Category Archives: Ferragosto

Aug 15 2024
13 Comments
Feast of the Assumption, Ferragosto

Ferragosto, the Fifteenth of August

My mom took a fall yesterday, and she is fine––just a bit achey here and there––but I leapt into Adrenaline Mode when I heard she was on the floor and I immediately drove out there to get her up off the ground. It was a feat I somehow managed to successfully pull off after rigging up a system of folding chairs for Mom to lean upon as my sister held one chair steady and another fell by the wayside as I got Mom on her feet again with my arms under hers. I got to hold her there for a while, a simple hug of sorts, and then, once she knew she was steady, she sat down in her favorite chair, which was right behind her. She was watching the Mass on TV a moment later, from Irondale, Alabama, a place she once visited, eating fruit salad that my sister had prepared for her, and when I called from work a couple hours later, Mom was already back to her embroidering. When I say my daily prayers as I drive––a practice I took up several years ago to stop myself from cursing and swearing so much on the road––I always have a long list of petitions for Mom, not the least of which being, “Please keep Mom steady on her feet. Please protect her from falls.” When your mom is 97, these are the things you do.

Before I left, as Mom was eating her fruit salad, I asked if she wanted the rest of her breakfast, which is usually the same each day: half a bagel, toasted, with peanut butter and jam, and coffee. She said, “No, just the fruit.” She was still a bit shaken up from her fall. “Ok,” I said, “but we’ll go to Cosa Duci tomorrow.” Mom smiled, and nodded yes. “Cosa Duci,” she said.

That tomorrow, as you read this, is today: the Fifteenth of August. It is her mother’s birthday: my grandma, Assunta, who was named for the day on which she was born, the Feast of the Assumption, in 1898 in Lucera, Italy, the land of our ancestors for centuries, since time immemorial, at least to the 1600s, and, safe to say, for ages before, as well. We are going to Mom’s appointment with her doctor first (the appointment was set months ago, long before yesterday’s fall), and then yes, to Cosa Duci, a little Italian place that is one of our favorites, run by Silvia Fausto. Silvia’s mother, Giovanna, opened the place years ago. Giovanna was from Sicily and put green peas in almost every dish she cooked. Silvia lost her Giovanna in the past year, and she and I have cried together over that, and still we joke about the green peas. “Always with the peas!” Silvia laughs. And so we laugh and we cry and we laugh again.

My sister will be cooking the dish that Grandma loved for her birthday: It is a Ferragosto supper (click for the recipe) of cucuzza longa simmered on the stove together with eggs and parsley and tomatoes and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. It is a one-pot meal perfect for a summer’s evening, especially this one, for it is traditional (at least in Lucera) to serve this for the Feast of the Assumption. It is hearty peasant fare (my favorite kind of meal) served drizzled with fresh olive oil, a crusty loaf, and a little bicchiere di vino. The wine, if you have someone like my Grandpa in your life, will be red wine, poured over a pitcher full of the finest sliced summer peaches and set in the refrigerator for just a few minutes before dinner is served.

And Ferragosto? This is the Italian summer holiday that begins now, at the Feast of the Assumption. The waters today are blessed by priests and so most Italians close up shop and head to the sea on this Fifteenth of August, some to soak their aches and pains in the blessed waters and others just to swim or float or get a suntan. One thing is certain: work is not to be a priority today.

And so today will be our Ferragosto as we remember our Assunta, my mom and sister at the table with me, Grandma and Grandpa and Dad in our hearts together with all the others we love and miss, at Cosa Duci with Silvia, where we also miss Giovanna. Her name is the female version of my own, and I think about that connexion we have, one of nomenclature, but also one of food and family. All these things I appreciate, all these things I love, all these things make my heart open and open.

Image: A painting, at my Mom’s cousin’s Romeo’s house in Oleggio, Italy, of our ancestral home in Lucera. This is the house on Vicolo San Gaetano where my grandmother Assunta was born, and it is the house she and Grandpa lived in after they married, and where my mom’s older sister Anne was born before the family moved to America.

