Arnie is a Sommelier certified by the Guild of Sommeliers. He has been a wine aficionado for nearly thirty years. During his first visit to France in 1973, Arnie toured several French vineyards and began to learn about wine from wine merchants and collectors. Arnie has been consulting to restaurants about wine since 1987. In 1997, he opened his own restaurant, Avenue One. Avenue One was highly regarded for its extensive and carefully chosen wine program, winning four Wine Spectator Magazine Awards of Excellence and accolades from Wine Press Northwest, Seattle Magazine and other publications. He recently appeared in the video, “Wineworks: The Complete Video Guide to Wine,” available in selected wine shops and book stores.
Arnie has been a guest sommelier at Taste Washington and he has been in charge of acquiring the wines for the 2002 – 2006 Beaujolais Nouveau Festival at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, sponsored by the French-American Chamber of Commerce. Since 2003, Arnie has been a Guest Sommelier for the Auction of Northwest Wines at Chateau Ste. Michelle, He has been a member of the Seattle chapter of the Chaine des Rotisseurs and other food and wine organizations. Arnie also has been privileged to judge the Boeing Wine Fest for four years, Seattle Magazine’s Washington Wine Awards as well as the Seattle Wine Awards in 2007 and 2008. In 2004, Arnie was elected to the Board of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food.
Arnie speaks fluent French and German. Last year he conducted his first wine tasting entirely in French (a 3 hour event!) for Seattle’s Alliance Française.
When: January 8, 2020 Speaker: Andrea Aldrich Topic: Italian Gardens
About the Speaker:
Andrea Aldrich, tour guide and founder, has been guiding small groups to her favorite destinations in Italy for more than ten years. She has lived and studied in Florence, speaks Italian and has traveled extensively throughout the regions of Italy. A background as an artist and teacher has been instrumental in her ability to develop tours that give a greater understanding of this country’s rich art, culture and history.
Through photographs and narrative we will explore the history and the cultural shifts that influenced the design of some of the most incredible gardens in the world. Our journey will take us from the Italian Renaissance to the twenty-first century.
Our annual Festa di Natale is this Wednesday, December 11 As usual we’ll celebrate the season with the traditional Italian game of tombola – a kind of Italian Bingo for those not familiar with the game. There are several prizes to be awarded so you might be a winner! It’s lots of fun for all.
Bruce Leone will be our tomboliere this year.
And of course we’ll have Italian Christmas music. Be prepared to sing as Joyce Ramee will lead us in a few Italian Christmas songs.
Traditionally the Festa meal is a potluck. In the spirit of the Italian love of food, please bring along a main course, antipasto or dessert. And a bottle of vino to share is always a good addition. The microwave and oven are available if any of the dishes need to be heated up at the last minute. You can always count on a lot of great food to add to the holiday merriment at our Festa.
And to toast the spirit of the season, there’ll be a few bottles of prosecco to start things off in style.
Festa will take place in the Parish Social Hall at St. Patrick’s Church, 815 East Edgar Street, on the North side of Capitol Hill.
Parking is available in St. Patrick’s parking lot, off E. Edgar street. The meetings take place in the Parish Hall, located in the basement of the church which is entered from the West side of the church from the parking lot.
To reach St Patrick’s from the North, follow I-5 S. Take exit 168A for Boylston Ave toward Roanoke St. Merge onto Boylston, turn left at light onto E Roanoke St. Turn left at the first cross street onto Harvard Ave E. and then take the first right onto E. Edgar Street.
To reach St. Patrick’s from the South, follow I-5 N. Take exit 168A for Lakeview Blvd E. Turn left onto Lakeview Blvd E, and continue onto Boylston Ave E. Turn right at the light onto E Roanoke St. Turn left at the first cross street onto Harvard Ave. E. and then take the first right onto E. Edgar Street. The festivities officially start at 6:30. Your help setting up before the meeting (and especially in cleaning up afterwards) is always appreciated. So come early to start celebrating.
A presto –
Dan DeMatteis,
Presidente,
Dante Alighieri Society of Washington
A SPECIAL ITALIAN PROGRAM – MILANO – SPONSORED by the DANTE ALIGHIERI SOCIETY and Il PUNTO THIS COMING WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20
at St. Patrick’s Church, Social Hall, 815 East Edgar Street, Seattle 98102
Federica Gabardi, a Milan native and a Women’s Empowerment Expert will be our guest speaker.
