovinazzo had a different name back then, but not much else has changed. People still make their living from the sea, but these days it is less about fishing and more about tourism. I know the Giovinazzo tourist board would like me more if I would talk about their history and their churches, their art and architecture, but to me towns like Giovinazzo and its slightly larger neighbors Santo Spirito and Molfetta are less about their touristic sights and more about the spirit of the place and the people who live there. They have a way of making you feel right at home.



 Giovinazzo is Charming

All I can say is I have never met a Pugliese I didn’t like. I even like John Turturro, whose father was born in Giovinazzo, and I’ve never even met him or his father, but John seems to be very charming.  The Pugliese seem to have cornered the market on charm. Maybe they have a special charm gene, I’m not sure. But I do know that in addition to being creative and innovative, if you lure them into a kitchen they’ll cook up some of the best food in Italy, especially fish.

With that in mind, I couldn’t think of a better recipe for you today than a Pugliese standard, baked fillets with potatoes, garlic and olive oil. I can’t resist mentioning it’s also a Ligurian dish, but never mind that, we are talking about Puglia today.



Fish Vendor, Puglia, Italy

In Puglia their fish of choice is grouper and they put the whole fish on top of the potatoes. I confess I’m not a fan of cooking a whole fish, I’m more of a fillet kinda gal. There is something about those fish eyes looking back at me when I open the oven door to baste them that puts a damper on my appetite. It’s all Walt Disney’s fault. He never should have made that movie Finding Nemo.

So it’s fish fillets for me – and yes even frozen fish fillets are okay if they are defrosted. Cod is my favorite, but any firm fillets like haddock, bluefish or even fresh anchovies will do.

Baked Fish and Potatoes Pugliese Style

This recipe is from Marcella Hazen’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I chose it because it is easy, it’s delicious and it is practically identical to both my Pugliese recipe and my Ligurian recipe.

BAKED FISH FILLETS WITH POTATOES, GARLIC AND OLIVE OIL

6 Servings

1 ½ pound boiling potatoes

A bake and serve dish, approximately 16 x 10 inches

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

¼ cup chopped parsley

Freshly ground black pepper

1 pound firm fish fillets

 

1. Preheat oven to 450⁰ F

 

2. Peel the potatoes and slice them very thin. Wash them in cold water and pat them dry with a kitchen towel.

 

3. Put all of the potatoes into the baking dish, pour in the olive oil, the chopped garlic, half of the parsley, several good pinches of salt and black pepper. Toss the potatoes 2 or 3 times to coat them well and spread them evenly over the bottom of the baking dish.

 

4. When the oven reaches 450⁰ F, put the potatoes on the uppermost third of it, and roast them for 12-15 minutes, until they are about halfway cooked.

 

5. Take the potatoes out of the oven, but do not turn the oven off. Put the fish fillets (skin down if they have skin) over the potatoes. Mix the remaining olive oil, garlic and parsley in a small bowl and pour it over the fish, making sure it is distributed evenly. Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper and put the dish back in the oven.

 

6. After about 10-12 minutes, take the dish out of the oven, again do not turn the oven off, and baste the fish with the oil on the bottom of the dish. Loosen the potatoes that have become browned and move them away from the side of the dish. In their place put potatoes that are not as brown. Put the dish back in the oven and bake for another 6 – 10 minutes, depending on how thick the fish fillets are.

 

7. When cooked, take the dish out of the oven and let it sit for a few minutes (5 or 6). Serve directly from the baking dish, and pour cooking juices over each serving.

LIFE; Puglia Memories

CHIAVARI, Italy – Before I moved back to Liguria, Tatiana brought me a catalog from an exhibit of photographs her father, Uliano Lucas, had in Bari a couple of years ago. Uliano Lucus is a well known Italian photojournalist who made his name working as a free lance photographer back in the years the Italians call, the years of lead, gli anni di piombo. The collection of black and white photos in the exhibit were part of his collection of photos taken in Puglia over the past 30 years. 

We have that connection, Tatiana and I. She knows I love photographs, especially black and white photographs, and the first time she came to my apartment she was both delighted and surprised to see black and white photos hanging on my walls.

