Italy News: 13 September 2009

Some news from Italy for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• To give you a peek at one of my adventures during the short trip to Italy I just took, take a look at my friend Sara’s blog and her photo from the tour we did of a prosciutto producer – I, too, was in that House of Ham!
• Italian ex-mobsters who’ve become singing minstrels? It’s too good to be true – except that it is true.
• Katie Parla writes about a pizza-ish sandwich with prosciutto and tiny figs and I’m thinking, “Want. Want. Want.“
• Ticket sales from the recent Italy-Bulgaria World Cup qualifying soccer match are being donated to the Abruzzo region to assist with post-earthquake rebuilding.
• Nan at Living Venice has posted an article (including a recipe) for one of my favorite cocktails – the Venetian staple, the Spritz. I’m with Nan, it’s that glowing orange-red color that gets me every time.
• A Catholic church choir master in Lecce was fired by the church “without explanation,” although the fact that he is awaiting an operation to become a she might have had something to do with it.
• For those of us who know nothing more about Italian wine than “if I like it, I drink it,” here’s a handy list of Italian grape varietals.
• Is Italy’s Prime Minister at all sorry for his sex scandals which have lately become synonymous with Italy? On the contrary – he says he’s still popular at home because “Italians secretly want to be him.”
• Filmmaker Michael Moore, recently in Venice for a premiere, asks, “When is Italy going to get rid of Berlusconi?” A very good question, indeed.
• The “Videocracy” documentary about the intersection of television and politics in Italy sounds incredibly interesting, not least because Silvio Berlusconi’s been working his tail off to keep previews for the film off Italian TV. You can see a preview here.
• But it’s not just Berlusconi who’s trying to get movies banned, nor is it only Italian movies. A film about a Romanian immigrant trying to make a better life in Italy is under attack from two Italian politicians (one of whom is the granddaughter of Mussolini) because they both feel they’re slighted in the film.
• While expanding the port in Venice might be good for business, environmental groups fear it’ll be the undoing of the canal city.
• Italian courts go on vacation in the summer, too. The trial of Amanda Knox (remember her?) was on hiatus for two months and will resume Monday.
• Italian cooking guru Lidia Bastianich has a new book out, described as “part cookbook, part travel memoir,” and it’s helpfully divided into sections based on the regions of Italy.
• Thanks to Cherrye at My Bella Vita, I learned that filmmaker Wim Wenders is currently shooting a movie in the Calabrian town of Badolato.
• The festival of San Gennaro is coming up in Naples – this is the one where the blood of San Gennaro, kept in a vial in the Naples Duomo, is said to liquefy once a year and bring good luck to the city. If it fails to turn to liquid, it’s bad luck. Let’s hope for liquefication this year.
• No matter whether the blood turns to liquid or not, the church has issued a ban on kissing the San Gennaro relic.
• Alex at Blog from Italy has helpfully pulled the top 10 Italian wines of 2008 from Wine Spectator’s rankings, so you don’t have to.
• Mike Bongiorno, an Italian-American who rose to fame on 1950s Italian television, died of a heart attack last week at the age of 85.
• Cherrye’s had a series of posts going about saving money when you travel in Italy, and this one’s close to my food-loving heart – it’s a few tips on eating cheap in Italy.