So I have a new job – if you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw this. I am excited and proud to be a part of the Automattic (WordPress.com and more) team!

Being location-independent now means that I can do something like wake up at 3:30am on a Saturday morning to drive down to Puglia so I could work from there for the week. Unfortunately, even leaving at 4am from Milan we encountered massive problems. Around 6:30am at the “nodo” knot of Italian highways that meet at Bologna, it took us about 90 minutes to go a few kilometers and I heard it only got worse later in the morning. If I could tell you how many Swiss license plates I saw going to Rimini…and they got up much earlier than we did.

But 10 hours later, and in time for lunch, we made it to lovely Puglia. We spent a few hours on the beach on Saturday afternoon, and then decided the day to enjoy the beach in full would be Sunday. And we wouldn’t be fooling around. We woke up early, or late compared to the day before, depending on your viewpoint.

Perhaps a bit too early. The lifeguards weren’t even on duty yet, and the beach was blissfully empty. We went for a swim in the already-warm water while we waited to find out if we would get an ombrellone, big umbrella, on the beach.

I enjoyed the peace and quiet.

And good thing we did get there early. When the lifeguards arrived at 8am, we got the very last ombrellone of the day. At 8am. This is what the beach looked like later in the day.

Since Sunday, I haven’t gone far from my temporary office, though you won’t hear me complaining. In the morning I walk down to the best cornetteria and pick up a still-warm-to-the-touch cornetto, Italian croissant, filled with marmellata, [apricot] jam, (which I categorically hate except for these, so you know they are good) to have with my beloved marocchino coffee, or espressino as it’s called here. I have lunch and dinner in one of the best mensa, company cafeteria, a working girl could ask for: her Pugliese mother-in-law’s.

Here’s a bit of a sample:

Grilled fish – pesce alla griglia

Orecchiette, little ear pasta Puglia is known for, with creamy zucchini and gamberi, shrimp. The risotto ai frutti di mare didn’t make it into this post, nor did the eggplant parmigiana my MIL makes every time we come for a visit, otherwise this post would have about 30 pictures of just primi, pasta.

Perhaps my favorite pizza in all of Italy: crispy, crunchy pomodoro fresco fresh-tomato Pugliese pizza (of course I also love pizza bianca and pizza napoletana). The MIL didn’t make this, we brought it home from a favorite pizza place that is so popular and known, he has absolutely no signage anywhere outside the tiny take-away-only pizzeria indicating that it’s a pizzeria or a business, and it’s standing-room only.

These polpette, meatballs, are not meatballs in the traditional sense – they are not made with meat, but with eggs and bread, and then fried, and served in a meat-based sauce.

And the special pepperoncino, hot pepper, that just sits on the table at every meal, waiting for you to dip your spoon or knife in to spice up the plate in front of you. Nonna, grandma, still selects the peppers, dries them and grinds them up for the whole family. At home I alternate between the dried pepperoncino and the spicy chili oil I make with the peppers.

Of course, even in the summer Nutella is around. And in big quantities! 5 kilos for 30 euros. 5 kilos. That’s a lot of hazelnut chocolate to eat in the summer. Best stuff it into a cornetto as advertised – only 1 euro!

I was able to escape for an occasional passeggiata, stroll, in the evening through the city and do a little people-watching of people….watching.

And fit in an aperitivo on the evenings we hoped not to ruin dinner. Just a few finger foods to nibble on in case we were hungry.

I tried not to watch all the people walking around with their beach coverups on, and concentrated on palm trees and fountains surrounded by whitewashed and marbled walls…

…and a sunset or two among the cactus before back to finishing up work in the evening.

Yes, I definitely feel lucky. I’ll be in the US for the whole month of August and moving my temporary office from SF to SD and Alaska, too – hopefully I’ll run into a few of you :)

Posting will continue of course, but if you’re hungry for more Italy news, make sure you listen to all 14 of the Eye on Italy podcast episodes we’ve done so far and let us know what you think!