Milan is glamorous, trendy and fashionable. It is very much appreciated by tourists who have rewarded it with a boom in arrivals: about 8.4 million in 2017. This number has guaranteed Milan the fourteenth place in the ranking of the most visited cities in the world, once again surpassing Rome at seventeenth with 7.3 million visitors.
In short, Milan has proven to have secret weapons that are not limited to the attractiveness of the businesses that the city has always hosted: from the Romanesque churches to Milan Cathedral, from the Castello Sforzesco to Leonardo’s locks along the Naviglio, from the hidden courtyards to the award-winning “Bosco Verticale.”
This presentation will encourage your love of Milan and help you discover what is the basis of its place in the panorama of the great European and world cities.
Topics:
History of Milan;
Milan’s evolution: from the Lombard capital to a world-famous city
Monuments and places of interest
Milan of the Milanese.
EVENT DETAILS
The evening will begin with food and conversation at 6:30. There is no cost for the meeting, but you are encouraged to bring along an antipasto, dolce or vino to share. The presentation which will be in Italian will start at 7:30.
The meeting will take place in the Parish Social Hall at St. Patrick’s Church, 815 East Edgar Street, on the North side of Capitol Hill.
Parking is available in St. Patrick’s parking lot, off of E. Edgar street. The meetings take place in the Parish Hall, located in the basement of the church and is entered on the West side of the church from the parking lot.
To reach St Patrick’s from the North, follow I-5 S. Take exit 168A for Boylston Ave toward Roanoke St. Merge onto Boylston, turn left at light onto E Roanoke St. Turn left at the first cross street onto Harvard Ave E. and then take the first right onto E. Edgar Street.
To reach St. Patrick’s from the South, follow I-5 N. Take exit 168A for Lakeview Blvd E. Turn left onto Lakeview Blvd E, and continue onto Boylston Ave E. Turn right at the light onto E Roanoke St. Turn left at the first cross street onto Harvard Ave. E. and then take the first right onto E. Edgar Street..
Feel free to come early to help set up the room and start visiting. And, in any case, please come.
MAKE YOUR RESERVATION FOR THE NEXT ENGLISH MEETING of the 2019-2020 PROGRAM YEAR THIS COMING WEDNESDAY, NOV 13
at St. Patrick’s Church – Social Hall, 815 E Edgar Street, Seattle
Our November presenter is Chris Kelly who will speak about his book on Italian military exploits throughout the ages, Italy Invades.
Italy Invades is an action packed history of Italy’s military involvements throughout the ancient and modern worlds. From the empire building of the Romans, through the globe-spanning Age of Exploration, to the multinational cooperation of NATO, Italy has conquered and explored countries as diverse and far-ranging as Cape Verde and Mongolia and Uruguay. With the additional guide of maps and photographs, the reader can visually follow the Italians as they conquer the world.
Christopher Kelly, the former chairman of Chyron Corporation, has had a lifelong passion for military history. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Kelly is Italian by marriage. He lives in London and Seattle, when he is not invading new cities to promote his published works.
DINNER RESERVATIONS
If you plan to come for the dinner at 6:30 pm as well as for the presentation at 7:30 pm, please make your reservation by 5:00 pm Monday November 11 by:
clicking on the DINNER RESERVATION button at the end of this email or,
calling our Reservation Line at our NEW number, (206) 289-0419 or
emailing your request to our NEW reservation email, reserve.
Let us know how many are in your party. This will help our volunteer cooks know how much pasta to prepare.
There is no cost for the meeting, but you are encouraged to bring along an antipasto, dolce or vino to share.
MEETING LOCATION
The meeting as usual will be in the Parish Social Hall at St. Patrick’s Church, 815 E Edgar St., Seattle.
To reach St. Patrick’s from the North, follow I-5 S. Take exit 168A for Boylston Ave toward Roanoke St. Merge onto Boylston, turn left at light onto E Roanoke St. Turn left at the first cross street onto Harvard Ave E.
To reach St. Patrick’s from the South, follow I-5 N. Take exit 168A for Lakeview Blvd E. Turn left onto Lakeview Blvd E, and continue onto Boylston Ave E. Turn right at the light onto E Roanoke St. Turn left at the first cross street onto Harvard Ave E.