“Oh, it’s just like in all the American films,” she said. It should be noted I am the first American she and her husband Andrea ever met, and she wasn’t quite sure what she was going to find in the apartment of the ‘Americana’. Italians watch so many American movies their brains are full of American images they have never seen in person, so it’s always a surprise when they come face to face with the real deal and have that flash of recognition. 

Italians don’t hang photographs on their walls, not unless they are photographs of their parents or their wedding or their children and grandchildren. Even then those photographs are usually confined to the bedrooms, hallways or entryways. In their living rooms they prefer paintings. Landscapes are good but big portraits of relatives are better. And the more the merrier. Of everything. 

The first time I saw my apartment in Milan, the previous tenants were still living there. There was so much big heavy furniture and so many paintings and portraits of men with beards hanging on the walls I was visually overwhelmed. It wasn’t until I moved in that I realized the woodwork and doors had all been painted lavender, and there were in fact, two bathrooms.  

I understand that my decorating style is a bit too sparse for the Italians. Too minimalistic. And horrors of horrors, I don’t have heavy drapes and curtains on my living room or dining room windows, or on any of my windows or balcony doors for that matter. I don’t even pull the tapperelle down at night – the tapperelle being those heavy, shutters that pull down over windows and doors much like a garage door does. They block out every smidgeon of light and air and it’s obvious they were originally designed for a torture chamber. The Italians are very polite about my lack of caution, but I can tell they think I’m a bit daft. Is it possible I don’t know the gypsies are watching - and waiting - for just the right moment to scale the building and rob me blind? Apparently not. 

After Italian journalist Beppe Severgnini spent a few years in Washington, DC he wrote about his experiences in a book called ‘An Italian in America’. He talks about not being able to relax in the living room of his rented house in Georgetown because there were no tapperelle on the windows to pull down. Actually there were no blinds or shutters even worthy of the name, and the curtains, all sheer and gossamer, served no purpose other than decoration. He was completely horrified at the thought of people walking by, being able to look in the windows and see him sitting on his sofa watching TV. 

Roba da matti, as they say. It was just crazy. Not that he ever saw anyone actually looking in his windows but, well you know, it’s the idea of the thing. And as for being able to sleep without the total black out and prison-like atmosphere those horizontal slats of the tapperelle on the windows provide, well he never did adjust to that. Apparently he didn’t get a good night’s sleep until he got back to Italy.

There are always adjustments to be made when you live in a foreign country, but truth be known after twenty plus years of living in Italy my list is shrinking. Nonetheless Tatiana made me promise that her father’s photographs would not end up on my walls, torn from the catalog and hung in some springtime redecorating frenzy. It’s proving to be a lot harder a promise to keep than it was to make. But I am trying.

The Puglia photographs are particularly interesting to me. I’ve only been to Puglia once, to Bari and Lecce, and I loved everything about it. Maybe because what I found and what I thought I was going to find, were so completely different - much like Tatiana's first reaction to an encounter with a real, in the flesh American.

My ideas of Puglia, much like Tatiana's ideas of America, were formed long before I ever saw it, back when I still lived in Philadelphia. They came from my first Italian teacher, a nice woman from Bari who always talked about her city as if it was a mile and half from hell. For years I carried around the idea that Bari was dirty and dangerous, and a place to avoid at all costs. And then, much to my chagrin, I was sent there to work on a project for the Italian Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

As it turned out, Bari was nothing at all like the city she had described. In fact it was exactly the opposite. When I mentioned how nice the city was to a taxi driver, she just smiled and said, “yes it is, isn’t it.”  And as for Lecce, what I found was a city of such extraordinary architecture and beauty that I was completely blown away.

Even though the photos of Puglia in Uliano Lucas’ catalog are gritty and raw, and taken long before I moved to Italy, they still bring back memories of my experience there. And that’s exactly what photographs should do: grab a moment and hold it still so we can go back and experience it time and time again. So while it is difficult not to frame those Puglia pictures and look at them every day, a promise is a promise. And I promised.

