"The Cielo" is part of "An Afternoon Under the Tuscan Sky"

Last July, when I was displaying "The Cielo" at Festa Italiana in Milwaukee, Ewa Barczyk, the director of libraries at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, stopped by. We had a nice chat about the book, and she was clearly interested.

How interested I didn't know until December when she called and asked me to take part in "An Afternoon Under the Tuscan Sky" at the Golda Meier Library in February.

And so, on a snowy Tuesday this week, I was part of this most enjoyable event. I talked about and read from my book for about 40 minutes, and then came what I thought was the best part: food. Two chefs from the Tutti a Tavola, a renowned cooking school in Tuscany, were on hand to demonstrate some favorite Italian dishes. Elissa Franke is a Milwaukeean who lives in Tuscany half the year and Simonetta Palazio just happened to be visiting here.

They made an exquisite lasagna, an appetizer and a creamy gelato. And then we all got to sample each. I sold a number of books and had pleasant conversations with people who had already read it and wanted to tell me how much they enjoyed it.

Despite the all-day snow, it was great to be "under the Tuscany sky" for a little while.