Home > News > Dream of Italy Newsletters > November 2014 Newsletter

Dream of Italy November 2014 Newsletter

In This Issue

Update and .... Watches back in stock!
November Special Offer!
Story: Ahh....! Return to Italy
Italian Recipe: Arrosticini

Update

It has been a while since our last newsletter! Since we moved back to trading solely 'online' and closed our shop in Mt Eden, we have been very busy, with both of us taking up full time roles in other areas. The decision to give up our much-loved bricks and mortar store and return to online selling was a difficult one to make, but it was the right one. It was great to catch up with many of you at the Auckland

Italian Festival, which was the largest ever and is growing to be an iconic Auckland event - a wonderful celebration of all things Italian.

We also managed to get in a trip back to our house in Italy this year and thoroughly enjoyed our time there again. This month's story features our emotions and feelings on our return and the 'PS' below our immediate arrival experience.

We are pleased to advise that at last our very popular Murano Glass watches and the very special Millefiori pendants in all sizes are back in stock in time for Christmas! Stocks are limited so order now! These new items are included in our '15% off' offer!

back to top

November Special Offers!

Unique Christmas Gift Ideas on special!

Our Murano Glass Christmas trees are a lovely, colourful and uniquely Italian gift for yourself or someone else. Each one hand made in Venice, they are real works of art!

Another wonderful gift is one of our fabulous Millefiori ('a thousand flowers') glass pendants. These are dearly loved pieces of jewellery which are often treasured over generations. Several of our customers have stories of wearing their grandmother's or mother's millefiori pendant. Begin your own family heirloom tradition this Christmas! Pendants come in a number of different sizes and in gold plated silver or plain silver frames.

Offer expires 20th November!

To claim this '15% off' offer just quote Coupon 01184 when you check out and you will need to be logged in on our site, so in case you have forgotten your log-in details, your User ID is shown in the email with a link to help you find your password.

back to top

Italian Story- Ahh...! Return to Italy

Our 2014 trip to Italy was full of anticipation, as it always is...

There is nothing like that delicious familiarity that resonates with the soul as you touch Italian soil again.
Leonardo-da-Vinci-Fiumicino-Airport-queues

Even the hopelessly inefficient passport control process, with hundreds of foreign passengers impatiently looking for the fastest moving queue has a familiar, “Ah, I am back” feel to it. I have come to accept that there is usually one immigration guy who is nonchalantly stamping passports without even looking at them, while the rest are laboriously researching the life history of each person and taking an age to process each exasperated traveler. The existence of a queue of several hundred grumpy tourists is of no concern to anyone in Italian immigration! Furthermore, the ‘non EU’ passport holders look longingly across to several booths with no queues at all right next door – they look after their own!

Ah yes, Italian culture with all its quirky frustrations and yet somehow a charm that is like no other.

Recipe - Arrosticini

This month's recipe features a specialty of the region of Abruzzo, where we venture annually, and where our home-away-from-home is.

The origins of this recipe are in the very nature of life in Abruzzo for centuries, where shepherds moved their flocks between the high mountains in summer and the more temperate valleys in winter. Arrosticini were originally (and still often are) prepared outside on a fire, and they feature in most summer and winter festivals. A perfect barbeque dish.

Check out the full recipe!

back to top

Feedback

We would love to hear back from you and get your thoughts on our products or services! Any ideas on how we could improve our service to you our customers would be welcomed too!

If you have any feedback at all for us you can send an email to alan@dreamofitaly.co.nz.

back to top

When we opened the door into our little house in Italy on our last trip, we were full of anticipation to see the work that had been done in our absence. We had already seen our restored front doors and loved them. The beautiful rosewood and the new 'tetoia' or little roof over the door looked wonderful, together with the exposed stone wall. As we opened the door we were impressed with the quality of the work that our 'muratore' [read 'builder'] Raffaele had done, not only with a lovely new bathroom, but completely leveling and re-tiling the uneven floor, putting a new doorway to the 'cantina' (wine cellar carved out of the rock behind the house) and enlarging another door. These doorway changes might seem like small items, but when the walls are over a metre thick and you are responsible for propping up the house on top of you, it is a big deal! To touch it all off, we were delighted to find a note that said that Raffaele and Franco our Project Manager had spent the day before cleaning all of the dust from the construction away for our arrival! Wow! We felt so blessed to have such good people in our lives.

One of our friends in our village is also restoring and selling his house. Check out details here if you are interested!

Another fantastic Christmas gift idea are our wooden trays from Florence. These are particularly handy for out door entertainment, which we are all looking forward to getting into a little more soon! And don't forget our Pewter Warriors, which are a great idea for the difficult to buy for men in your life!