Grottaminarda, Italy. September, 1984

Agosto, capa r’virn’. Or so said my friend Nick’s grandmother in her Grottaminarda dialect every year at this time, announcing, “August is the beginning of winter.” I love this and have since the first time I heard it. Maybe because I like autumn the best of all the seasons, a time to sharpen pencils and head “back to school” or off to some foreign land once all the students are back in their classrooms and the temperature is more forgiving. One September, on my first solo trip to Italy, Nick’s Grottaminarda relatives welcomed me to their small town east of Naples, a wonderful friendly place. Here are Nick’s cousins Michele, Pupetta and Zia Letizia (whom Nick’s season-savvy grandmother with her flair for nicknames referred to as “crooked ass.”) I remember walking to the store with Pupetta to buy the fresh pasta for her ciambotella (sauté a red pepper, a green pepper, a hot pepper, a vinegar pepper.) The other dish she made that remains happily in memory is sartù, a loose sort of scrambled frittata with eggs and potatoes. Mmmm. Hearty and substantial fare, perfect for those blustery days of August.

Watertown, MA. March, 2005

Before this month is over, I want to pay a final tribute to Nick’s grandmother who always said, “August is the beginning of winter.” (SLS reader Miguel from Coimbra tells me that in his native Portugal they also say primeiro de Agosto, primeiro de inverno -- “first of August, first of winter.”) Believe it or not, this is a full-color photograph that I snapped from my back door just after a winter snowstorm. If you live in New England, as I do, March is an excellent time to plan a vacation, preferably somewhere that is colorful and in full bloom. (I often visit my friends in the Southwest.) By the time March rolls around, everyone I know (even those irritating friends who claim they love winter, love snow) has pretty much had just about enough of icy, slushy, cold grey days. What may have seemed decorative back in December when the snow was novel and new, now is burdensome and a daily nuisance. (I wondered if this past year, as I no longer had to contend with commuting an hour each way to work, I would view things somewhat differently. I didn’t.) By early April, there is some hope in the slant of the sunlight, the slight warming, the quick melting of any lingering snowfall. But March, no. Eliot got it wrong. March is the cruelest month. By a long shot.

Watertown, MA. March, 2005

Before this month is over, I want to pay a final tribute to Nick’s grandmother who always said, “August is the beginning of winter.” (SLS reader Miguel from Coimbra tells me that in his native Portugal they also say primeiro de Agosto, primeiro de inverno -- “first of August, first of winter.”) Believe it or not, this is a full-color photograph that I snapped from my back door just after a winter snowstorm. If you live in New England, as I do, March is an excellent time to plan a vacation, preferably somewhere that is colorful and in full bloom. (I often visit my friends in the Southwest.) By the time March rolls around, everyone I know (even those irritating friends who claim they love winter, love snow) has pretty much had just about enough of icy, slushy, cold grey days. What may have seemed decorative back in December when the snow was novel and new, now is burdensome and a daily nuisance. (I wondered if this past year, as I no longer had to contend with commuting an hour each way to work, I would view things somewhat differently. I didn’t.) By early April, there is some hope in the slant of the sunlight, the slight warming, the quick melting of any lingering snowfall. But March, no. Eliot got it wrong. March is the cruelest month. By a long shot.

Gloucester, MA. February, 2015

Every year on this date, I think of my friend Nick's grandmother who used to say, "August is the beginning of winter." Of course, she said it in the dialect of her Italian town of Grottaminarda, where maybe the nights were cooler in August. (SLS reader Miguel from Coimbra tells me that in his native Portugal they also say primeiro de Agosto, primeiro de inverno -- “first of August, first of winter.”) But as I type this in Watertown, MA, we're experiencing a most unpleasant heat wave, and winter doesn't seem like such a bad alternative.

Grottaminarda, Italy. September, 1984

Agosto, capa r’virn’. Or so said my friend Nick’s grandmother in her Grottaminarda dialect every year at this time, announcing, “August is the beginning of winter.” I love this and have since the first time I heard it. Maybe because I like autumn the best of all the seasons, a time to sharpen pencils and head “back to school” or off to some foreign land once all the students are back in their classrooms and the temperature is more forgiving. One September, on my first solo trip to Italy, Nick’s Grottaminarda relatives welcomed me to their small town east of Naples, a wonderful friendly place. Here are Nick’s cousins Michele, Pupetta and Zia Letizia (whom Nick’s season-savvy grandmother with her flair for nicknames referred to as “crooked ass.”) I remember walking to the store with Pupetta to buy the fresh pasta for her ciambotella (sauté a red pepper, a green pepper, a hot pepper, a vinegar pepper.) The other dish she made that remains happily in memory is sartù, a loose sort of scrambled frittata with eggs and potatoes. Mmmm. Hearty and substantial fare, perfect for those blustery days of August. (Happy birthday to my baby brother, Brien. How does it feel to finally have a winter birthday like all the rest of our family?)