• Another behind the scenes look in Puglia
• A Perfect Barbecue in Italy
• Fighting Fires with Canadair Planes in Puglia’s Gargano, Italy
• The Cheapest, Great Gelato with the Longest Line in Italy
• An Army of Orecchiette on a Sunny Day in Puglia

I mentioned acqua e menta in my post about Summer Drinks in Italy (were you paying attention?) – a thirst quenching, very simple drink you can make at home or order in a bar. Most of the time it’s made by adding a bottled mint-green syrup to water or poured over ice, then adding water.

If you want a more natural, non-Hulk-green version, try making a quasi-mojito without the liquor – muddle some mint lives with some sugar and add in the lime if you need it.

This Venetian glass was a gift from friends that I think can make the simplest acqua e menta look amazing. Don’t you think? (If it gets as hot as it’s getting here in Milan, you too may become obssessed with the heat, the fading afternoon sun and the lovely light it throws around your house like me)

If you are interested in Venetian glass, be sure not to miss the episode 12 of the Eye on Italy podcast where we talked about 11 million pieces of fake Venetian glass being seized.

• Granita, Iced Coffee, Caffe Shakerato, Italian Soda: Summer Drinks in Italy
• Introducing Ferrero Pocket Espresso to Go: the summer Pocket Coffee
• Dark Mint Chocolate French Macarons Recipe
• Drinking the Green Kool-aid
• Summer Means Aperitivo in Italy

If it’s summertime, that means loads of wonderful sagre, festivals, in Italy. Many sagre are food-related celebrations and festivals, but not all. But when it is food-related, you know that you’re going to eat well! Even the tiniest cities can have excellent sagre.

Case in point is the Sagra delle Fragole I went to in Fosseno, a little frazione of the city of Nebbiuno, high above Lago Maggiore in the Piedmont region. This sagra is not the only of its kind – there are many many strawberry festivals around Italy.

Every sagra has a special menu, and I love it when they are handwritten (they often are). Prices are bound to be lower and that means that you can indulge a bit more. In my case I got the risotto alle fragole, strawberry risotto and the fresh gelato and cut strawberries for after.

After ordering, we sat down and waited for our food to be delivered.

Let’s take a look at those strawberries! This one is almost ready to eat – as soon as it loses the slightly-white tip, it’s perfect. But you might sneak one or two even now, and they’d still taste great.

Risotto alle fragole, strawberry risotto. It’s not sweet aside from the taste of the strawberries. Not something I’d like to eat every day, but some people were going crazy for it. If you like subtle flavors, definitely try this. On the placemat, you can see the advertisement for the Sagra della Polenta in September in that area.

After the risotto, I got the frest gelato, which was so fresh and creamy it was almost like fresh whipping cream but even better. This didn’t last very long.

After all that eating, you need a rest while you wait for more strawberries.

Something you’ll see in small towns everywhere: everyone works!

The sagra menu is a bit of distraction from the main event: buying crates and crates of strawberries to take home. Each crate was 15 euro, which is a decent price if you consider in Milan one of the 8 baskets in the crate would cost 3.50euro.

There aren’t only strawberries at the sagra – often there are booths selling other local-made goods or other products. Yum for salami!

More about Italian sagre:

• What’s a sagra? on About.com
• Rowena from Rubbah Slippers in Italy has been to 48 sagre so far (left-hand column nav)
• Sagre in Italia – the Italian sagre portal (in Italian) has a great search by region and type of festival
• The sagra of the Nodino – Mozzarella knot festival on my blog
• Sagre from Episode 4 on the Eye on Italy podcast w/ Leif Pettersen

• Festival of the Mozzarella Nodino – Knot and Bruschetta
• Fresh Strawberry Semifreddo with Coconut and Mascarpone
• Spoleto in Early Morning
• A Wedding in Sicily and a Sicilian Food Feast: The Desserts
• How to Love Granita Siciliana with a Brioche…for Breakfast

Here are some common mistakes and misconceptions tourists have about traveling in Italy. After posting about how my diet has changed since moving to Italy 7 years ago, I’ve also been reflecting on people visiting and enjoying Italy.