The parking lot will be on your right off Harvard. And the stairway down to the door to the Social Hall is located at the parking lot level in back of the Church, off the parking lot.
Feel free to come early to help set up and start visiting. And, in any case, please come.
OTHER EVENTS
SIFF’s Cinema Italian Style is currently showing until Thursday, November 14. Here’s a link to their website for more information: https://www.siff.net/year-round-cinema/film-festivals/cinema-italian-style This is a great opportunity to see some of the latest and best of Italian Cinema. Dante is once again this year a sponsor of the festival. I hope to see many of you there.
And a reminder that Dante has joined with Il Punto to present a special event on Milano on Wednesday, November 20 at St. Patrick’s Social Hall. Federica Gabardi, whom many of you may remember as a former Dante Language School instructor, will be the guest speaker. Federica is a Milan native and a Women’s Empowerment Expert. The presentation will be in Italian.
A presto –
Dan DeMatteis,
President, Dante Alighieri Society of Washington
Giuseppe Tassone moved to Seattle from Italy in 1993. He has been the director of the Italian Language Program of the Dante Alighieri Society of Washington since 1998 and the PLIDA coordinator since 2011. He is a language educator, coordinator, and advocate of Italian language and culture. He has a background in economics and finance (B.A. in Economics), but chooses to specialize in Italian language and culture (M.A. in Italian Studies). He has 20+ years of experience teaching, developing curricula, coordinating, testing, and assessing in public and non-profit organizations (e.g. Seattle University, University of Washington, Shoreline College). Giuseppe reviewed and/or contributed to several Italian language textbooks, such as Da Capo, Oggi in Italia, Avanti, Piazza and Sentieri. He is the author of Ricordati di me, Buongiorno Notte – Italian Films Series by Edizioni Farinelli and Un buonAffare – Italian for Business by Hackett Publishing Company available in print (2016) and e-book (2019). Giuseppe teaches at Seattle University and heads the Italian Section in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures. Personal interests are: reading, traveling, cinema, economics, politics, playing and listening to music, swimming, biking, gardening and cooking.
Roberta was born in Salerno a city located in the region of Campania in Southern Italy where in the ninth century flourished the renowned Schola Medica Salernitana; the forerunner of the modern university medical schools. She holds a Master’s Degree in Economics and Management for Arts, Culture, Media and Entertainment from the Luigi Bocconi University, and a Master’s Degree in Piano from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music in Milan. Roberta has been working in the field of arts management since 2008. She has served as a project manager, fundraiser and arts administrator in high-profile nonprofit organizations and music festivals in Italy. She has taught music and Italian language in middle schools, and has held lectures in performing arts management as a teaching assistant at the University of Milan and at the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala. She has performed many solo and chamber music recitals across Italy. She loves classical music, visual arts, reading, traveling, hiking and of course teaching Italian.
Giorgio is a native Italian who grew up in the outskirts of Milan. He holds various university degrees including a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He works on engineering research and development projects in the fields of aircraft performance and commercial aviation. He became passionate about teaching and sharing his knowledge of Italy in response to the welcoming and inspiring interest in the Italian language and culture he witnessed and experienced while living in the United States. Throughout the years, Giorgio has taught Italian courses as well as privately tutored business professionals and students from various age groups.
In his free time, Giorgio enjoys photography, hiking, history and mathematics, museums and fine arts, theatre performances, and traveling.
Gabriella Vagnoli was born in Pisa, Tuscany, home of the famous Leaning Tower. She grew up in a multicultural family thanks to her Brazilian mom and remembers teaching Italian for the first time as a child to her Brazilian cousins. She obtained a Laurea in English and Spanish Language and Literature at the Università degli Studi di Pisa and during her college years spent a year in the University of Reading, UK, studying mainly the works of Shakespeare. After obtaining a Certificate as a Teacher of Italian (DITALS II) at the Università per Stranieri di Siena, she has taught in a full immersion school in Florence, a children's full immersion program in Chicago and a Community College in Illinois.
Besides teaching Italian, she has obtained a BFA in Illustration at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and is a published children's book illustrator.
Tiziana was born and raised in Sardinia, a beautiful Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. She has always been passionate about foreign languages and cultures, and studied French and German at the Scuola Superiore Interpreti e Traduttori in Milan, where she obtained her first Foreign Languages and Interpreter BA degree. She then pursued her MA in English and German Language and Literature at IULM, one of the most prestigious universities in Milan, Italy for Language and Communication studies.
