Cassa di Cherkasky

When you live in the United States you are led to believe that everything in Italy is of the finest quality and design. When you move to Italy you realize that anything of quality or good design is exported to the United States. Ahh, how I long to move back the U.S. so that I can buy fine Italian home furnishings. Here are the pictures from the downstairs of our home. We’ve added more artwork to the walls since our parents visited this summer, which I know they will appreciate.

View as you walk in the front door and turn immediately to your left. There really is a coat rack under that mass of coats.

I am working on another puzzle so the dining table is covered in 1000 pieces of a scene from the Cinque Terre.

This is my favorite part of the house. The Italians know a thing or two about the design of a really deep and comfortable bathtub.

I Love Milan

This weekend we drove to Milan which is about three hours away from home. Everyone I know who has been has given me their opinion and most people did not like it. I have no idea what these people are thinking. Milan is great! It is the closest thing to a real city that Italy has to offer. As I walked down one of the many streets filled with shops I commented to Andy that I felt like I was walking down Oak Street in Chicago. The people watching was great, which is why I love a city so much. The pictures of us below are in front of the largest church in Milan. We figured it was better than a picture on us in Milan in front of one of the five Louis Vuitton stores.

Chanukkah in Italy

Being Jewish in Italy has posed some challenges. The latest of those challenges was, where do you buy Chanukkah candles in Italy? I guess living in Chicago really spoiled us, because every year about 10 minutes before the holiday started I could run out to a chic little store on Armitage and buy them. This year we ended up with birthday candles. When you have about ten minutes to figure out what you are going to use in place of real Chanukkah candles, birthday candles seem like a genius solution. Take a look below at our first Italian Chanukkah.

My Amazing Husband/Our “Fine” Italian Cucina

I have what some people in my family call a “stubborn” personality. Mostly those people are my mother and my husband. With that said, this often makes me resistant to things like “new” technology. I finally broke down about one month ago and asked Andy to give me computer lessons. Our first lesson was how to upload photos to the blog. This lesson was somewhat self serving for him. Now that he knows that I can post on the blog, he doesn’t have to.

Anyway, he has been asking me since we moved into our house to post photos of it on the blog. So, because I can’t possibly stand to clean the entire house right now, here is a photo of one clean room. The “heart” of the home, or as I think of it “Hell’s Kitchen.”

The title of the blog My Amazing Husband, can be explained by saying that the cabinet above the sink Andy hung all by himself. I whined all summer about not having a dishwasher and that I had to dry all of the dishes when I washed them because the drying rack was so small. So, Andy decided to buy me the biggest drying rack he could find(aka the cabinet above the sink), hang it himself, and end my complaining. He is a good husband!

Thanksgiving

Andy and I hosted our very first Thanksgiving dinner this year. It was a beautiful meal, and we felt blessed to be able to spend it with our Aviano Air Base family. I can’t wait to do it again next year!

I went all out with table decorations and clipped branches from our grapevines to use as centerpieces. Trust me, this is not something I would have done six months ago.

Andy prepared the turkey for our feast after consulting many cookbooks for the perfect recipe. He decided to go with Martha Stewart’s in case you were curious.

Before

After

We also made pumpkin soup, corn, mashed potatoes, and rolls.  Everyone else brought yummy side dishes to pass.  We were lucky to have my friend who is a chef prepare desserts, and boy were they good.  Andy has threatened to leave me for her apple pie.

Here is the photo I took of everyone at our table.  Did I mention that we had 11 people and a baby shoved into our tiny living room.

We are lucky to have all of these people.  It was a great day!

Sarah