Here’s a few words of advice for anyone hoping to visit Italy in the near future.

1. Tipping in Italy. Though regularly discussed, argued and debated, the truth is you don’t need to tip in Italy. Really. Let me repeat that: you don’t need to tip in Italy. Of course most workers will not scoff or refuse a tip (though a few will), but it’s not necessary, and I think it’s a bad precedence to set for foreigners to tip in Italy for simple things like a coffee, taxi rides, or dinner in a pizzeria. Many Italians I know will only leave a tip for very exceptional service (think: anniversary dinner in a Michelin-starred restaurant) or will leave the change when paying cash because it’s easier not to wait for the waiter to make change (think: leaving a 100-euro banknote on a 99-euro bill), but it’s a choice of convenience rather than rewarding service. In Rome, waiters / taxi drivers are getting spoiled with foreigners leaving tips and are now expecting them. But you don’t need to tip in Italy. You’re probably already paying a supplement through the coperto (cover charge) or servizio (service charge) on your restaurant bill. You probably still want to tip a hotel porter for bringing up your bags.
2. Assuming you can buy tickets for public transportation directly on the bus / tram. Most big cities in Italy (Rome, Milan, Naples, Florence) require you to buy your bus/tram tickets before boarding. And not just that, but most bus stops will not have a ticket machine next to the stop. Rather, you’ll need to find a newspaper stand (edicola) or a tobacco shop (tabaccaio) to purchase your tickets. If you’re planning on using public transportation on a Sunday, buy your tickets the day before – you’ll save a lot of time not looking for an open place to buy tickets. And once on the bus/tram, make sure you validate the ticket – put it into a machine that will print the date/time used on the ticket (so it can’t be re-used). Save yourself a fine!
3. Calling the afternoon store closings a “siesta.” It’s not called a “siesta”…the stores are just closed. Some stores have a day of the week that they are closed and they will call it a day of rest (giorno di riposo) or (riposo settimanale), and most stores will also be closed Monday mornings, opening in the afternoons directly. A misconception is that all stores will close in the afternoon, but it really depends on where you are in Italy, and what time of year. Especially in crowded city centers, many stores should remain open through the afternoon, but if they do close, it’s not a siesta. It’s not Spain. It’s just closed. As my friend Max reminded me, store hours are set at the Comune (city) level, so opening times will vary from city to city.
4. Not respecting meal times, especially at lunch time. Most restaurants and bars have specific opening times, and they will close in the afternoon – that you can count on. If you have a late breakfast, visit museums through lunch and hope to get a bite to eat at 2pm or 3pm, you’re going to find a very limited selection, and some of which was prepared before the lunch rush, including those sandwiches that have been sitting there since 10am. Try to eat when Italians eat – lunch hour is usually 13-14 (some start as early as 12.30 eating) and most will be done by 14.30. Dinner is a little different – the further south you go, the later they start eating. A good rule of thumb is a reservation for 20/20.30, but some groups will make reservations for 21.30/22 and will stay until the restaurant closes! If you’re hungry earlier, why not have an aperitivo (pre-dinner drink) before dinner?
5. Expecting to be waited on very attentively in a restaurant or store. The culture of “il cliente comanda” (the client dictates / is right) is not present in Italy. Furthermore, most restaurants will be “understaffed,” that is, they will have few waiters working many tables because their main job is to order and deliver your food. They probably won’t ask “how are you folks doing?”, if you like the food, if you want a refill (this concept doesn’t exist) or other general “friendly” requests that are in reality superfluous to your main dining experience – they just don’t have the time. So, sit back, be patient, and flag down your waiter when you need something, but be patient in knowing they are probably working very hard. The good news is, you’ll rarely be presented with the check until you ask for it. [Update: someone made a comment to me that I'm wrong here, and the service is fast in Italy. I am not debating the speed of the service but rather the amount of attention that is given to the patron who may be accustomed to a high level of attention throughout the dining experience. I think the quality of service is relatively high, but it's not conveyed in terms of client attentiveness but in other ways.]
6. Ordering peperoni on your pizza and expecting hot/spicy salami. Peperoni in Italian are bell peppers, not pepperoni in the US which is hot salami. So if you want hot salami on your pizza, don’t order a pizza with peperoni (note the spelling – just one p) order a pizza diavola or look for a pizza that has salame piccante as one of the ingredients.
7. Thinking you have to order an antipasto, primo e secondo at every meal. Most Italians don’t eat an antipasto, primo, secondo and dolce at every meal – you don’t have to, either. If you eat like this at every meal, you will definitely feel full! Feel free just to pick a primo or secondo for your lunch and maybe splurge at dinner with a more robust meal.
8. Ordering before paying, paying before ordering in a bar. Many bars require that you get a receipt (scontrino) before ordering, especially if you see the cash register (cassa) sitting apart from where you’ll pick up the food or coffee, and you don’t see immediate table service. When in doubt, observe for a few minutes or just ask at the cash register how to proceed – you might say, “scusi, si paga o si ordina prima?” (Does one pay or order first?)
9. Drinking a coffee during a meal (other than breakfast). Coffee is used mainly to help digestion and to finish off a meal, and therefore at lunch or dinner it is ordered after the meal and dessert have been consumed. If you order a cappuccino to go with your spaghetti carbonara, expect a nasty look…from everyone.
10. Touching fruit & vegetables with your bare hands in a market or supermarket. In a supermarket you should see plastic gloves and bags near the scales or throughout the fruit/veg section. Use them. In an open-air market, you won’t see these gloves because you are not expected to handle anything yourself – the people working in the stall will do everything. Don’t touch the goods! Also, it’s considered pretty rude to tell the fruttivendolo exactly which fruit he should put in your bag.

