{"id":3934,"date":"2019-12-28T17:22:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T16:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=3934"},"modified":"2021-11-22T13:22:57","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T12:22:57","slug":"new-year-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/new-year-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New Year in Italy. It\u2019s that season again when we all reflect on the year that has been (or maybe not this year), and look forward to the one ahead. We make resolutions and then promptly break them before January is even finished. Like going on a diet, for example. Yes, I need to lose a few pounds, but kicking off the New Year with cotechino<\/em> and lenticchie<\/em> isn’t a good start.<\/p>\n

For those of you that aren’t familiar with this New Year in Italy tradition, cotechino<\/em> is a large sausage, made entirely of fresh pork taken from the cheek and shoulder of the pig. The flavor is fairly mild, but it\u2019s a heavy dish due to the high fat content. It is served with lentils, which symbolize money (coins). The more lentils you eat, the more prosperous you\u2019ll be in the New Year\u2014or so the legend goes.<\/p>\n

The cotechino<\/em> sausage, improbably, represents luck.  For the life of me, I can\u2019t work this one out, because when I\u2019m lying in bed trying to digest this enormous pork bomb at 3:00 a.m., I certainly don\u2019t feel too lucky. But there you have it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m not too optimistic about my dieting prospects for the New Year. Regarding my blog\/writing, however, I pretty determined to step up my game after slacking off a bit this last month and a half. Here are some of the things that I have in mind.<\/p>\n

Refocus the blog.<\/strong> I get easily distracted and tend to wander off on topics that, while interesting to me, don\u2019t really engage my readers. The other day I took a quick glance at my site\u2019s stats and it reconfirmed what I already knew. My most popular posts are about intercultural relationships (i.e. hooking up with an Italian), food, learning the language, and travel. Therefore, I\u2019ll be writing more on those topics in the coming year.<\/p>\n

\"SportelloBUT\u2026believe it or not, even more<\/em> popular than these themes is the discussion surrounding the quixotic \u201cBattle Against the Beast,\u201d also known as navigating Italian bureaucracy. With this in mind, I\u2019ve completed a couple of posts and an eGuide to spell out the exact steps necessary for victory. You can download the guide here: Il Permesso di Soggiorno<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In the coming months (maybe March or April), I\u2019ll be setting my sites even higher. I\u2019m hoping to conduct an interview with the Italian consulate to clear up some of the nebulous visa questions once and for all.<\/p>\n

Improve my Italian language skills.<\/strong> Yes, this might seem like a strange goal at this stage of my journey, but I have a very strong motivation. My daughter is now 16 months old and she\u2019s really picking up the language fast. Her vocabulary is incredible, as is her pronunciation. I think I\u2019m safe for another couple of years, but the day when her Italian is better than mine is in the foreseeable future. The race is on!<\/p>\n

Therefore I\u2019m returning to my beginnings and starting back with the software again. For using<\/em> the language nothing beats living in Italy. But for studying<\/em> the language, I’ve found the software to be the best method<\/a> by far. And at this point, I can jump right into Level 3\/Advanced. I feel that I\u2019m fluent enough, but now I really want to work on my accuracy again. Specifically, I’ve never mastered the passato remoto<\/em> tense. And since my daughter is half-Sicilian, it\u2019s best that I learn this before she does.\"Averna\"<\/p>\n

Revive my podcast.<\/strong> I’ve been wanting to (re)do this and I think that the time is right in 2021. Starting in late February\/early March, my plan is to restart my weekly Q&A sessions, inviting questions from readers, or listeners, or anybody that wants to chime in. Again, this is part of my overall effort to refocus the blog on what the readers want instead of what entertains me late at night when I\u2019m sitting alone at my computer with bottle of Averna.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll probably ask some guests join me from time to time, and soon I\u2019ll be sending out requests for juicy questions. Start thinking of some good ones now!<\/p>\n

Visit a new region<\/strong>. It’s been a long while since I’ve ventured off my own beaten path. In 2014 I discovered Romagna<\/a>, and I look forward to going back there one day. But it was such a magnificent surprise, that it made me wonder, “What other regions have I foolishly left unexplored to date?” Right now, I\u2019m looking at the opposite geographic extremes; Puglia or Piemonte. Any suggestions?<\/p>\n

\"cooking<\/a>
In my dreams…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Learn to cook.<\/strong> Like anybody living in Italy, it\u2019s not hard to get caught up in the food culture. I\u2019ve done a great job of acquiring a lot of second hand<\/em> knowledge about regional specialties and the overall philosophy of how to \u201cEat Like an Italian<\/a>.\u201d However, my own skills in the kitchen are sorely lacking. It\u2019s time to \u201cget my hands in the dough,\u201d as they say.<\/p>\n

Inspiration came this last summer when I spent 4-5 days at an authentic organic farm in Umbria called Fontanaro<\/a>. The mother and daughter owners, Lucia and Alina, were extremely patient with me as I had my first lesson in making fresh pasta. And when I say fresh, I mean the egg that I used was still warm from the chicken when I cracked it over my little mountain of flour. With their help, the dish turned out perfect. But I\u2019d like to be able to do that on my own without a safety net.<\/p>\n

Write another book.<\/strong> A few years ago, the idea came to mind to write a series of books about life in Italy. I did that, published them on Amazon<\/a>, and have seen a fair amount of success in that venture. Who\u2019d have thought? Those \"Live<\/a>books were written on a whim, really, and I didn’t understand much about publishing or promoting a book at the time.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019d like to revisit that idea with the benefit of more knowledge and experience. I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ll stick with non-fiction, such as a memoir, or if I\u2019ll try my hand at a short story collection. We\u2019ll see, but by the end of 2021 I\u2019d like to have at least one more book on my Amazon bookshelf.<\/p>\n

Speaking of books, I\u2019m also working with Alina from Il Fontanaro on compiling a small book of some of the recipes from her family\u2019s organic farm. If you’re interested, you can download it for free here: Italian Organic Recipes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get my Italian citizenship<\/strong>. This might be my most ambitious goal of all, and even if I begin the process now, I\u2019m quite certain that it won\u2019t be completed until at least<\/em> the following year. I guess my main motivation is that my daughter is a citizen, so I\u2019d like to share that with her. She\u2019s also the reason that the government will let me \u201cfast-track\u201d the process (well, \u201cfast\u201d by the Italian government\u2019s standards). The law says that as a parent to an Italian child, I may apply for citizenship after 18 months\u2026she’s seven years old now, so hopefully I\u2019ll have my passport by her 18th<\/sup> birthday. In any case, I’ll be carefully (painfully) recounting the process for the benefit of all to see.<\/p>\n

See you all in 2021!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A New Year in Italy. It\u2019s that season again when we all reflect on the year that has been (or maybe not this year), and look forward to the one ahead. We make resolutions and then promptly break them before January is even finished. Like going on a diet, for example. Yes, I need to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169,6,43,5,29,4,94],"tags":[313,253,61,314,84,312],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}