"Travel and Food Experiences in Italy~ their influences on my American life, plus photos and recipes, too!" by Mark Leslie, author "Beyond the Pasta: Recipes, Language & Life with an Italian Family"
Click here to download: This_aint_no_rabbit_food....zip (3355 KB) and Mr. McGregor isn't going to run...
June, 28 2010 • 2 Comments • 0 Faves
Funghi...Mushrooms~ “Hey, you sure are a fun-guy,” my sixth-grade science teacher would say, trying to get us all to laugh at the lame twist of pronunciation...
May, 17 2010 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Happy Mother's Day~ My very first trip to Italy was in 2001. Richard and I took our mothers with us for a 10-day trip in Tuscany—Siena, Florence, Cortona, Montalcino, Rome...
May, 9 2010 • 2 Comments • 0 Faves
Sugo…a.k.a. Pasta Sauce~ Ciao Tutti! I thought I’d post a little online cooking tutorial for you to enjoy. It is broken into two parts—the original recording was too big...
April, 26 2010 • 2 Comments • 0 Faves
Click here to download: Le_Parole_del_Giorno_The_Words.zip (1437 KB) MOSCA e ZANZARA~ The weather has been absolutely...
April, 19 2010 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Nonna at her finest~ Here is the last of the three videos I filmed with the Stefani family in Viterbo. I think this one really shows her spirit. She makes me laugh—a lot. The month I lived with them in 2005 was filled with laughter. The entire family is very humorous and they all know how to tell a good tale. In this clip she is telling me that her mother didn’t like to tell Nonna her secrets, so when she gave Nonna a recipe she would purposefully leave things out. Nonna caught on and started watching her mother...
March, 4 2010 • 2 Comments • 0 Faves
Clang, clang, clang went the trolley~ Standing on a platform waiting for a train in Rome can be a nerve wracking experience, especially when you are alone and don’t speak the language. When I first...
February, 8 2010 • 1 Comment • 0 Faves
Nonna cooks Pollo con Limone~ Recently, I received an e-mail from Alessandra filling me in on all the happenings back in Viterbo. I mailed the Feb House Beautiful with the article on our house (http://www.mark-leslie.net/2010-starts-with-a-bang) to them back in early January and, when I hadn’t heard from them, I sent an e-mail making sure that they had received the magazine. Of course, they received it and loved the house and article. Alessandra had to translate the interview for Nonna and Lillo, who don’t speak...
February, 4 2010 • 1 Comment • 0 Faves
STUPEFACENTE~ This is one of my favorite Italian words, if only for the fact that it is one of the few words I know to express astonishment. The word is pronounced “stoop-ay-fah-CHEN-tay” and you can...
January, 15 2010 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Le presento Nonna~ The New Year has started and we are all in a deep freeze. It is time to warm up with a little video of Nonna. To bring everyone up to speed: Nonna is the grandmother of the family that I lived with in Viterbo, Italy, in 2005 through a university program in Siena (http://www.dantealighieri.com/italian_language_school_viterbo.html). She is the reason why I have written my book (BEYOND THE PASTA: 28 Days of Recipes, Language, and Life with an Italian Family) and I hope it will be published so...
January, 6 2010 • 4 Comments • 0 Faves
Click here to download: Tis_the_Season....zip (3667 KB) The last tree~ Since my return from our Italian vacation at...
December, 16 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Cazzo~ In high school I studied French—well, it would be closer to the truth to say that I sat in a class for three years where the teacher and two other students spoke French, while the rest of us were just thankful to not have to take Spanish from the hateful Seńora. Regardless of one’s age, when learning a new language, one of the first tasks is to try to figure out how to cuss in that language. Remember how titillating the song lyric “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?” was in the 1970s? Instantly millions...
December, 9 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Mark Leslie works in professional theatre as a stage manager and is a member of Actors’ Equity Association. Currently he is busy working with Gemelli Press on his first book "Beyond the Pasta: Recipes, Language & Life with an Italian Family." http://beyondthepasta.com
Every year, Mark vacations in Italy and lives to eat his way through every plate of pasta and cone of gelato placed before him. In 2005, he had the good fortune to live for a month in Viterbo, Italy with the Stefani family. There he took cooking lessons from Nonna, the grandmother of the family, and Italian language lessons from Alessandra, the mother. That experience is the basis of his first book "Beyond the Pasta: Recipes, Language, & Life with an Italian Family." SEE DETAILS ABOUT THE BOOK: http://mark-leslie.net/we-have-a-publisher
THEATRICAL CREDITS:
Mark is in Winona, MN working on GRSF's production of COMEDY OF ERRORS. Recently, he wrapped up LE NOZZE DI FIGARO and AIDA for Opera Birmingham in Alabama. Last September, he stage managed CABARET at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina in Hilton Head, SC. He also worked at the Arts Center in 2005 on its production of Evita. This past summer, he worked in Minnesota on Great River Shakespeare Festival’s production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. Over the past 22 years, Mark’s regional theatre credits include: Denver Center Theatre Company (White Christmas, Noises Off, and a reading of a new adaption of The Unsinkable Molly Brown directed by Kathleen Marshall and authored by Dick Scanlon), Alabama Shakespeare Festival (resident stage manager on over 65 productions), Actors’ Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival (D. Boone by Marsha Norman), Arizona Theatre Company (Amadeus, Loot, and Ain’t Misbehavin’ directed by Arthur Faria), and Maine State Music Theatre (Phantom, South Pacific, Jesus Christ Superstar, La Cages Aux Folles, and the world premiere of Chamberlain).
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