Photos: Uliano Lucas

AUNTIE PASTA: Simply Dee'licious

SARONNO, Italy - Even though wild greens are more of a spring vegetable than a summer one, you can often find them in the marketplace even during the summer months. In the spring, the fields in Italy are peppered with wild radicchio, erbe di campo, dandelion greens, wild lettuces, ciccoria, strighi and many more,  ready to be picked, cleaned, cooked and devoured. Yum.

Butcher Eataly, Torino, Italy

My father used to scour our lawn looking for young, tender dandelion greens for salad. He only cut leaves that didn’t have flowers or flower stalks as he said they were pass their prime. He only wanted the young, tender shoots, and when they made their way to our dinner table, there was no doubt he had chosen well.  

Here in Saronno I often see people scouring the fields behind their condominiums or stopping along the side of a road to walk through a field in search of edible greens.  There are probably delicious bitter greens growing right outside your door too, you just have to look for them.

One green that is found both in the wild and cultivated is cime di rapa. I think it’s called broccoli rabe or rapini in the United States, and it may have other names as well. It’s easy to identify as it has medium size green leaves and tiny broccoli like flowers. Just so I don’t get confused, I’m going to call it cima di rapa.

One of the most treasured Italian recipes is cime di rapa and orecchietti from that little bit of heaven on earth called Puglia, and another is today’s recipe, cime di rapa con salsiccia, cime with sausages.

Cima di rapa con salsiccia is a simple, easy recipe to prepare, almost as easy as cold pea soup http://thisitalianlife.blogspot.it/2011/08/auntie-pasta_25.html which is still high on my list of not just easy, but downright delicious Italian recipes. The basic idea is to clean and blanch the cime, sauté the sausage, put the two together 'come Dio commanda', as God ordains, as they say here in Italy and …… eat.

 Cime di Rapa aka Broccoli Rabe

CIMA DI RAPA WITH SAUSAGES

Ingredients

1 clove of garlic

1 kilo (2 lbs) cime di rapa

2- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 peperoncino (or sprinkle of red pepper flakes)

500 grams (1 lb) spicy Italian sausage

To prepare cime di rapa with sausages start by cleaning the greens: wash them well and eliminate the stems and leaves that are not good. Cut the leaves in pieces, but keep the broccoli like tips whole (1-2).  Put the greens into salted boiling water for 5 minutes (3), then drain them.  

 In the meantime, cut the sausages into small pieces (4) and put them in a non-stick pan to brown (5). After a few minutes ass a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking water from the cime di rapa (6).  

Finish cooking the sausages (7). Peel and slice the garlic clove, and if you are using a whole red pepper, cut it into small pieces (8). In a frying pan put the extra virgin olive oil. Then put the garlic and half of the hot red pepper pieces in the frying pan and lightly brown the garlic. Then add the boiled cime (9) and let it cook in the garlic, red pepper infused oil for a few minutes, turning often. Serve hot with the crispy, brown sausages and enjoy.

You can also cut the sausage into smaller pieces and cook everything together in the same frying pan. Serve with some crusty Italian bread, a bottle of hearty red wine and you have a quick and easy and very dee-licious summer meal.

LIFE: Song of the South - Lecce

SARONNO, Italy - In Lecce, the ornate buildings in the historic center seem to be sculpted of velvet and sprinkled with gold. They give the old town a golden glow, even on cloudy days. The secret of that glow is in the stone, a particular limestone only found in the Pugliese town of Lecce, several kilometers inland from the Adriatic Sea. The stone is the element that binds together the various periods of history and architectural styles you see in Lecce, ranging from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, right up to the nineteenth-century.

Lecce

It seems to be another magnificently curlicued and putti decorated building around every corner. You would think your eye would tire of the endless parade of the exaggerated Baroque designs that Lecce presents, but the perfect proportion of the old town gives you just enough space from one elaborately carved church or building to another to make each new discovery as breathtaking as the last. I have never seen anything quite like it, and I don’t think there is anything like it anywhere else in Italy.

Along the streets of Lecce

The secret is in the stone. It is unlike any other, soft and almost paste like when first pulled from the quarry, and then as it is exposed to the air, it slowly begins to harden and turn a rich golden color,  and holds firm to the decorations that have been cut into it. It’s almost like magic.

