The Story of the Chicken Pitcher

This is a chicken pitcher. I bought it in Nove and love it. You may wonder why I have a chicken pitcher in my house. Here's the story of the tradition that drew me in.

Way back in the early Renaissance days, in Florence, the Medici family ruled the roost (pun intended). They were the wealthiest and most powerful family in the region but the rivaling Pazzi family were trying to assassinate the Medicis in order to take their power.

Giuliano Medici loved to throw festivals in the villages based around the family's numerous landholdings. The Pazzis plotted to kill him and his guards during the night of an upcoming festival (while everyone was drinking and making merry). So in the 1478, a festival took place in Gallina and the Pazzi's assassins snuck into town to kill Giuliano. When the assassins tried to cross the yard to kill Giuliano, the many chickens and roosters sitting in the yard started to make a racket, cackling and crowing so loudly that it woke Medici and his guards. They managed to capture the would-be assassins before any damage was done.

Giuliano was so grateful to the chickens that he threw another festival that same night. He ordered his artisans to make chicken-shaped pitchers to honor his life savers and gave them to villagers for good luck.

The tradition continues today as the pitcher is a sign of good luck and protection from trespassers and danger.

Nove, Home of Ceramics

American holidays in Italy are great for travel. Roads are empty and restaurants are reasonably crowded.. For Memorial Day, I hopped in the car with two friends and a three-year-old and we headed to the Northern Italian city of Nove. Nove is about 2.5 hours from Milan and the home to several ceramic manufacturers. We parked at the town square and found ourselves surrounded by ceramic shops and factories, honestly, there were probably 3-5 within a kilometer in each direction.


Our first stop was the ceramic museum which happened to be closed when we stopped by. Luckily, we asked for tourism information at the town hall and they volunteered to open up the museum for the four of us! It was a small museum but interesting and it was great to have it all to ourselves.


We popped into a factory store that was recommended by a town hall official. The tables and walls were covered in handpainted ceramics and I fell in love with a lamp painted with a black and white toile print. The price tag for the matching set was a bit intimidating so I carried on to the next stop.


At La Ceramica VBC, we truly hit the jackpot. They are the producers of earthenware for Tiffany & Co, Williams-Sonoma, Southern Living, and Lenox. The prices were out. of. control. Seriously. I picked up a serving platter made for Tiffany & Co for 22 euro. That translates to a little over $30 - a significant discount.


Of course, we didn't just come for American items at a discount. There was quite the market for Italian platters, dinner sets, vases, candlesticks...just about everything!


Below, you get a sneak peak of some of the things I purchased for myself (there were other items but they're gifts so it's a secret). The yellow and white item is a trivet. The yellow is quite vibrant in person and it's gorgeous. I also bought a black 3-pronged candlestick holder that I am newly obsessed with. Beautiful. Had I felt the urge, I could've bought a 12 place dinnerware set of amazing ceramic for under 30 euro.


Put this list for when you come to visit us - don't forget we can help you ship stuff back to the States!

The Milan Garden Show

I had a friend in town from Rome for the weekend (with her two-year-old daughter) so it was a good excuse to do the kinds of things that my husband won't do with me. We ate Indian food, watched 'Mary Poppins', and went to a garden show in the nearby Giardini Pubblici.


The Giardini Pubblici are always lovely but were made even more so by the gigantic trade show taking place over the weekend. Obviously, plants were for sale and we saw a huge variety of flowers (I lost track of the different types of roses), herbs, and green things. I often felt tempted to add to my balcony collection but stayed calm, remembering that we are already halfway through our time in Milan and will leave before next summer even starts.


As I am now learning, it seems to be a requirement that any show or fair have multiple booths selling food that is produced locally or typical to the region. The garden show was no exception and this olive oil vendor came well prepared with huge vats in his little truck. Still well-stocked with the olive oil I bought last fall from a colleague's family production near Salerno, I walked past - only to be waylaid by the most amazing raspberry jam. Second only to my granddad Blum's homemade jams, this was world-class.

Amazingly, the two-year-old made it several hours without complaint, perhaps distracted by all the fake animals (made of stone, metal, and topiary). Glad for an afternoon with a friend, we headed back for bedtime and movies.

No respect for the turkey...

Many people feel that decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving is a sign of disrespect against the turkey. I don't think that the turkey takes it all that personally.

For me, it's all about holiday decorations. As it happens, I don't have much in the way of fall/Thanksgiving decor (hint hint, Mom, for the Black Friday sales) but I have a whole bunch for Christmas. Another contributing factor is that we are traveling for Thanksgiving this year but hosting a Christmas celebration chez nous. This is a roundabout justification to all the haters out there who are going to make fun of my early Christmas decor. We've had it up for a week and a half.


While I love getting out ALL of the decor (candles, pillow, my Santa carvings), the best part of Christmas decorations are the ornaments and decking the boughs. We bought our tree in the post-Christmas Target sales last year so this is our very first Christmas with a full-size tree. Finally, we have a tree big enough for all our ornaments! We have some that we collected from Lagos, some given to each other, some from last year. This year, the first ornament we put up was one we just received from my parents - the traditional "our first Christmas" hanging. While this is actually our fourth Christmas together and third that we actually SPEND together, it's nice to commererate the first married holiday.

To celebrate the ocassion, we turned up the iPod Christmas mix (heavy on the Harry Connick Jr holiday album) and made some Mint Chocolate Cocoa (purchased while at the Lady in London's favorite Hampstead tea shop). No "Polar Express" this year but we had a nice time and have been enjoying the extra-long holiday flavor this year. See below for what we did with all of the extra Ikea ornaments from last year.


Since these photos were taken, we've burned out a transformer (damn lights and european electricity!) and bought both a tree-topper and tree-skirt. There's also a couple more presents under the tree but you'll have to wait until closer to Christmas to see the updates.

Tomorrow, we're out to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends in Lisbon. Happy holidays, y'all!