Here’s a few to start….any tips you have for tourists in Italy?

Still hungry for more Italy news? Listen to the All-Italy podcast I co-host called Eye on Italy at www.eyeonitaly.com/podcast.

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• Visiting the Sultan Ahmed Mosque – Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey
• Day Trippin’ Firenze: Gelato da Grom
• Trenitalia owns my first-born child

After living in Italy for 7 years, I have been reflecting on my diet and what I eat daily. I don’t eat quite like an Italian, but I don’t eat quite like an American, either.

Here’s some reflections I’ve had on how it’s changed since I moved here:

• Portion size
  

In the US I was used to ordering and expecting to take whatever I didn’t eat home and perhaps eating it again. Sometimes we would pick a particular restaurant knowing that it served too-large portions and we’d eat twice…for the price of one! In Italy, I find that I eat less, in terms of portion size, especially when eating out. Restaurants don’t compete with each other and you won’t find people recommending a place because they give you so much to eat. That doesn’t mean that you should eat every morsel that gets placed in front of you in a restaurant in Italy, but there’s a better chance it’s just right.

• Glass size

How I loved getting a big plastic tumbler in the summer, filling it to the brim with ice, and then with my favorite beverage – water, soda, or juice back in California. I missed these huge glasses (and ice) when I first moved to Italy, where most glass sizes are 4-6 ounces. But I now appreciate them because it helps me regulate myself much easier in terms of how much juice or soda I drink (and I drink very little already) – often I pour in a few swallows at a time into the glass, and I never yearn for those 20 oz. cups.

• Ice

A follow-up from the above point, I couldn’t tell you the last time I cared if I had ice in my drink, though most bars will give you ice in cocktails. Keep the water and drinks cold, pour just the amount that you need to drink in that moment and return that bottle to the fridge, and everything stays perfectly cool. But again, I’m not a big soda drinker.

