If you would have told me four years ago that I would own a
house in Italy, I never would have believed you. Lucky for me, that is how my
story has turned out. In a strange way, I was reminded of this because of a
dress….
It was only four years ago when I first traveled to Italy with
my mother to participate in an Opera festival on the gorgeous resort island of
Ischia, just off the coast of Naples. I know it is a cliché, but I fell in love
with Italy. I fell in love with the beauty, the people, the history, the
lifestyle, the food; the simple things. Something as small as taking a walk to
the daily market for some fresh tomatoes became something that I looked forward
to everyday. I decided then that I would need to get back to Italy as often as
I could, but I just needed to figure out a plan.
Soon after returning to NYC after a month in Ischia, I was
not the same. I left a piece of myself there and started to see everything
differently. I no longer felt at home and felt like a stranger in the city that
I had known since I was born. It was a very odd feeling and I was not quite
sure what to make off it. Every day, I thought about Ischia, I could not get it
out of my mind. I could not get the beauty of the lifestyle out of my head. My
routine in Ischia was so relaxing; wake up, have a cornetto and a frappe in
town, go to the market, have my morning voice classes, a beautiful lunch of the
balcony with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, beans, bread and nuts, take a brief
nap, swim, shower, evening classes or performances, a big walk through the town
or by the water, dinner (sometimes with friends), gelato, another walk and bed.
It was a lifestyle I had never experienced. Coming from NYC, everything is so
fast paced, you never have a minute to breath, it is always work work work,
what can I do to make money, how can I do this but do it faster. There is never
a moment of peace and I realized after experiencing such bliss, I no longer
wanted the life I had in NYC and that included making a transition from opera
to a passion I have had since I was little…cooking.
I had started studying voice privately when I was only 11
and had success at a very young age, when at 17 years old I was invited by the Metropolitan
Operas leading tenor, Marcello Giordani to sing as a soloist at the inaugural concert
for his new foundation. After years of vigorous study, I started to lose the
love that I once had for singing and only want to sing for fun; maybe with some
friends out to dinner or on a random evening in a big quiet piazza in Italy (I’ll get to that in another post). The routine of
being a singer was no longer appealing to me and I felt it no longer was a fit
for my personality. I also felt that it no longer allowed me to express my
creativity in a way that felt natural for me.
Since that first trip to Italy in 2011, I traveled to Italy
in the fall of 2012 and 2013 (the year that I studied cooking in Florence) and
the year that truly was a game changer, 2014.
The year 2014 was a big year for me, I had fully made the
transition to cooking full time. In 2012, I had started writing a
cooking/lifestyle blog, La Cucina Della Prima Donna and from that I had been
contacted to develop recipes and contribute to various cookbooks. But in 2014, I
started Magic & Pasta Events. With Magic & Pasta Events the goal is for my clients to have a unique dining experience, either in the privacy of their own home or in a commercial kitchen/dining space. I host theme dinners; such as an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party or a Venetian Carnevale Dinner and provide services for corporate events and work with public relations and advertising agencies. I can be
myself, plan my own schedule and what I love most is that no two days are the
same. I am always planning new menus for different events, shopping for new function,
testing new recipes, it is exciting and after the routine of opera, excitement
is exactly what I had been craving. I had always loved cooking, in fact, more
often than not, when I was at rehearsals or lessons, I was thinking about being
home and baking. And when I would go home and bake, I would bring the food to
my lessons for my teachers or to colleagues.
So, back to why 2014 was the year that changed it all. My
mother and I had made plans to return to Italy for a few months so that I could
do some work in Florence and start establishing myself there with the intention
to eventually settle there full time. We had everything set. We had an
apartment rented, I had work and interviews, it was all planed. But one day, my
mother was watching House Hunters International. It was an episode that took
place in a town I had never heard of, called Guardia Sanframondi. 
It was
beautiful, unique, off the beaten path and the prices for houses were completely
in my budget. I had never thought about buying a house in Italy because I
assumed I could never afford it. I figured I would rent a tiny apartment in
Florence and that would be fine. But once my mother saw this, we had our hearts
set on exploring this picturesque medieval town. We cut short a week in
Florence so that we could travel to Guardia and start house hunting. We were
only in Guardia for six days and left to go to Florence. We left without a house,
but we left with much more than we imagined we would. We left realizing we had
to go back and find a house there. We fell in love with Guardia. The people,
the town, the mountains, the views, the air, the lifestyle, everything. This
was a town where people said “buongiorno” to each other just walking on the
streets. After meeting someone once, they would honk at you and wave and offer to
give you a lift. Neighbors would leave fresh fruit and herbs at your door.
This was a real community. Coming from NYC, this was something I had never experienced.
Once we arrived in Florence after those beautiful six days in Guardia, it felt
like culture shock. I love Florence, but after living in a real Italian
community, I knew that that was what I wanted. Once again, we cut our time in
Florence short and returned to Guardia for three weeks to continue our search.
Then I found the one….
Funny story, on our last day in Guardia during that first
week, we were supposed to see the house that I ended up buying, but due to some
confusion with the language and not understanding what time and where, we never
saw the house. This made me think that this house was meant for me.
So, at the beginning of my story I mentioned a dress. I
first wore that dress in Ischia just four years ago and this morning, I put
that dress on, stood on my balcony and then took my walk into town to market. It
reminded me just how much can change. My hair is shorter, the dress is the same,
but my love and passion for Italy has only grown.
I am now here in Guardia for the summer, getting my house
ready and taking time to relax and appreciate everything. When I walk to my
house I stop and look at the mountains. I look at a butterfly sitting on the
flowers. I see the same beautiful old woman walking up the hills every day with
her cane. I see two friends talking to each other from across the streets on
their balconies. I see beauty and magic. I have had so many “pinch me” moments,
that I cannot believe this is all real. I see what can happen if you set your
heart on something. Life is short and we must make the most of it while we are
here. If you are not happy with something, it is up to you to change it. Life
can be a dream if you turn it into a reality and lucky for me, I have found
that dream.
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