The Joyful Gift Guide
/What a year. I mean…seriously.
What a year.
The weight of tragedy and suffering is knee buckling which can make approaching the holidays akin to barreling toward the final hurdles in an endless race we’re doomed to lose. I’m sure more than one person has thrown up their arms, muttering, “What tree? What candles? What festive meal?” Beat. “Why bother?”
Well, because of just that. This is our time to set the world to rights again. To remind ourselves why we’ve sat on our hands waiting for a vaccine, why we’ve worn a mask despite the mascne, why we’ve stayed in, why we mopped down all our groceries with Clorox wipes (when we could find them).
Don’t we deserve a little light? Not at the end of the tunnel, per se. After all, this situation varies from the aforementioned 400-meter hurdles in that a race, at least, gives a clear indication of where we are in the damned journey. For us, well, we’ve grown accustomed to having no idea if we’re at the beginning middle or end, and just resigning ourselves to dealing with whatever news alert smacks us in the face.
As I said, it’s been an impossibly long road. We deserve a little lightness, a little joy.
And here’s what I discovered, years ago when I threw the best party of my life—there is no celebration better than that with heart at its center. It makes sense, of course, happiness research shows that if you give people $10 and tell them they have to spend it on somebody else, the surge of happiness at the money lasts far longer than if you give them $10 without the injunction to spend it on others. What does this suggest? The very act of giving makes people happy, and that happiness lingers.
Which is marvelous right? In this time when happiness is a vanishing commodity, you can find it simply by giving to somebody else.
So consider this a two-birds and one-stone sort of Gift Guide. Otherwise known as the “Joyful Gift Guide”. Because by using this guide to purchase gifts, you are giving something special and unique to a loved one and you are supporting vendors and crafters and makers in Italy who have been sideswiped this year with pandemic-mandated lack of tourism. You’re giving two ways! Joy upon joy!
What could be more gratifying?
Added bonus: Yes, it is more expensive to order a gift from Italy—not only is there a premium on items that are fashioned by hand, but shipping is dear. My solution? Buy less, and buy joyful. You see, those extra costs will force you to keep it simple. I would so much rather get one ceramic olive oil cruet from Deruta or one work-of-art scarf than six generic Amazon gifts. So, go ahead and order Umbrian saffron for each member of your family. Ordering in bulk means you’ve saved on shipping, plus you get the joy of supporting an Umbrian vendor who picked those saffron crocuses by hand, a detail that will no doubt widen the eyes of your loved ones. And now your shopping for extended family is done! Next, order a handmade bracelet for your daughter and get comfortable with her opening one gift instead of five and again, your shopping is done. It’s miraculous, isn’t it? Simplifying means the holidays are easier for you, leaving more space for connection and joy and conversations about how to reach across the geographic divide and connect with people all over the world. Plus, since you have to budget time for international shipping, you’ll have an added incentive to get your shopping completed early, giving you extra time to scrape a nutmeg over your eggnog and have another cookie in style.
Now, what if you’re not into la dolce vita or aren’t surrounded by people who would enjoy gifts from Italy? No problem! Use this guide as a model to support small producers in your own community. Think about your values, maybe you want to use your holiday dollars to support women-owned businesses or businesses led by people of color. The point is, why use line Jeff Bezos’s pockets when you can help makers who matter to you and have no doubt been impacted by the lack of commerce in 2020?
I hope this guide inspires you to think differently about your gift giving. I’d love for us all to see the holiday as an opportunity to deepen our ties with people, both our loved ones and people all over the world.
And now…cue the cornets and ready the fanfare, as I present to you…
The Joyful Gift Guide
This first item is sure to delight your friends who love Italian cooking. You may already know about my friend Letizia Mattiacci who lives in Assisi, where she teaches cooking and writes cookbooks and is generally an ambassador of Umbrian cuisine, since she’s been featured all sorts of places, including in the New York Times. As a devotee of her first cookbook, which I reviewed here, I thrilled to learn that Letizia was using her time in quarantine to work on a new cookbook, focused on Italian celebrations. Since I had my own lockdown-restless hands, I volunteered to be one of her recipe testers, which is why I can tell you, without even having the book in my hands yet, that it is an unqualified gem. Everything I made was fantastic. Festa Italiana is just recently available for preorder, and here is the link to get it into your hands for the holidays.
