Introduction
By Carla Gambescia
I've been writing this book my entire life … though I only realized it a few years ago.
My earliest sense of myself was not just that I was a little girl but that I was Italian. This made me feel special. I don't know why I felt this, but I did. As it happens I wasn't born in Italy, and Italian was spoken only rarely in our household by my father and grandmother and occasionally by visiting relatives.
Three of my four grandparents immigrated at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and my parents came of age during the Depression. A favorite family story was that when my father was courting my mother, he once gave blood for a small payment so he could buy her a Coke. He graduated from medical school, they married, war was declared, and my father joined the Navy. Like so many Italian-Americans, my father was eager to defend the country of his birth. (During the war his troop ship participated in the invasion of Sicily.) After the war family life resumed, and eleven years later I made my grand entrance. My parents were fiercely proud of being Americans, but within the family there was also tremendous pride in our Italian heritage. Both my parents imparted this to me in ways that were more than just a “feeling.” I learned to appreciate being Italian through the lenses of their personal interests and passions.
Every Sunday after church, my father gave me my Italian lessons. Lessons always began with words and pronunciation but inevitably lead to what I loved best, stories—the stories of my father’s favorite Italian geniuses throughout Italy’s history, beginning with the Romans. Daddy admired Julius Caesar and was named for him: Pasquale Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar had been captured by pirates when he was a teenager, crossed a famous river, and triumphally returned to Rome as one of the most brilliant military leaders who ever lived. I had several favorite stories: the story of Galileo dropping a big ball and a little ball off the Leaning Tower in Pisa; of Mr. Vivaldi teaching young orphan girls to sing and play violin in Venice; of Michelangelo painting the great ceiling upside down all by himself; and a sad story of Dante who couldn't marry Beatrice, the girl of his dreams, but who instead wrote the greatest love story in the world, dedicated to her. Like all children I loved to hear my favorite stories over and over, and they imprinted on me just like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.
My mother much preferred art to history and loved Italian Renaissance art in particular. She had several big beautiful books of paintings which we would often look at together. By the age of seven, I could reliably identify a Raphael from Michelangelo or a Botticelli from a Titian, and began forming my own artistic opinions. My parents are very proud of my precocious skill which I was called upon to display for relatives, all of whom were naturally impressed! But I can also remember feeling frustrated with Mom’s love of Madonna and Child scenes, especially during the Christmas season. I would beg her to choose a family Christmas card with Santa Claus, Frosty or, better yet, Rudolf—yet she would not relent and stuck with her beloved Madonnas or a Holy Family, even on the postage stamps! One year she selected a card with Raphael's Madonna Della Seggiola which caused me to impertinently ask why the baby Jesus was so chubby. There was no critiquing Raphael, her very favorite artist. When I was eight we all traveled to Italy and visited the Vatican Museum; my mother was so moved by Raphael’s Transfiguration she wept.
My father died prematurely three years later. By that time I had outgrown his storytelling, but I can still remember those stories almost word for word. My mother lived a long life, and art and painting and applied arts—not just by great Italians—always filled her with wonder, and she passed that passion on to me.
I passed through my teen years and young adulthood with the typical detachment young people can have from their childhood. Italy receded into the background as I built a career in advertising and marketing while also traveling widely across six continents for work and play.
Then in 1995 I signed up for a cycling trip in Sicily with a boutique travel company specializing in “authentic” Italy with native guides. A magical thing happened: I rediscovered my roots and I fell deeply in love with the land of my ancestors. Following that fateful trip, I took dozens more (eleven by bike) exploring the cities and the countryside in every region, seeing Italy in summer and winter and spring and fall, and delighting in the richness of its cultural gifts. In 2007, while a consultant to the Ciao Bella Gelato company, I co-created and co-led a unique tour dubbed the Giro del Gelato which went on to be awarded “Best Trip in Western Europe” by Outside Magazine.
But that original “Bella Sicilia” tour was life-changing, and that is no exaggeration. As a result, I resolved to open an Italian-inspired restaurant, not because I was a foodie—though I love food!—but because I wanted to create a place through which my guests could feel they too were “there” even when they were still “here.” About 12 years later I made that dream a reality and operated a very special restaurant for nearly a decade. It was called Via Vanti! (a contraction of via and avanti for “the way forward”) and was very popular, not just because its food was delicioso—we were a top Zagat®-rated restaurant for years—but because of the experience we created for our guests. We transformed the interior of a landmark train station into a veritable jewel box decorated with colorful Murano light fixtures, a Carrera marble bar, and assorted Venetian design motifs. Patrons were greeted with a dazzling gelato case offering 18 award-winning flavors daily. I took on the role of both Culinary and Cultural Director and became the impresario of all sorts of special dining events with catchy titles like Carnevale Evening in Venice, Swept Away in Sardinia, Sicilian Summer and Fichi Fantastiche, during which, between courses, I’d share the “backstory” of the food and wine, surprising historical facts about the region, and the like.
I discovered I loved to share with others the things that gave me pleasure, most especially talking about Italy and all things Italian. The restaurant’s food and wine were “portals” though which I could share my stories, stories that I built into the menu and weekly specials. A favorite annual event included our own unique take on New Year’s Eve Neapolitan Plate Tossing based on a quirky “out-with-the-old” custom originating in Naples (yes, we actually threw plates, though the paper variety, out through a window frame positioned on the bar). I enjoyed creating all sorts of “edu-taining” touches and souvenirs for my patrons, including laminated “La Dolce Vita University” fun fact discovery cards and “Parliamo Italiano” vocabulary cards placed at each table, which guests often collected. In addition, I authored a monthly column titled “La Dolce Vita U” for a local newspaper. Frequently I shared my “thesis” with guests that all of us, regardless of ethnicity, possess an Inner Italian—that part of us which is most joyful, spontaneous and expressive. This was invariably met with a knowing smile and unanimous nod of understanding and agreement. La Dolce Vita Universitybegan to take on tangible form through the restaurant.
I never imagined I would write a book as I’ve always had difficulty sustaining much of a written narrative, but La Dolce Vita Universityis different. Its “stories” are shorter than short stories—mini-essays, really, designed to impart surprising or intriguing nuggets that will enrich and enliven your appreciation of all that is Italian, whether you are an armchair or seasoned traveler, a lover of art, food, history, or of any other facet of Italian culture. What I have chosen to write about in La Dolce Vita “U” is what has most captured my imagination, so I have not attempted to be comprehensive or scholarly—just to share my passions.
Special thanks go to Mauro and Claudio, the guides on that fateful cycling tour, for being inspiring catalysts to my own Italian renaissance. Most of all, I shall be always grateful to my sweet and humble parents who cherished me and gave me the confidence to feel that anything is possible. I know they would be so very proud La Dolce Vita Universityis dedicated to them, and I hope that they would be able to see a small part of themselves in its pages.
I hope you love it too!
