Flavor of Italy podcast

The Greatest Secret Isn't the Mediterranean Diet People usually assume the answer is simple: the Mediterranean diet. Certainly food plays an important role, but it tells the whole story. Italian longevity comes from a combination of habits, attitudes, relationships, and daily routines that work together over an entire lifetime. When people ask me about Italian longevity, they usually expect me to...

How to Survive Summer in Rome : 10 Local Tips That Really Work! Every summer in Rome I receive emails from readers asking the same question: Is it too hot to visit Rome? If you've been watching the news, it's easy to understand why. Headlines about record-breaking temperatures and red heat alerts can make it sound as though Rome should be avoided until autumn. After living in Rome for 43 years, I...

Join me for a fascinating conversation with Karoline Walch, fifth-generation owner of the renowned Elena Walch Winery in Alto Adige, one of Italy's most distinctive and exciting wine regions. Nestled among the dramatic peaks of the Dolomites, Alto Adige is a place where Italian and Austrian influences blend seamlessly, creating a unique culture, cuisine, and wine tradition unlike anywhere else in...

Reaching 300 episodes of the Flavor of Italy Podcast feels both surprising and deeply rewarding. When I recorded my first episode, I had no idea where this Italy podcast would take me. I simply wanted to share my love of Italy's food, wine, culture, travel, and people with an English-speaking audience. Three hundred episodes later, I've had conversations with bestselling authors, chefs, winemakers...

Every year on June 2, Italy pauses to celebrate one of the most important moments in its modern history. Across the country, Italian flags appear on balconies, official ceremonies take place in cities and towns large and small, and in Rome the skies are filled with the colors of the national flag as the Frecce Tricolori soar overhead. For many Italians, it is a welcome holiday that signals the arr...

Italian Festivals are a different and joyful way to experience Italy beyond the Tourist Trail: town squares filled with music, local communities gathering to celebrate the harvest, patron saints.... Italy is a country that celebrates with extraordinary enthusiasm, and one of the greatest pleasures of living here is discovering just how deeply these traditions are woven into everyday life. Visitors...

Why Polignano a Mare, Puglia Belongs on Your Travel List If you've been dreaming about southern Italy, there's a very good chance that Polignano a Mare, Puglia is already somewhere on your radar. Even if you don't immediately recognize the name, you've almost certainly seen photographs of it: whitewashed buildings dramatically perched on limestone cliffs above the Adriatic, impossibly blue water b...

Italian wine inspires passion, curiosity, and, for many people, a fair amount of confusion. Even devoted wine lovers can feel overwhelmed when faced with Italy's astonishing range of native grape varieties, regional traditions, appellations, and bottles whose labels sometimes seem to raise more questions than answers. Unlike wine cultures built around a relatively smaller group of internationally...

If you're walking through central Rome near the Pantheon and the Parliament, you're in one of the city's most elegant shopping areas. It's also where you'll find Davide Cenci, a store that has been part of the Roman landscape for a full century and is still run by the same family today. The story behind Davide Cenci Rome starts in Umbria, where Davide's great-grandmother sold fabrics at local fair...

For anyone who loves Italy, the phrase Dream of Italy has a certain magic to it. It suggests the Italy so many travelers carry in their imagination: hill towns, long meals, local stories, ancestral roots, beautiful landscapes and the possibility that a trip might become something much deeper than a vacation. That's exactly what happened to Kathy McCabe, founder of Dream of Italy, when she first tr...

If you love baking, Italy, and the kind of cookbook that offers much more than a stack of recipes, Domenica Marchetti's new book Italian Cookies sounds like a real delight. In this recent Flavor of Italy podcast conversation, Domenica joined me to talk about her ninth cookbook, a beautiful and deeply researched exploration of Italian cookies that goes far beyond the familiar idea of biscotti. What...

If there is one flavor that quietly defines the Italian table from north to south, it's bitterness. Not harshness, and not austerity, but a layered, balancing bitterness that sharpens appetite, supports digestion, and brings depth to everything from aperitivo to dessert. Understanding bitter in Italian cuisine means understanding something essential about how Italians taste the world. During a rec...