It was in the early 1600’s that Italy began to take on a new look. Symmetry was out, decoration was in. There were two Renaissance architects who were primarily responsible for the change - Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini - and they were both in Rome. Bernini’s decorations were elaborate and beautiful. Borromini’s decorations were so embroidered and over-the-top that many considered him mad. It was an impression that would linger long after his death. But it was precisely because of Borromini, and his perceived madness, that the works he created during this period was called Baroque, for in those days baroque meant abnormal. 

 Church of Santa Croce, Lecce

But it was anything but abnormal for brothers DGuiseppe and Antonio Zimbalo, local sculptors and architects working in Lecce. It was as if this new style developed by Bernini and Borromini had been invented just for them. the Church of Santa Croce in Lecce’s Jewish quarter, is Antonio Zimbalo’s most over the top design. The church took more than 150 years to complete, and at least five other architects had a hand in its creation.  Zimbalo worked his magic on the top half of the façade centering it with a rose window encircled with winged angel heads, acanthus leaves and rosettes. Then he moved on to dragons and cherubs, griffons and lions, saints and sinners and pot-bellied mermaids. It’s almost more than the eye can take in, and the brain can process.

Duomo of Lecce

Just a short distance from Piazza Oronzo, the town’s main piazza, large porticos lead to into the Piazza del Duomo, and the Basilica. It’s another Zimbalo brother masterpiece, this time Guiseppe Zimbalo. It is difficult to appreciate the impact the Basilica had when it was first built as the city was configured  differently now than it was then. What that means is that the first ornate   ornate façade you see as you walk into the piazza is not the church entrance, but the exit. There is another equally ornate façade along the right hand side of the church, and that is where the entrance is. The interior of the Basilica is also a cornucopia of baroque ornamentation, but perhaps the most unusual of all the decorations are the large statues made of papier mâché.

Papier Mache Artisans at Work

The art of papier mâché was brought to Naples from the Far East, and it migrated south to Lecce in the 17^th century. It didn’t take long for Lecce to rival Naples as the papier mâché capital of Italy and  it is still a thriving business. Life-size saints, crucifixions of all sizes, and crèches for churches are created here and shipped around the world. You can easily spend an entire afternoon watching the masters at work at the many workshops scattered throughout the historic center.

One of the most popular saints made is a life like figure of St. Oronzo, Lecce’s patron saint. It’s a fascinating process that starts with wet sheets of paper are wrapped around a featureless wire and straw mannequin. There seems to be little hope that a recognizable figure will ever emerge from the mass, but then, with a red hot iron, the maestro begins to burn details into the mannequin’s head and body. With every pass he makes, licks of flames and billows of smoke shoot skyward. The mannequin is soon blackened from head to toe. The next morning the charred figure of yesterday now has several coats of paint, and from the charred and blackened mass stands a life-like figure of St. Oronzo, a tall mitre on his head and dainty slippers on his feet.

 Saint Oronzo, Patron Saint of Lecce

In Piazza Saint Oronzo, a much larger statue of Oronzo stands high on a column looking down at the city he loved, his hand held high in an eternal blessing. It was carved in 1666 to  thank  the Saint for having saved the town from the plague that had swept through Lecce ten years earlier. The tall marble column the statue sits on is even older than the statue. It was brought from another Apulian town, Brindisi where, along with another column of the same size, once marked the end of the ancient Roman Appian Way.

Roman Amphitheater

In the same piazza as the statute of St. Oronzo there is a Roman amphitheater from the 1^st century BC, which was discovered quite by accident in the late 1920’s when Lecce was cleaning up after an massive earthquake. And just a few blocks away,  a Roman theatre that was built during the time of Caesar Augustus was uncovered from the rubble as well. Twelve flights of steps have been excavated, enough to hold up to 5,000 spectators, but there is every reason to believe there were more. The area where the orchestra sat still has the original floor of large slabs of stone which end with three big steps reserved for the city officials to sit on. And in the apron of the stage, the groove where the curtain slid back and forth, is still visible. 

The historic center is closed to traffic, and few drive there except for the brave residents who expertly maneuver their Fiats and Smart cars through the crowds of tour groups and gawking tourists like me. Even though the old town is built on a medieval circular plan it is easy to find your way. If you get lost, the Tourist Police will put you back on the right track. But you probably won’t need them. There are well placed signs on just about every corner, that keep you going in the right direction.

