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LaBefana arrives on January 5th!Epiphany
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The arrival of La Befana is on the eve of the Epiphany - January 5th to be exact. Legend has it that if a child was good throughout the year, the good witch will swoop down the chimney and leave a small gift. If the child was a real rascal during the preceding 12 months, the kid got a piece of coal.
On the 6th January, Epiphany, the day according to tradition that the three kings following the star comet found baby Jesus. To celebrate the memory follow the celebration starting on Via della Conciliazione,arriving at 12.00 in St.Peter’s Square to assist in the Angelus.
The word epiphany means “manifestation” or “revelation.” Thus, the holiday celebrates the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, represented by the magi.
Posted by Ren on Gennaio 5th, 2009 under things we like out in the world! | Comment now »Swanson on Swanson

I bought this for my Christmas reading at the second hand bookshop in Trastevere. The Open Door Bookshop. A haven of old and some new books. What an amazing women. I love reading good autobiographies, especially if the people are as intelligent and witty as her; and six husbands!
Posted by Ren on Gennaio 2nd, 2009 under books we like | Comment now »The Book of Miso
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a comprehensive guide to this most delicious and healthy food
Posted by Ren on Gennaio 2nd, 2009 under books we like | Comment now »Oriental miso soup with brown rice and kombu
After all the dinners and feasts what better than a healthy oriental soup, with no fats and delicious brown rice..
1 envelope miso soup (from the bio shops)
1 large carrot,1 large zucchini,250gr dark brown rice
parsley
1 slice kombu seaweed, small piece fresh ginger.
Leave the rice in water over night and then cook for about 15′ or more in hot water. Keep aside. Put the seaweed in hot water for a while. Cut your veg and ginger into tiny julienne strips. Put the miso into two large cups of water, bring to the boil and cut the seaweed in tiny strips, add the veg and cook just 7′ until they are cooked, add the brown rice and parsley. Cook further 2 minutes for the rice to warm.
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Miso soup is the best instant soup to have on hand as you can use anything in it. Even left over chicken or meat, or just plain white rice if you don’t have brown on hand, or noodles.Miso is a Japanese fermented soybean paste made with soybeans, rice or barley, salt, and water.
Posted by Ren on Gennaio 2nd, 2009 under recipes | Comment now »Leek & Mushroom Pie
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Buy some pastry from the Bio shop and leave it out to unravel. Cut up three leeks including about 1/3 of the greeny/yellow part, leaving to soak in a bowl of water as they have lots of earth in between the leaves. Cut up a small onion and put 400gr mushrooms in a bowl of water to clean the sand, cut in slices. Put some butter and olive oil (or eliminate the butter) in a pot and cook all the veg until cooked. Add 1,1/2 tbspn flour, stir, then add a small cup of milk (and some cream if you like), keep stirring to cook the flour slowly for about 3′ . Put your pastry on a sheet of oven paper and place in a round tin. Press the sides with a bottle to cut the pastry. Knead the cut off pastry with your hands to form a round top. Fill with the mixture,coming right up to the edge of the pastry. Put the round on top and bend the outside edge inwards, gently pressing with a fork so that it sticks together and seals with little fork prints all around. Beat an egg and paint. Cook for about 40′ in a hot 180° oven, or until goldlen brown.
Posted by Ren on Gennaio 2nd, 2009 under recipes | Comment now »Happy New Year!
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Accademia d’Opera Italiana-New Year Concert

19.00 , Wednesday 31st December 2008
At the All Saints Church in Via del Babuino, Rome
New Year Concert featuring the Accademia d’Opera Italiana.
Posted by Ren on Dicembre 31st, 2008 under Italy we love | Comment now »Rome, New Year’s Parade
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On January 1 each year, tens of thousands gather in St. Peter’s Square, filling the streets with pageantry and music, to celebrate and receive the Pope’s New Year’s Day blessing. A focal point of Rome’s holiday season and the Pope’s Worldwide Day of Peace, the Rome New Year’s Parade celebrates life, cultural diversity and international good-will.
The Rome New Year’s Parade proceeds along the grand Via della Conciliazione and culminates in St. Peter’s Square. In keeping with the Italian tradition, enthusiastic spectators fall into step alongside the bands, showing their appreciation with whistles and waves.
Posted by Ren on Dicembre 31st, 2008 under Italy we love | Comment now »Don’t forget your lentils!
Italians eat lentils on New Year’s Eve to gain fortune and happiness in the coming year. Lentils are thought to symbolise money due to their colour and their flat, coin-like shape.
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300 g. lentils
1 onion, 1 tomato,
¼ glass of dry white wine, 1 ½ litre of vegetable broth,
1 laurel leaf, olive oil, salt.
Soak the lentils in cold water the night before, drain. Heat the olive oil in a pan .add laurel, finely chopped onion and brown. Add the lentils,cooking gently for a few minutes.Add a glass of dry white wine, cooking until it evaporates, add the tomatoe chopped into small pieces, add the broth to just cover the lentils. S & P and cover, simmering until cooked.
Posted by Ren on Dicembre 30th, 2008 under recipes | Comment now »Roman window dressing

