June 2, 2021, New York, NY – The Italian Language Foundation continues its mission of supporting and sustaining the study of Italian language by offering its student members a robust offering of opportunities and workshops. ILF is partnering with several Italian entrepreneurs and companies, including law firms, restaurants and businesses, including Italian charcuterie business, Fratelli Beretta and global confectionery company, Ferrero to offer internships to member students.

Margaret I. Cuomo, M.D., President of ILF, emphasized the positive impact of having college-aged students working with Italian companies and brands early in their careers: “It is vital for the Italian Language Foundation to support our student members – intelligent and capable individuals who love the Italian language and can transfer their language skills into a real asset for global companies. By offering these young professionals the chance to see the inner workings of U.S.-based Italian companies, we are starting them on a career path that will lead to great success.”

Colin Grant, a graduate of Indiana University, Bloomington who started his internship in Ferrero’s Washington, D.C. office in May said, “This is such a great opportunity that ILF helped me secure. I am excited to intern with company that has a rich Italian heritage with brands like Nutella and Ferrero Rocher that are loved in the U.S. and around the world and hone my professional and language skills.”

Louis Tallarini, Chairman of the ILF, sees the ILF’s increased attention to internships as a significant step in supplementing the current support the Foundation offers to college age students of Italian language. “These recently secured internships are the perfect accompaniment to ILF’s Commitment 2 Excellence (C2E) program. C2E was created to help 11th & 12th grade high school students and college students of Italian, especially Latino students, become ready for a career in the global workforce. Only with mentors and internship can our ILF student members truly take flight.”

For companies in search of qualified interns with Italian language skills, the ILF is standing by to provide candidates of the highest skill and acumen. U.S. based Italian companies and entrepreneurs should contact ILF to take part in their internship program via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/italianlanguagefoundation.

Written by Margo Sorenson, author of over thirty traditionally-published books for young readers. Margo Sorenson spent the first seven years of her life in Spain and Italy, devouring books and Italian food and still speaks (or tries!) her childhood languages. Her most recent Adult/Young Adult novel, SECRETS IN TRANSLATION (Fitzroy Books, October 2018), takes place in Positano, filled with vignettes of daily Italian life. www.margosorenson.com

Ah, the lilting, vibrant sounds of spoken Italian! After my U.S. Diplomatic Corps family moved from Napoli to Bari, when I was four, I was often awakened in the mornings by hearing the vendor ringing his bell outside in the street, chanting, “Pane, burro, e cioccolato!” I was so enchanted by the melodic cadence that I took to riding my two-wheeled bike, ringing its bell, and chanting the same refrain, over and over. Luckily, our neighbors never complained!

Our house was on the outskirts of Bari, sharing a driveway with two other families. We had a number of olive trees in the yard, and my Midwestern mother decided that she would learn to cure olives. She consulted with our neighbors and went at it, even burying the jars in our yard. The problem was—she couldn’t remember where she buried them!

At the time, there was no dairy in Bari, so getting fresh pasteurized milk was a problem. My parents adapted quickly, and we arranged with a neighbor’s cousin to have a liter of his cow’s milk (of course, first, my mother had us meet the cow “in person,”) delivered to us each morning, which my mother promptly boiled, in lieu of pasteurization. It was “rent-a-cow,” for sure.

In the winter, the coal chute into the basement clattered, and in the summer, the mosquitos buzzed. We slept under mosquito netting to save us, because there was no air conditioning, and we had to leave the windows open. The apricot-like fragrance of oleanders drifted in (I was horrified to learn the horse next door died from eating them!), as well as the pungent scent of our geraniums; we have geraniums on our present balcony as a remembrance.

My friends were Angelo, Aldo, Franco, Marisa, Carlo, and Enzo. We played kick-the-can (probably a San Marzano tomato can) down our long driveway. One day, I tried to talk Angelo into playing cowboys and Indians—I had just seen a Roy Rogers movie at the consulate. He wasn’t buying it! Aldo, the oldest at age ten, would sometimes lead us on bike rides down the main road almost to the Italian army barracks.

Our dog, Duke, became enamored with the Italian army men down the road, and he would frequently escape to play basketball with them. Because his collar read “American Consulate,” some of the soldiers would always bring him back, smiling, with profuse Italian apologies. Of course, they grinned when I answered them back in Italian.

When I’m lucky enough to hear spoken Italian, these are some of the precious childhood memories that come flooding back, and the refrain still plays in my mind: “Pane, burro, e cioccolato….”

Written by: Francesca Montillo, owner of Lazy Italian Culinary Adventures, cookbook author and native Italian, in her kitchen for Italian cooking and baking classes hosted via Zoom! Join from the comforts of your home, and learn to prepare delicious dishes from her native land. Although cooking along is encouraged, the participation level is up to you, you can simply watch and learn, ask questions, while taking notes along the way, or you can cook and bake along during the class. Recipes will be straightforward so you can easily replicate the dishes in the future.

