by Patver | May 17, 2022 | MISCELLANEOUS
Teaching Adults The first meeting with a student is always decisive for how our teacher-student relationship will proceed. Getting it wrong means wasting a lot of time getting it right, and sometimes it never gets right. When I started teaching, I had only experienced...
by Patver | May 7, 2022 | MISCELLANEOUS
A silent lesson When I want to explain the cultural differences between England and Italy, I tell two anecdotes I personally experienced. It was December 2004, and my husband and I were in London for a weekend. Our hotel was on the opposite banks of the River Thames...
by Patver | Apr 14, 2022 | HIDDEN, RECIPES
Sfritt’. My recipe from the family I learned this recipe simply spending time, the days before Easter, in the kitchen with my family. My grandmothers, my aunts and my mother all cooked the Sfritt’ in a slightly different way, adding or taking out some...
by Patver | Apr 14, 2022 | ALL POSTS, BEING ITALIAN, RECIPES
If ever there were a week when Italians must do a lot of cooking, it’s the week before Easter. When I was a child, lent fasting was a severe prescription for Catholic families. I remember my grandmother Modestina took it so seriously that only when the bells...
by Patver | Mar 14, 2022 | ALL POSTS, MISCELLANEOUS
The Patient Nightmare There are two words with the same meaning, the English un-ex-pect-ed-ly and in-as-pet-ta-ta-men-te in Italian, that I can’t say light-heartedly. I need to pause. I need awareness and concentration so my mouth can perform all the required...