Dry biscuits with barberries
زرشک Persian zirishk 
My Persian friends brought me some dried barberries and I decided to put them into dried biscuits for New Years’:-
2 & half cups flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 pckt vanilla flavoured baking pdr
salt, 3 eggs
half + cup barberries,1 cup ground almonds
Mix together dry ingredients, add eggs, beating to a wet dough. Add berries and ground almonds. Flour a surface and knead the dough before forming two long ‘logs’. Heat the oven to 175° and place ‘logs’ on baking paper. Bake for 25′, turning over if necessary. They should be very slightly brown. Lower the heat and cut the biscuits about 1/2 inch thick and put back in the oven for five minuts. These biscuits are delicious to dunk into coffee or after an evening meal with sweet wine.

Shear Madness-Independent English Theatre in Rome
Performances are:
Wednesday and Sunday: 21:15
Monday and Saturday Matinee: 17:00
Tuesday and Friday (for schools): 10:30
For the first time ever in Rome, a theatre is producing the same show with 2 casts, in two languages: Shear Madness, in English, and Forbici Follia in Italian. The Background Paul Portner, German writer and psychologist, wrote Scherenschnitt in 1963, a study of how people perceive or misperceive reality. The brief play, set in a uni-sex hair salon, revolved around the off-stage murder of a concert pianist. Subjects were asked to solve the murder based on their individual perceptions of the events and the six stereotypical characters surrounding the crime. Soon Shear Madness developed into a show that changed every time it was performed. The actors followed a basic format and changed the specific lines along the way also to include references to current events.

For further information and ticket reductions contact silviapedicini@independentenglishtheatre.com
The Teatro Dell’Angelo is at via simone de Saint Bon 19 (Metro A-Ottaviano) in Rome.
Posted by Ren on Dicembre 29th, 2008 under Italy we love | Comment now »Pomagranates and Marmalade
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I came home from the Sabina with lots of organic sour oranges to make marmalade. Spent the day after Boxing day making jam and biscuits again for New Year’s Eve. No need to give the recipe, but now is the time to also enjoy putting pomegranite seeds into salads and everywhere you can imagine, to bring new life & abundance to the New Year!In Turkey, pomagranates form an interesting part in the wedding custom. The bride is asked to throw the fruit on the ground and it is believed that the number of seeds that fall out will predict the number of kids the newly wedded couple will have.
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Christmas eve in Rome & Christmas day Poggio Mirtetto


Light for Christmas


Biscuits & pomegranites for Christmas




Father Christmas

love peace & joy
image was provided by Heather Garrett,
Posted by Ren on Dicembre 24th, 2008 under things we like out in the world! | Comment now »Shahla’s trevise salad

From Treviso in Italy where a local poet described it as “un fiore che si mangia” - a flower to eat!
Leaf some trevise salad, put it on a plate,cover it with sliced pear, put crushed walnut on it, now your olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and cover all that with a good amount of chopped parsley….looks nice, tastes fine, and it is in season.
Posted by Ren on Dicembre 23rd, 2008 under recipes | Comment now »English church services at Christmas in Rome

All Saints Anglican Church. Via del Babuino 153b, tel. 0636001881.
24 Dec. 17.00 Crib building service for children and the young at heart. 23.30 First Eucharist of Christmas
25 Dec. 10.30 Eucharist
S. Susanna Church. Via XX Settembre 15, tel. 0642014554.
24 Dec. 16.30 Children’s Christmas pageant family mass, 18.40 pre-vigil Mass Christmas Concert, 19.05 Vigil Christmas Eve Mass
25 Dec. 09.00 and 10.30 Christmas Mass
26 Dec. 09.00 Feast of St Stephen Mass

St Andrew’s Church of Scotland. Via XX Settembre 7, tel. 064827627.
11 Dec 19.00 Caledonian Society carol service
21 Dec 11.00 Carol service followed by wine and mince pies
24 Dec 18.30 Christmas Eve service followed by refreshments
St Patrick’s Church. Via Boncompagni 31, tel. 0642031201.
25 Dec. 10.00 Christmas Mass
St Paul’s American Episcopal Church.Via Napoli 58, tel. 064883339.
24 Dec. 10.30 Preludio Music. 23.00 Christmas Eve Festival Eucharist
25 Dec. 10.00 Eucharist with Christmas Carols. 13.00 Eucharist in Spanish and Italian
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recent posts
- LaBefana arrives on January 5th!Epiphany
- Swanson on Swanson
- The Book of Miso
- Oriental miso soup with brown rice and kombu
- Leek & Mushroom Pie
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