In 2015, a few years away from my 40 th birthday, I made a big life decision: to finally start my own business. The prospect of turning 40 is really what did it for me. I no longer wanted to live a life of “should I” and wanted to just do it. I had been dreaming of opening a food and travel business for a long time, and gave it a lot of thought as to what I wanted to include and what I wanted to offer my clients, and that’s how Lazy Italian Culinary Adventures was born.

I grew up in Italy and my fondest memories are around the kitchen with my mom. I didn’t know it as the time, but during those days is when my love for cooking began. I knew my tours would be food-based, because I wholeheartedly believe food is what we all have in common and what ties us all together. Sure, we all have preferences in what we eat, but we all must eat, no getting around it. And with that in mind, my business was born.

My business has grown and evolved since its inception back in 2015. The food and wine tours have been my favorite aspect of what I do. Bringing people to my native land is like entertaining people in my own home. I love treating my clients like family, showing off the best Italy has to offer. Like an eager child showing off its most prized toy, I show off our Italy, with pride, care and satisfaction. It never gets old, and even with my many returned trips, I always learn something new myself, discover a new spot, or try a new food.

My business, like so many others, was hit hard due to Covid. My 2020 + 2021 tours have been postponed to 2022, when we know with more certainty that travel will resume, and we will be able to better enjoy Italy. As such, my business has evolved to now include Zoom cooking classes.

As cookbook author, having published 2 cookbooks with Rockridge Press, and a third book on the way, offering Zoom classes wasn’t much of a leap. During a period where many folks are limiting many social gatherings, meeting over Zoom to cook some delicious Italian food has been the perfect way to bring a bit of Italy close to people, all from the comforts and safety of their own home. I’m most excited about my upcoming Mothers Day Cooking Class. Since my mom was such a culinary inspiration to me growing up, I’m looking forward to offering this class to mothers and daughters this year.

And until we can travel to Italy again, I look forward to serving my clients via Zoom! https://www.thelazyitalian.com/virtual-cooking-classes.html

Written by Margo Sorenson, an ILF Contributory Writer. Author of over thirty traditionally-published books for young readers. Margo Sorenson spent the first seven years of her life in Spain and Italy, devouring books, Italian food and still speaks (or tries!) her childhood languages. Her most recent Adult novel, SECRETS IN TRANSLATION (Fitzroy Books, October 2018), takes place in Positano, with plenty of Italian historical sidelights. www.margosorenson.com

All I have to do is hear a few spoken words of Italian, and I smile. The melodic, warm sounds take me back to my childhood in Napoli and Bari the wonderful experiences I had growing up there for four years.

One of my first memories is of the stunning view of the Bay of Napoli from our family’s apartment in Posillipo, Vesuvius looming in the background. Because we were U.S. Diplomatic Corps (that’s why I’m so polite), we had many U.S. visitors to the consulate for business. While my father dealt with them, my mother escorted their families to Pompeii and Vesuvius. I was drafted to come along, because my parents knew we were living in a unique place and wanted me to remember as much as I could. Besides, the Americans got a kick out of a little four-year-old American girl who spoke Italian, and, looking back, I’m sure my parents wanted to show the Americans that an important way to respect another culture was to speak the language.

We would climb Vesuvius a short way up, and I vividly remember when a guide asked me to put my little hand into a “warm pocket,” where I could feel the heat of the volcano. He promised I wouldn’t burn my hand; he was right. Of course, he first spoke to me in English, (I must have looked American, right?), but when I answered in Italian, his smile broadened. The smiles were always there when we spoke Italian. A tour I dreaded was Solfatara, outside Puozzoli, a shallow crater whose fumes smelled exactly like rotten eggs. I would beg my mother to be allowed to stay home, but the answer was always “No”! Visits to Pompeii were many, and I was equally horrified and fascinated by the plaster casts of the dead in the museum, especially that of the dog with the loaf of raisin bread between his jaws. I could imagine the rivers of molten lava coursing down the ancient streets we walked, and those images affected me so powerfully that my childhood nightmare was of running through the streets of Pompeii, my precious dollhouse (from Sears, Roebuck catalog) in my arms, trying to outrun the lava that was hotly pursuing me! Fortunately, I outgrew that.

As an adult, returning to Pompeii and Vesuvius (not Solfatara) was amazing. Yes, Pompeii’s streets seemed strangely narrower! To this day, hearing spoken Italian links me to my treasured childhood in Italy, bringing a smile.

The Italian Language Foundation is pleased to offer this AP Italian Exam Preparatory webinar for you, our Student Members.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO MS. CRISTINA MODICA, an ILF Teacher Member, for her dedication in creating this special webinar exclusively for ILF Student members.

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