The real history of macaroni and cheese stretches back more than 2,000 years and begins not in North America at all, but in ancient Rome. When people think about macaroni and cheese, they usually imagine a familiar American comfort dish that somehow emerged in the twentieth century and quickly became a childhood staple. Yet the real story of macaroni and cheese history stretches back more than two...

Who Rings Rome's Church Bells? Not Always a Bell Ringer A few years ago, I recorded a podcast episode about something many of us notice in Italy but rarely stop to think about - the sound of church bells drifting across the city. I found myself wondering: is there really someone up there in the bell tower pulling the ropes, or is it all automated now? Around that time, my husband showed me a newsp...

If you think Italian cooking is mostly about pasta and meat, my conversation with Giulia Scarpaleggia will gently change your perspective. Her new cookbook,  Vegetables the Italian Way - Turning Simple and Fresh into Extraordinary, shows something Italians have always known but the rest of the world is only beginning to rediscover: vegetables Italian style are not side dishes but central elements...

Sometimes the most remarkable pieces of history are hidden inside everyday places. One such place is the Antica Farmacia Reale, located in the historic center of Rome near the Spanish Steps. What makes this pharmacy extraordinary is not simply its age, although it is certainly old. What makes it truly remarkable is that it is still operating today as a fully functioning pharmacy. The Antica Farmac...

167 Years of Italian Craftsmanship in the Heart of the Eternal City - Historic Linen Shop in the Heart of Rome Just steps from the Italian Parliament, tucked into one of the most elegant corners of Rome's historic center, sits a remarkable shop that many people walk past without realizing the extraordinary history inside. Tebro, a Rome historic linen shop founded in 1867, has been serving the city...

Crimes Against Art - What We DON'T See Behind the Headlines When news broke about the recent Louvre theft, the story felt almost cinematic. A bold break-in, a swift escape, international headlines. Like many of you, I followed it with fascination. But in my recent conversation with Lynda Albertson, Executive Director of ARCA, I was reminded that crimes against art are rarely isolated, dramatic eve...

If you think you know Fettuccine Alfredo, you may want to think again. Recently I sat down inside one of Rome's most historic restaurants, Il Vero Alfredo, to talk about the true story behind this iconic dish. My guest was Chiara Cuomo, the fourth generation of the family behind the restaurant. What I discovered is that the real Fettuccine Alfredo is far simpler, more elegant, and far more meaning...

In the heart of Rome's Jewish Ghetto, just opposite the Portico d'Ottavia and steps from the Teatro di Marcello, there is a staircase that leads down into history. That staircase belongs to Leone Limentani Rome, one of the oldest family-run shops in the city — founded in 1820 and still operated by the same family, now in its seventh generation. I first discovered Leone Limentani Rome decades ago w...

Sitting among the ruins near the Terme di Caracalla, with ancient stones underfoot and Roman roads radiating outward beneath us, I spoke with Tom Brughmans, an archaeologist whose work is reshaping how we understand movement, connection, food, and daily life in the ancient Roman world. Tom is the director of an ambitious international research project that has produced the first spatially detailed...

Italian designers work quietly behind the scenes, shaping how leaders, artists, and thinkers present themselves to the world through style. Rome has always been a city where power, culture, and aesthetics intersect. Politics meets art, ceremony meets daily life, and nowhere is that more visible than in the world of Italian designers who work quietly behind the scenes, shaping how leaders, artists,...

The wine world is changing—and if you're drinking the same way you did five years ago, you're missing something. In this episode, we dive into the 2026 wine trends behind a quiet but powerful shift in how people drink today. Prestige labels and power wines are losing ground to lighter, fresher, more drinkable styles chosen for real life—not status. Heavy reds aren't disappearing, but they are bein...

This week's podcast episode is a re-release from two years ago, but the story it tells remains timeless. It explores the deep roots of Carnival in Verona, why gnocchi are inseparable from the celebration, what locals eat and drink during Carnival season, what else to see while you're in town, and how easy it is to pair Verona with a quick day trip to nearby Venice. When people think of Verona, the...

Liguria Italy is often reduced to a handful of famous images: pastel houses clinging to cliffs, glamorous yachts bobbing in Portofino, hikers threading their way between the villages of the Cinque Terre. But as this conversation on my Flavor of Italy podcast reveals, Liguria Italy is far richer, deeper, and more nuanced than its postcard reputation suggests. In this episode, I spoke with Anna Meru...