Those of you who read “Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center” will remember how my friend Paola reshaped our year in Spello. I learned about community in her shop, as well as falling in love with her scarves and wraps and especially her ponchos, which can be worn in different ways for different looks but always add a touch of spontaneous elegance to any outfit. She has a website where you can order gifts, such as the ponchos and wraps and scarves you see me wearing in the slideshow below, as well as jewelry and other accessories. Not on her website are these miraculous cashmere and silk scarves in range of attractive colors (in the slideshow, you’ll see them in red and rose). I love them so much I bought three. When placing an order, you can ask if she has any in stock to ship along with your other purchases. As you can see from the photos, I love everything she sells—the textures are luxuriously soft, the colors are eye-catching, the styles are flattering, and all her clothing is made right here in Italy, so you are supporting textile makers and seamstresses, not to mention Paola and her family, with every purchase. These items make great gifts, too, because they are fashion without sizing worries! Also check out her naturally stylish selection of cork accessories. PS, I’ve told Keith that for my birthday next month, he needs to buy me the super-soft cashmere wrap that comes in shades of red or shades of blue. Which one do you think?
Umbria is famous for ceramics, but that’s really just because of Deruta. Joan and Giovanni’s post in my Local Guide series recounts the role of Deruta in the ceramics world, and also introduces readers to this town, its storied tradition, and these gracious people. You can read more about our visit with Joan and Giovanni here, but the tl;dr version is—we fell in love with ceramics at Antica Fornace Deruta. I am not a big shopper, and yet Antica Fornace Deruta made me positively giddy. I think because the history on display from before you walk in the door in the form of pieces of plates found in their ancient kiln pressed into the wall, to learning about how ceramics styles changed over time, to admiring generations of sketches on transparent paper, to simply lingering over each beautiful piece in both the shop and in the adjacent room where one can examine examples of historic ceramics. We brought home two plates, a shallow serving bowl, two coffee cups, and an olive oil cruet, and every single time we sit down to a meal now we all sigh in wonderment. I swear, even the most basic pasta dressed with olive oil becomes a revelation when it’s served on a hand painted platter. Joan and Giovanni are all set up to ship to you, and I suggest you pay particular attention to the ornaments, olive oil cruets, coffee and espresso cups, platters, and spoon rests, but do check out the site for your options! And remember, you are likely to save on shipping if you make a bulk order!
As a writer, I have an inborn fascination with all things typographical. If you know someone similarly smitten with printed materials, particularly of an elegant, historical nature, then you’ll love this next idea. Zubboli has been printing in Assisi since the 1800’s and in fact, they still have some of their old printing presses right in the shop. Here you can find books bound with stitching in the old way, and stationary printed in glorious colors on fine paper. The website is exciting to peruse, but if you’ll allow me, I’d love to point out the folios and photo albums with marbled paper covers, writing paper with Renaissance flourishes, and hand bound leather journals. Between you and me, for some reason, I’m just in love with the labels. I’m sure I’ll never make enough jam or limoncello to justify a pack of vintage-looking labels and I don’t even have a beehive to jar honey, nonetheless, I’m getting a pack or two and using them instead of those generic labels on books or perhaps even as gift tags. Check out their site for full offerings, and also bookmark a visit to the shop once travel is allowable again.