• Pork products: much more of the other white meat
  

For those of you who love your pork products (and I mean well beyond bacon), Italy is the place for you. For those of you who prefer the original white meat (chicken) to the “other” white meat, it’s not so great. Lunchmeats are limited to mainly pork and beef products, with the rare, plain slice-able turkey breast lunchmeat available in a rare bar, or in most supermarkets. Oven-roasted peppered turkey? Honey-roasted chicken breast? Not going to happen. This change has been rather against my will, but I’m getting used to it. One thing I do like is praga – smoked prosciutto / ham that is slightly different than the salami / prosciutto cotto – crudo / bresaola / mortadella continuum.

On a related note, you won’t find mountains of skinless, boneless chicken breast on menus in Italy. You won’t find much chicken at all and definitely, definitely no chicken in a pasta dish or on a pizza. You’ll more likely find roasted chicken (skin on, on the bone) with a side of oven-roasted potatoes.

• Raw cheese vs. melted cheese

While cheese has always been a big part of my diet, and continues to be, I have definitely been eating less melted cheese (read: less Mexican food & American food) and instead I eat much more raw cheese while living in Italy. The few Italian dishes I really enjoy with melted cheese are cacio e pepe pasta (pasta with pecorino romano cheese and pepper), and of course lasagna and parmigiana di melanzane (eggplant parmesan) but I eat these dishes mainly in winter months, and not even once a week.

And before you say, ah ah, what about pizza? Yes, of course there is melted cheese…on most pizzas. I’ll let you in on a little secret about my favorite pizza: rossa (tomato sauce) with no mozzarella, salame piccante (hot salami/pepperoni), gorgonzola cheese (very little) and fresh rucola (rocket / arugula) on top. So very little melted cheese there, too :)

• Beer

Wait, what? I know you were expecting a line about wine here. But living in Italy, and perhaps together with getting older, has made me realize and have the courage to say that I prefer beer over wine. Yep. Besides the fact that American beer here is considered foreign (ack!) and preferred by a few people, I have also gotten to experiment with some great European and local Italian beers. My secret is out. I don’t drink alcohol with every meal, and I still drink a glass of wine now and then, but I’m more likely to order a cocktail or a beer over a glass of red wine, or instead get a glass of white wine or prosecco.

• Packaged snacks

I don’t think Italians snack as much as Americans do. Sometimes I miss the salty, nasty packs of low-fat BBQ chips, nut mixes, and crackers that I regularly would purchase in the States. Nuts are relatively plain (I often bring back honey-roasted, chili and dry-roasted nuts from the US) and snacks are often more sweet (the mid-afternoon break, the merenda is mostly sweet) than savory. This is probably a good thing, though. Snacking is not our friend!

• Working out

In the States I was working out 3-4 times a week, and eating whatever I wanted. Here, for various reasons I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with the gym and so even though I’m generally eating better quality and fresher food, I’ve had to watch what I eat a bit more than in the States since I’m not burning off calories as fast.

I am sure there are many more, and I’ll do a part 2 in the future. I’m going to add a few more here:

• Coffee

I didn’t drink coffee, at all, before I moved to Italy. I started drinking espresso here socially, with students, friends, and colleagues, and then 3 years ago I started drinking it every morning. I love and prefer Italian espresso and I seek it out wherever I go, even back in the States.

• Breakfast

Where I once used to eat a balanced breakfast – a bagel, some fruit, a granola bar, or occasionally an American breakfast, I now eat nothing in the morning. Just a coffee.

• Meal times : Lunch and Dinner

Instead of lunch from 11.30/12 – 1pm like in the States, my lunch hour is now 1-2pm, which means that I also get home later from work, and I eat later. Most evenings I don’t ever eat earlier than 8pm, and when I’m staying in Puglia dinner can be as late as 9.30/10pm. (thx to Tina for the reminder in the comments)

Have your eating habits changed in the last seven years, even if you haven’t changed countries?

Still hungry for more Italy news? Listen to the All-Italy podcast I co-host called Eye on Italy at www.eyeonitaly.com/podcast.

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