Tiziana moved to the US in 2000 and started working in the software industry, where she applied her linguistic skills and cultural knowledge to localization and testing projects. She also took on various leadership roles and managed teams of linguists and testers across different countries and time zones. Tiziana is passionate about teaching Italian and sharing her insights into the Italian culture and lifestyle. She has taught from beginner to advanced Italian courses for the most prestigious schools in the Pacific Northwest: The Dante Alighieri Society, Seattle Language Academy and Bellevue College. She also privately tutors American business professionals who want to learn or improve their Italian. She is currently working on her Spanish, as she enjoys learning new languages and cultures.
In her free time, Tiziana likes to read, hike. cook, travel, and spend time with her family and friends.
Laura was born in Palmanova, in Northern Italy, a star shaped fortress built by the Serenissima Republic of Venice to protect the territory from the invasions of the Hapsburg and the Ottoman Empires. She was raised speaking Italian, French and Friulano (her native Northern Italian dialect). Laura received a Laurea in Linguistics from the Università di Udine where she specialized in Spanish and English literature. Since then she has lived and worked in Holland, Switzerland, Spain, England, America, and Italy. In addition to teaching in our program, Laura is authorized to cover the role of intervistatrice in our PLIDA Examination Board.
Francesca is an Italian native, born in Cremona, northern Italy. She holds a laurea in Biology from the University of Padua and Masters of Biology from Eastern Michigan University. She left Italy in 1994 and has lived in New Zealand and the United States. She has a passion for teaching her native language, as a way of maintaining and exploring the Italian language and culture with different eyes. She has taught privately and in many institutions to students of different proficiency levels groups. Francesca is interested in literature, art and design, and in her free time, she likes reading, cooking, and making ceramics.
Damiano is a native of a small countryside town in Northern Italy, about 17 miles away from Padua, a city famous among other things for its university, the fifth-oldest surviving in the world. He received his B.A. and M.A. Cum Laude in Japanese language and culture from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, while specializing in linguistics and translation. He lived in Japan for three and a half years, where he continued his studies and his sociolinguistic research on (im)politeness in language. While in Japan, he also started working as an Italian teacher, discovering his passion for conveying the beauty of the Italian language and culture abroad.
Nicla is a native of Napoli, Italy. She has a Laurea in Materie Letterarie (degree in humanities) and a Laurea in Pedagogia (degree in Education) from the Università degli Studi di Cassino. She earned her M.A in Italian and her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. She has published articles and book chapters on gender and theater as well as politics and religion in Counter-Reformation Italy and in the last years, has been teaching Italian literature, language, and culture in different institutions. In addition to teaching in our program, Nicla is authorized to cover the role of esaminatrice and intervistatrice in our PLIDA Examination Board.
Gabriella Vagnoli was born in Pisa, Tuscany, home of the famous Leaning Tower. She grew up in a multicultural family thanks to her Brazilian mom and remembers teaching Italian for the first time as a child to her Brazilian cousins. She obtained a Laurea in English and Spanish Language and Literature at the Università degli Studi di Pisa and during her college years spent a year in the University of Reading, UK, studying mainly the works of Shakespeare. After obtaining a Certificate as a Teacher of Italian (DITALS II) at the Università per Stranieri di Siena, she has taught in a full immersion school in Florence, a children's full immersion program in Chicago and a Community College in Illinois.
Tiziana was born and raised in Sardinia, a beautiful Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. She has always been passionate about foreign languages and cultures, and studied French and German at the Scuola Superiore Interpreti e Traduttori in Milan, where she obtained her first Foreign Languages and Interpreter BA degree. She then pursued her MA in English and German Language and Literature at IULM, one of the most prestigious universities in Milan, Italy for Language and Communication studies.
Nicla is a native of Napoli, Italy. She has a Laurea in Materie Letterarie (degree in humanities) and a Laurea in Pedagogia (degree in Education) from the Università degli Studi di Cassino. She earned her M.A in Italian and her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. She has published articles and book chapters on gender and theater as well as politics and religion in Counter-Reformation Italy and in the last years, has been teaching Italian literature, language, and culture in different institutions. In addition to teaching in our program, Nicla is authorized to cover the role of esaminatrice and intervistatrice in our PLIDA Examination Board.