Tucked away in the hills between Umbria and Le Marche lies a patchwork of paradise. A landscape so bucolic and, at the same time, so racy with jagged hills and clattering rivers, I had to set my novel series there. This is where you’ll find Zafferano e Dintorni, a working saffron and apple farm, as well as an agriturismo. If you’re like me, you might have assumed saffron grew in the steppes of the middle east. It turns out, saffron grows in many parts of the world, including various regions of Italy. I first learned this on a trip to Abruzzo when I kept seeing signs for saffron. Saffron?!? I brought a glass vial home and in open defiance of my usual strategy of saving a comestible souvenir for “something special” until it goes bad and I get frustrated for blowing it again, I used my Abruzzese saffron right away. The savory-floral-honey flavor could have knocked me over and I ran to research this bit of culinary whimsy. I discovered that threads of saffron are actually the dried stamens of autumn-blooming crocuses. Fascinating, isn’t it? I knew you’d love some Italian culinary trivia, which is why I’m delighted to showcase Zafferano e Dintorni. I love the idea of supporting farmers at this tricky time, particularly small scale farmers like Marta and her family who pick and process the saffron from these edible crocuses (don’t try this at home!) entirely by hand. Once you have saffron at hand, you’ll discover it’s remarkable for more than just boosting your paella cred. Saffron enhances the flavor of all sorts of foods, from savory to sweet. Sprinkle a little and you’ll discover new aspects of your old culinary standards. Saffron makes an unusual, refined, and surprising gift, worthy of a place on a gift guide, but I admit, I also love the idea of you blooming saffron in water to add to your recipes and closing your eyes and inhaling the aroma of this place that is out of time. Pro-tip: there’s a recipe for saffron and chickpea soup in Festa Italiana, the first item in the Guide. You can certainly use another saffron, but how amazing to sprinkle the exact saffron that was used for testing this recipe? A note: You’ll notice jams and jellies on the website, but those are in small quantities and too difficult to ship, so if those are appealing, you’ll just have to visit.
I worry about artists in this time of toxic anxiety. I know when the lockdowns began, I experienced relief that I had just completed writing my novel series, because I had no bandwidth to create in the midst of also trying to figure out how to make my own hand sanitizer. Which is why I wanted to make sure I included artists in the Joyful Gift Guide. Art is, after all, a gift whose beauty lingers, adding nuance and complexity to our days, an eternal reminder to notice the beauty all around us. I particularly appreciate Elisabetta’s space in the center of Spello because of her and her husband’s commitment to preserving the traditions of local makers. Part exhibition space for local artists and part shop to sell work by contemporary artisans, Arte e Arte Applicata is a celebration of local artistic endeavors. I particularly encourage you to consider the scarf with poppies felted into the material—such a dreamy reminder of Italian spring. Also worth considering are the jewelry (I love the earrings featured here in the slideshow) as well as the other scarves, particularly the green and gold shawl (so elegant!) or the one with sunflowers.
You’ll notice that fabrics loom large (see what I did there?) in the Joyful Gift Guide. That’s not accidental. Fabrics are easy to ship and therefore you’ll pay less for that convenience than you would if you ordered say, a decorative Italian bowling ball made from Carrara marble. The other advantage is that fabric is sensory, and as such, gifts made from fabrics delight and ground at the same time. You can run your hands over them, you can admire their patterns or colors, and you can even inhale their scent, particularly when they are woven in ancient stone buildings. Which brings me to the last vendor in our Guide, Museo Laboratorio Giuditta Brozzetti. Located in the high-arched church of San Francesco delle Donne, the first Franciscan church in Perugia (now deconsecrated), Brozzetti is part museum of historic textiles and part shop. Here you can buy handmade reproductions of Perugia’s classic textile designs—like my favorite, the griffin, the symbol of Perugia—in useable art from spectacular table runners to throw pillows to cases for glasses, all created on wooden looms from the 1700 and 1800’s. It’s a multigenerational endeavor headed up by Marta Cucchia (heads-up to those looking for a woman-owned business), an expert in this vanishing craft. Every single piece is unique, worked and finished entirely by hand.
Love these ideas? Want more? My friend Heather over at Smitten Italy has a smashing gift guide dedicated to supporting Italian small businesses. Check it out here!