Rolling Produce Stand

The shops close in the early afternoon and open again around 4:30 PM, the hour of the passeggiata. It’s the part of the day when the whole town turns out for an afternoon stroll and the clean and quiet streets come alive and jugglers and musicians materialize out of nowhere, to vie for your attention.   As the noisy metal grates are raised, colorful storefronts suddenly appear  and soon young and old are strolling hand in hand, the staccato sound of Italian as it’s spoken in the south, fills the air.    

The day I was there, there were several groups of school kids, probably 9 or 10 years old, being led around town by their teachers and parents who had volunteered to chaperone. I ran into one group in the church of Santa Croce. Their teacher told me they were from a small town near Bari and I commented on how well behaved they were, and how they actually seemed interested in the particulars of the church. She looked at me and said, “why wouldn’t they be interested? This is their heritage, this is about them, this is them.” 

 Well now, that's true, isn't it.

LIFE: Journey to Puglia Part 2

SARONNO, Italy – This is the continuation of my notes and observations during the 10 hour train ride from Milan to Bari and then Bari. To recap at this point of the trip what I can see are miles of fields, grape vines mostly, interspersed with fields of green. Here and there a house or small concrete building. The isolation is unsettling to me……… Where the hell are we? This place definitely gets the ugly prize.

Barletta, Italy - Maybe I Spoke Too Soon

Roses along the side of the track are in bloom, antique pink fuzzy ones, not classic and not anything like the roses you can order from the Burpee Seed Catalog.  Now a sign. The town is Barletta. There is a big factory of some sort, and now more industrial buildings.

I know that looking down at the streets while passing by on the train is not a true picture of any town, and there was a glimpse of a cathedral that looked interesting. I’ve yet to find an Italian town I didn’t like, so I may have spoken too soon. Now out of town with lots of industrial buildings along this stretch. Strange white beehive looking buildings in the middle of an olive grove. Oh my Gawd, those are trullis.

 Pugliese Trullis 

I remember reading about trulli. They look like giant stone beehives with cone shaped roofs and they are only found in Puglia. I’ve always associated them with the  town of Alberobello, how could I not know that if they were in Alberobello they would be scattered throughout the region as well. Sometimes I worry about myself.

This must be wash day in the south. Hardly a balcony that is not decorated with sheets and underwear. A nice group of rather good looking apartment buildings. Now cactus plants, huge ones, bigger than a Volkswagon are starting to appear and lots of fruit trees but no fruit in sight.

More Pugliese Trulli

Just saw two more trulli, these were made of stone on concrete and not painted white. They look like ..  wedding cakes. The sea is black and it is blue. These last couple of towns are very nice, good size, good architecture. We are about 15 minutes from Bari and barreling down the track.

Finally Bari. I’m worried about this town. All I can think of is that Italian teacher I had in Philadelphia who was from Bari and how she always talked about how terrible and dangerous the city is. My hotel is on the edge of the historic center, I’m worried about it. 

Bari Harbor

(The reason I’m in Bari is that I am working on a project for the Italian Ministry of Culture. It involves going around to all the historic buildings, monuments and churches in the historic center and writing a short piece about them. Sounds easy, but as all of the buildings, monuments and churches already have all you ever wanted to know about them printed and placed behind glass cases out in front of them for all to see, the challenge is to find some interesting detail about the building/church and add to the information that is already there.

What I write for each location will be turned into an audio tape that visitors can listen to on their phones by dialing a special number. The next part of this article are the notes I took walking around the historic center of Bari, the place I so dreaded going to.)  

Bari's Historic Center

Centro storico Bari is clean and colorful, houses open onto the ground floor, unlike the rest of Italy where apartments start on what is technically the second floor. Curtains cover doorways, to let the sea breezes in. Sounds of life inside, dishes clinking, voices, mother’s calling to kids, ‘Giacomo vieni qui’, Giacomo, come here.

 

Little man tells me his life story – he’s divorced, now lives with his mother, doesn’t know the streets because he lives in another part of the city. All I asked was do you know where this church is. I ask a young woman pushing her baby in a stroller along the sea walk. The view is so breathtaking and I can hardly concentrate on what she is saying to me. 