 

JOIN US, PLEASE, for our inaugural BARTLEMAS WAYZGOOSE at the new Convivio Bookworks shop in Lake Worth Beach! We’ll be celebrating on St. Bartholomew’s Day (the traditional date for a Wayzgoose), Saturday August 24, from 3 to 8 PM, and on Sunday August 25, too, from 11 AM to 5 PM. I’ll have more to say about the celebration here ahead of the ‘Goose, but our simple celebration will include printing your own commemorative letterpress Wayzgoose print, talks (at 5 & 7 on Saturday and at 1 & 3 on Sunday) explaining the illustrious history of the Wayzgoose, a tasting event featuring homemade pizzelle (a cookie made in a press, naturally), and the big reveal of our new hand painted Live a Good Story sign. Plus, of course, excellent eclectic shopping. The weekend celebration is at Convivio Bookworks, 1110 North G Street, Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460.

Don’t forget that, aside from special events like the Bartlemas Wayzgoose, we’re open every Saturday from 11 AM to 4 PM!

 

 

Aug 15 2023
2 Comments
Feast of the Assumption, Ferragosto, Summer

Feast of the Assumption

I’ve been reading A Poem for Every Night of the Year, edited by Allie Esiri, since the year began and doing just that: reading one poem, each night of the year, just before I shut the last illuminated lamp, before I say goodnight to all the people in the photographs on the bookcases and bureaus on my way to bed. My nightly ritual. It’s a big thick book, hardcover, lovely dust jacket, and as I sat there in my corner chair in the close and holy darkness late last night and read, it struck me that I am most definitely more than halfway through the book, and that the year is more than half done, and that even though summer here in this strange green land goes on and on, it will eventually be packing its bags, headed off to more southerly climes on the other side of the equator. We still have a lot more to get through, but the facts are plain: the Dog Days have passed (they ended on the 11th of August when Sirius, the Dog Star, ceased rising each morning with the sun), and in Italy, Ferragosto has begun. It is the height of the summer holidays, and most Italians will take off from work or close up shop and head someplace cool for a few days: to the sea, or to the mountains. It is annual pilgrimage that has its roots in Ancient Rome.

Most people in Catholic Europe will be off today, anyway: It is the Feast of the Assumption on this Fifteenth of August, so why not take a few extra summer days off, too? It’s the day my grandmother was born, in 1898, and so her parents called her Assunta. How lovely: to be named for a holiday, no? I think so, anyway. Most years, Grandma’s birthday meal would be the traditional Ferragosto supper of cuccuzza longa––an Italian edible gourd very much like zucchini––simmered with egg and parmesan and parsley with a hint of tomatoes. It can be made with zucchini, too. Perhaps you’d like to give it a try (especially at this annual time of zucchini abundance): Click here for the recipe. Have a nice summery wine on hand, like a crisp vinho verde from Portugal, and a crusty loaf, and you’ve got a summer meal that’s fit for a king (even if originated with the hearty peasantry).

I’m thinking of going to church at noon for Grandma’s birthday and for the Assumption. I’ve not been for a long while, and it’ll be time spent with Grandma and with everyone else who has come and gone in my life, and I’ll get to sing along with other folks in the congregation singing Schubert’s “Ave Maria“, and there are worse ways to pass an hour on an afternoon in late summer.

Images: Two photographs we took at the shore of Lake Maggiore in Arona, Italy, when we visited there in the summer of 2019 with my cousin Fabio, who lives in nearby Oleggio. Lake Maggiore would be an excellent Ferragosto destination!

 

COME SEE US!
We’ll be at the LIBRARY WAYZGOOSE FESTIVAL at Florida Atlantic University Libraries’ Jaffe Center for Book Arts on Sunday afternoon, August 27, from 12 to 6. Print activities, a paper moon photo booth, and live music all day. Free admission, free parking, and we’re supplying the doughnuts, which will also be free. I’ll tell you more about it soon, for the 24th of August (St. Bartholomew’s Day) is the traditional date for a Wayzgoose, but in the meantime, mark your calendars if you’re local and come have a good Wayzgoose time!

