daily life

Why isn’t your three-year-old in school?

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

After I meet people here in Italy, their first question is usually, oh, so your three-year-old is starting preschool this year, right? No. Wrong. I smile, and say, “no, we do preschool at home.” And then, lest they imagine I am insulting them or Italy or (heaven forbid) the Italian school system, I usually add that we did preschool at home in the United States too.

The idea of waiting till a child is four to send him to school is bizarre enough to them. I do not find it necessary to give them a heart attack by adding that I plan not to send them to school until they go off to college.… Read more

And the Bride Wore Cream

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Advisory note: non-Foodies may find this entry tedious. Just come back tomorrow for something more exciting or philosophical.

Have you ever spent an entire afternoon just eating? No? Well, neither had I until we were precipitously invited to an Italian wedding yesterday.

For the past few weeks since we ran out of bee pollen, we’ve been searching for it all over. Friday evening the people who sold us our dandelion honey dropped by and told us where we could find pollen. So yesterday morning we hopped on our bikes and rode up to Vigna, some three kilometers up the road toward Certosa di Pesio.… Read more

Reviving the Collective Unconscious

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

As we contemplate taking an extended trip back to the United States, I think about the things we’ve learned and changed in Italy. We hopped on our bikes yesterday afternoon (it was another of those afternoons where Axa was not quite tired enough to nap, but not quite rested enough to be nice. It’s a tough transition from nap to no nap.) and rode out another country road. We stopped in a little town called Margherita, which boasts a 13th century tower.

The tower is impressive. It’s not particularly large, nor does it stand out much on first glance. But if you really look at it, the tower does project an aura of age, of permanence, of having overseen many, many events.… Read more

San Diego

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We’ve ditched the Italian schedule. No more dinners at 7:00. We need to get this family to bed at a reasonable time. Tony was thinking yesterday that most of our productive, happy family time is in the morning. Afternoon is for naps. So we’ve decided to lengthen the morning at the expense of the afternoon. Instead of having a three-hour morning and a seven-hour afternoon, we’ll have a five-hour morning and a five-hour afternoon, and spend some time in the afternoon doing things like tidying the house, setting out everyone’s clothes, and fixing a picnic lunch for the next day.

For the past year or so (since our second child was born, coincidentally enough), we’ve had something of a schedule fetish.… Read more

Chiusa Aperta

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We were part of the action last night. Chiusa Aperta is the traditional annual village festival in Chiusa Pesio. We arrived 45 minutes late because we had been eating pizza at our favorite little pizzeria in town. Tony and I like the vegetarian pizza, which changes with the seasons. It still had zucchini and eggplant, but the red peppers had been replaced since last month with green beans. Green beans on a pizza? Yes! It was excellent. Axa’s favorite pizza is margherita, which is just tomato sauce, mozzarella, and oregano. She tried some of ours, but in the end she just picked off all the vegetables, so her piece ended up margherita too.… Read more

Awkward

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Last night we had an awkward moment. No, it was more like ninety awkward moments. We had decided to have dinner downstairs at the picnic table. Unfortunately, as Tony arrived with a stack of plates, he realized that Giorgio and Carla, our neighbors across the way, and the family downstairs were all having a communal dinner at the picnic table. He heard them suddenly fall silent, and then rapid whispering. No matter. There is a second, smaller table, so he turned toward it. However, it was holding their dessert. They quickly moved it. Thoroughly embarrassed, he set the plates down.

I came down with food, and suggested that we retreat upstairs, since we had obviously made a serious faux pas.… Read more

Nature Study

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Yesterday we biked out to a nice little meadow we spotted some distance away from the road. Charlotte Mason’s idea of nature study has begun to make an impression on me. At first, I only pretended to be interested in the insects and view them as sweet, delicate little creatures. But I have begun to develop a real appreciation and even affection for them. Which is good, since the long summer grass is full of them. We saw several varieties of grasshoppers, a big black beetle, a small white bug with five black stripes on its back, each apparently ending at an eye (maybe some were decoys?),… Read more

In Fangorn Forest

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

One thing I have learned from the Italians is the importance of planning work and similar responsibilities around home, family, and other beautiful things in life, rather than the other way around. We enjoy running our business, but it doesn’t hold a candle to our children, or our relationship with each other and with God, or even a good cheese course (well maybe the cheese).

In San Diego, I was convinced that the whole world suffered from overscheduling. Nobody seemed to have time for anything except work (adults) or school and extracurricular activities (children). Oh, and going to the gym. The typical way for a conversation to end was, “well, I know you’re busy, so I’ll let you go,” or “well, I have to go.”… Read more

Bicycles

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Yesterday we biked up to Certosa di Pesio, a 12th century monastary high in the Alps. It took us an hour and a half, since it’s uphill all the way. I think it’s nine kilometers from here. It was only half an hour back. We stopped when we arrived at a pretty little picnic spot near the river. The Pesio River is beautiful up there–full of moss-covered rocks. We saw several lovely pools one might swim in (although even in August it’s none to hot up there).

We also saw a deer on the way up. It watched us ride by and then went back to trimming weeds.… Read more

Isola di Mondo

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Well, I ate my words, and the cookies all got eaten too. Carla’s U.S.A. (which to my surprise is pronounced “oo-sah” in Italy) booth at the Isola di Mondo event in Cuneo was a great success. They sold out of every bite of American dessert they had. Carla informed me excitedly (but graciously, and without a hint of superiority) that the cold pancakes had gone first. Only one person even asked if they were warm, and then ordered them anyway. I stand corrected.

They were like no brownies, cookies, muffins, apple pies, and pancakes that I had ever seen, but they went like, well, hotcakes.… Read more