Life at Street Level, Bari, Italy

Wandering the streets I see an old woman in a housedress sitting on a chair next to her door. The door is in made in two sections, and the top half is open. She sees me looking around and checking my map and gives me one of those lift the chin gestures which means  - what’s your problem. I go over and start to ask where xx church is, she put her fingers to her lips to shush me, there is obviously a baby sleeping on the other side of the door.

Question – why do they tell you what it isn’t? It’s not the first street, but the one after that.

The Real Deal - Orecchette

Ladies in doorways of old Bari making orecchiette, the trays for drying them look like large flour sifters set out on racks that do double duty as clothes lines. They offer to sell me some. 

Teenagers sprawled out over the steps of a church that is more than 1,000 years old, arguing about last Sunday’s soccer game. The neighborhood butcher comes out of his shop to show me what street I need to take to find my next church.

The Cathedral of San Nicola

Lots of green, tree shaded streets, trees used like the porticos of the north. Bar next to the Column of Justice – how old are these buildings? Was there a bar here when the bad guys were tethered to the column for all the town to see?

My favorite moment in Bari – a little kid, no more than 5,  all by himself, kicking a soccer ball around in front of a tiny ancient church wedged between two apartment buildings. He sees me standing there taking notes and kicks the ball to me. “Tira,” he says, “kick it back.”  

The Column of Justice - What the Bad Guys Were Tied To

What a wonderful place this is where kids can play outside without fear, where they see strangers as possible playmates not predators, where busy butchers put down their knives to come outside and walk you halfway to where you want to go, where teenagers feel at home hanging out on the steps of the neighborhood church. Where a simple question can bring a a twenty minute conversation, like running into an old friend. I don’t know where my Italian teacher lived, or what her life was like here, but I confess that Bari and the people of Puglia, absolutely stole my heart. 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”  Mark Twain

LIFE: Livin' Easy

SARONNO, Italy – Saronno is quiet. The usual early morning bustle of people walking dogs and going to work has slowed to a trickle, and you don’t need a calendar to know it’s the last day of July in Italy. The Closed for Vacation signs started going up all around town last week as the summer exodus began.

 Trentino, Dolomite Mountains

Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s leading newspapers, carried an article this morning warning travelers that traffic would be heavy this weekend as an estimated seven million people are expected to be on their way to their much awaited summer vacation. Next weekend will be worse. As the major factories close, Fiat for one, another nine million will hit the road.

Most are headed for the beaches, the Adriatic or the Mediterranean. Both are popular.  Others will head for the mountains.  Others will head south for the beaches of Puglia where the sea is clear and blue, and the food is wonderful, or, Sardinia, or, the islands off of Sicily. 

The Beauty of Puglia

The islands are volcanic and each has a distinctive character. Stomboli is the strangest as it’s two towns are precariously perched beneath a volcano which does, every now and again, erupt. Panarea is tiny, lush and beautiful. Salina has two volcanic peaks, side by side and Lipari has archeological souvenirs of the dozen or so conquers who passed this way. 

The island of Elba, off the Tuscan coast, is both beautiful and big enough to absorb its visitors. On the Adriatic side of Italy the tiny Tremiti islands are popular. Visitors come mostly for the day, leaving the islands quiet and peaceful in the late afternoon. You’d be hard pressed to tell that they have a long history as jail islands, used by the Roman Emperor Augustus (from which the month of August gets its name), and more recently by Mussolini.

Tremiti Islands

While Americans think that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are their God given right, the Italians would add paid vacations to that list. In the classification of paid vacation days worldwide, Italy leads the pack with 42 days per year. France is next with 37, followed by Germany 35, Brazil 34, United Kingdom 28, Canada 26, Korea 25, Japan 25 and the U.S.A. 13 days. 
 

So as the streets empty, the shops close, the quiet settles on Saronno, it’s a good time to take a deep breath, sit back and relax, read a good book and cook some great food. Sounds like a winner to me.  

For the latest in fashion news, views and now photos from the fashion capital of the world - follow me on twitpic.com/Italianlife