 

Aug 15 2021
4 Comments
Feast of the Assumption, Ferragosto, Obon

Sail Across the Water: Obon & Ferragosto

Obon

Here we are now in the middle of August, and in the midst of some of my favorite days each year. This has been the weekend of Obon, the summer festival of Japan that honors the dead. In some prefectures of Japan, Obon is celebrated in July, and in others, in August, always around the 15th. For me, growing up in South Florida, it was August, for that’s when the Morikami Museum, west of Delray Beach, used to celebrate it. It was always hot, and we would smell of pennyroyal, to keep the mosquitoes at bay. There were often thunderstorms in the afternoon, because that’s the typical weather pattern here in summer. But there was something unforgettable about the dark grey sky behind the tall pine trees mixed with the heat and the humidity and the thundering sound of taiko drums, the electric lanterns hung between the trees, and the elevated yagura platform, painted in red and white stripes, around which the dancers would dance their mysterious Obon dances, like the Coal Miners’ Dance, in which the dancers journeyed around the yagura with a shoveling motion, taking a few steps forward and almost just as many back. Their progress around the yagura was always very slow and languid: the rhythm of late summer.

At nightfall, fireworks, and then the setting sail of hundreds and hundreds of floating lanterns on the water: these are the ancestors, returning home as the festivities conclude, home to their distant shore.

I seem to have an affinity for any holiday / holy day that connects us to those who have passed. Cemeteries and church yards do not bother me and I talk to my beloved dead on a daily basis, which all may have a lot to do with the way I was raised. The dead never seem very far away. Just a slight shift in manifestation; but these people are all still very much part of my daily life.

And so I love Dia de Muertos, which has grown so popular, and I love Obon, which is not quite as popular, but which serves a similar purpose. The Fifteenth of August also brings my maternal grandmother’s birthday, and since she was born on this day, the Feast of the Assumption, my great grandparents named her Assunta. American neighbors sometimes called her Susan or Suzy, but that just never sounded quite right to me in naming a small, feisty Italian woman who spoke broken English. Grandma always was Assunta, or, as Grandpa would call her, Assu. The traditional meal for the day in their old village in Lucera––a tradition my grandparents brought to the States when they moved here––is a late summer recipe made with cucuzza longa, a long edible gourd that is simmered with egg, parmesan, and parsley. It can be made with zucchini, too. Sound intriguing (especially at this annual time of zucchini abundance)? Click here for the recipe.

The Feast of the Assumption, which marks the ascent of the Virgin Mary body and soul into Heaven, marks other days, as well: this is the time of the great Italian summer holiday known as Ferragosto. The waters at Ferragosto are blessed by priests and so most Italians close up shop and head to the sea, some to soak their aches and pains in the blessed waters and others just to swim or float or get a suntan. One thing is certain: work is not a priority in the middle of August. There are more important things to do, and more important connexions to maintain.

Please save an upcoming date with me!
August 24 brings a great celebration with an odd name: it’s the Bartlemas Wayzgoose, and I’ll be hosting the online, virtual Library Wayzgoose Festival for the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University Libraries. It’s a video event full of good stories and great music. The Bartlemas Wayzgoose is an old printers’ celebration that comes about every 24th of August with the waning summer. My featured guest is activist letterpress printer Ben Blount of Evanston, Illinois, with a special Wayzgoose Concert by the wonderful Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, the Grammy Award winning musicians famous for their song “Ashokan Farewell” from the Ken Buns documentary The Civil War. Perhaps we can add that to the soundtrack of summer, too. Lots of great Wayzgoose fun is in store for you. The video premiere will be at www.jaffecollection.org and at the Jaffe Center’s Vimeo Channel, too, and at the Facebook pages of Convivio Bookworks and the Jaffe Center for Book Arts (essentially, we’re making it really hard for you to miss). The premiere is on Bartlemas night, Tuesday August 24th, at 7 PM Eastern Daylight Time, with video available anytime after that, from wherever you are in the world. I think you’ll really love it. I’ll be posting more about it as Bartlemas approaches, so watch the blog and our social media pages at Instagram and Facebook (@conviviobookworks).

Summer Sale!
At our online shop, our Summer High Five Sale continues: All summer long, use discount code HIGH5 at checkout for $5 off your purchase of $35 on everything in the shop. Take it to $50 and earn free domestic shipping, too. Click here to shop! Our favorite new thing in the shop? Millie’s Tea Towels, embroidered by hand by my mom Millie, under our new Linens & Textiles category.

Image: Lanterns sailing across the water on Morikami Pond.

 

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