' Le Luci di Natale a Lecce, Italia '

Announcing Week Before Christmas
December 14th -20th, 2008

December 2007
The Awaiting Table Newsletter

As the holiday season approaches here in Lecce, Italy, we tend to restructure our classes so that we take long strolls through the city-centre after dinner each night, our faces glowing from good food and a bit too much red wine. The city is stunning here at Christmas, all of it decorated in that understated-elegance, for which Italy is famous.

Street artists appear, entertaining entire families, each member riveted for a different reason.

But imagine it, the red-orange wobbly flames of the chestnut cauldrons, the hot flash of a flamethrower's kerosene bursts, and that warm sepia glow of a zillion tiny white, all of it somehow intensifying the already stunning warm yellow brick (pietra leccese), turning the entire city into one of the most beautiful things imaginable.
Visitors to the region always refer to it as 'the Coliseum', but locals prefer 'l'amfiteatro', a Roman era amphitheater, that silted up and was lost for the better part of two thousand years. While now occasionally used for jazz concerts and fashion shows, the amphitheater's main task today is as the city's largest nativity seen, the star that lead the wise men now bright enough to read by.

I live within a 30-second walk of this building, The Church of The Holy Cross, or Santa Croce, yet I've never stopped feeling impressed, each time I see it. It's sobering to think about Italy's past and how much so many gave to have what we have here today.

Cool, huh?

The local stone is called pietra leccese, or Lecce Stone, a soft stone that allows a blurring of the distinction between sculpture and architecture. Whenever I'm asked about what I do or where I live while travelling outside of Italy, I always say, Lecce, prettiest city you've never heard of.

Lecce's duomo is stunning, and if you catch it at the right time of day or night, you have it all to yourself, just like this man did. I over-heard him talking into his cell phone to his sister who is apparently living abroad now and can't back to Lecce for Christmas. Just as I moved on to take more pictures, I heard the man say, Little sister, I really wish you here, it really is beautiful here this time of year.

Buon Natale from Silvestro Silvestori and the staff of The Awaiting Table Cookery School in Lecce, Italy.

To sign up for December 14th through the 20th, 2008, or to learn more on any aspect of our little cooking school in Lecce, Italy, simple click here.