I am an Italian American. Not the Jersey Shore, obnoxious guido kind. But a real Italian American. Once who knows exactly where her grandparents are from in Italy, who can speak the language, and whose family still celebrates all of the Italian traditions my grandparents and their grandparents grew up with.
I am proud of my heritage and proud of my family.
One of our biggest traditions is Christmas Eve. A lot of people have a low-key Christmas Eve. Maybe they watch a movie and have a quiet dinner with their immediate family. That's great, but that's not how my family does things.
In Italian culture, Christmas Eve - La Vigilia di Natale - is a bigger deal, more important, than Christmas day. We don't eat any meat on Christmas Eve, because it's a day of penitence, so instead we have a feast of seven different types of fish. Shrimp, scallops, cod, smelt (my grandfather's choice!), tuna, calamari, and tilapia. The first four are fried, the tuna is made into a sauce for fettuccini, the calamari is stuffed with bread crumbs and cheese and cooked in a red wine sauce, and tilapia is baked with butter, lemon, white wine and garlic. We also have homemade polenta and eggplant parmesan (more on that later!). We're up by 8am and frying fish by 9. Everyone helps. Take a look:
Grandpa just oversees everything. And yes, that is my dad's homemade wine in the background.
When everything is cooked, we all shower and get ready for mass at 4. Traditionally you'd go to midnight mass, but when my cousins and I were all little, it was much easier for our parents to go to the earlier mass and it just kind of stuck. Then back to my parents' house to eat and drink and drink and eat. Everyone is dressed to the nines and family photos are taken in front of the Christmas tree. After dinner we change into our Christmas jammies and play games.
And yes, even though I am 23 years old, my dad still reads me The Polar Express before I go to bed.
Then it's up in the morning for presents, and over to my Aunt Tara and Uncle Cataldo's house for the feast round 2. YUM!
Buon Natale, everyone. :)
Remember when my bedroom looked like this?
Well, after about 48 straight hours of painting, every muscle in my body aching, bruises on my legs where I leaned against the ladder, and my hair and face splattered with paint, my bedroom now looks like this:
I love it!
Quite an improvement, no?
I've been living in my adorable new Coolidge Corner apartment for almost three weeks now. I love it to death and there's almost nothing I'd change about it. Almost.
My bedroom. It's huge. And it's red. Like really, really RED. Like I think I've been having bad dreams because of my close proximity to this blood red wall.
And while only one (enormous) wall is red, the other three walls are an unfortunate shade of peachy-beige.
I'm not sure who thought it would be a good idea to paint a bedroom, any room, these colors, but I can't take it anymore! I went to the hardware store this afternoon and bought all the paint and supplies I need. Before this weekend is over, my bedroom will look completely different. After pictures coming soon!
Today's post is a tad risque, but hey let's spice things up just a little bit! I just read this really interesting article about a UK study that determined that the g-spot, that infamous, elusive female erogenous zone, does not actually exist. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/4TCCBx
I know we've all thought it at one time or another, but...what! A study at King's College London of almost 2,000 women between the ages of 23 and 83 found that the g-spot is more t
han likely a figment of women's imaginations that has been encouraged by magazines and sex therapists. Not everyone agrees with the findings, however. Sexologist Professor Beverly Whipple who first popularized the idea of the g-spot in the 1980s says that this study is flawed and that she's certain that the erogenous zone does in fact exist
I'll be honest, I've never found it. At least I don't think I have. And everything you read in Cosmo (that lovely ladies' bible) says that when you find it you'll definitely know. All of that work just to read now that I've been searching for something that might not actually exist. But you know what? BIG DEAL! I don't care. I've had some great times searching for it. So many good times that the fact that I haven't found it yet doesn't really matter. For me, the so-called myth of the g-spot has been realized in the search for it. It's all about the journey, right?
What do you ladies think... Have you had any luck pinpointing the your g-spot? What are your thoughts on this study?
Start with with 3 large eggplants, peeled and sliced thin. Dip them first into an egg batter and then a bread crumb mixture (with secret ingredients and said drugs), and fry them in garlic infused olive oil.
I meant to take a picture of a slice of the parm, but everyone (including myself) ate it before I got the chance. YUMMO!
