Buon Compleanno, Italia!

If you ask any American which is the newer country ~Italy or America~ chances are most will answer America.  Well in reality Italy is the newer country and this week marks a special birthday celebration.

While what we think of today as “Italian” culture and identity has existed for many centuries, it was only in the 19th century that, thanks to a unique combination of political, military, diplomatic and cultural achievements, the country we now call Italy came into being as a unified country. On March 17, 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, eventually becoming the Italian Republic on June 2, 1946. 

Each year on June 2, Italians recognize the creation of the Italian Republic in 1946 with La Festa della Repubblica (The Celebration of the Republic). And this year is extra special because it also marks the 150^th (Centocinquanta) celebration of the Unification of Italy.

To celebrate Italy’s birthday, we’ll have a pair of very special events this week at the Italian Club Dallas.

On Friday, June 3 during our weekly Cena we’ll celebrate Italy’s 65^th birthday with a special menu prepared from regions all over the peninsula. We’ll also have informational brochures about the unification as well as a performance by our own I Colori Italiani dancers.   Reservations for this special birthday Cena can be made here.

On Saturday, June 4^th we’ll have an even more special celebration at the Club.  In recognition of this special year, we'll welcome Consul General of Italy Fabrizio Nava, military and civic dignitaries, and other special guests at this reservations-required event.  Among the many dignitaries joining Signore Nava will the Consul Generals of several other countries. 

The evening will begin with a cocktail hour featuring special antipasti and complimentary prosecco, an elegant meal and live entertainment performances.  Consul General Nava and the Italians Living Abroad Committee (Com.It.Es.) President Vincenzo Arcobelli will give a brief presentation about the history and significance of Italian unification, and informational short films on the subject, courtesy of Com.It.Es., will play on the ICD's big screen. This will be a special evening to meet the new Consul General, Dignitaries, and out of town guests, enjoy wonderful Italian cuisine & entertainment, and raise a glass to our beloved Italia.  Again, reservations are required for this special evening and they can be made here.

We hope that you will join us for one of these two special celebrations we’re hosting to celebrate Italy’s birthday but if you can’t and would like to learn more about the history, we’ve created a special page here on our website that gives you a brief overview of the key historical figures behind the unification of Italy.  

The Truth According to Google and Yelp

Have you ever Googled yourself?  Did you like what you were able to find that floats around about you in the virtual world?  It can be pretty overwhelming to see just what you will find.  In the virtual world, everyone is capable of expressing their thoughts and opinions about everything from politics to religion to sports to people… and to restaurants.  As a restaurant, the Italian Club Dallas exposes ourselves countless times every day to the opinions and reviews of our guests.  If they have a bad experience with us, there are a lot of places they can write about it.

Now combine this with the other thing I’ve seen in my time as President.  By an overwhelming majority, people write to me or talk to me when they have had a bad experience with us versus a good one.  Its human nature and I know I do it myself.  When we are spending our hard earned dollars, we expect to be delighted and when we are disappointed with our expenditure, we want to let someone know that they fell short of our expectations.  When are expectations are met, we feel it’s what we expected anyway and when our expectations are exceeded, we’re happy but rarely do we take time to write that we are.

SO with that, I monitor everyday what is written about the Italian Club in the virtual world.  I have a series of Google alerts set up so that anytime any mention of us happens anywhere virtually, I get an alert.  If we have a problem, I want to know immediately so it can be addressed and corrected.  Recently an alert came across my email that I wanted to share.

The review below was written and posted on Yelp, which is a site where “real people write real reviews” about restaurants.  In this case the reviewer was a gentleman named Rick C.  I don’t know Rick C. and while I try to personally greet visitors every time I’m in the Club, I didn’t get the opportunity to meet him the night he was in.  Yet Rick C. took the time to write about his experience and to me it said that we are doing our job.  The verbatim text of his review is below and you can read it yourself online here on Yelp.

And to Rick C., thank you for sharing and I’m glad to know that we met your expectations.

Rick C.

Addison, TX

5/14/2011

First, I am not a big fan of Italian food, and never have been...BUT...OMG this place has made a believer out of me.  Second, they only have dinner on Wed and Fri nights.  Third, it’s a club so it not your traditional restaurant, just an FYI

Food - The food was absolutely delicious, it was the best Italian food I have ever had...hands down... from the appetizer salad, to the plate of pasta (I didn't think I even liked pasta!), to the pork chop entree..I can't pronounce half the meal they brought us but I will say, I ate everything, and I am not a big eater...the dessert was a banana custard (but with the consistency of a pumpkin pie), topped with a maraschino sauce, soaked in some kind of liquor and was served over a fresh slice of pineapple and quite literally was the best dessert I have had in the past 7 years...probably longer.

Atmosphere was a fun, festive type environment and the people were forwardly friendly. The walls are lined with pictures from Italy, they had a projector set up and were showing slides of places in Italy, they also had volunteers doing traditional Italian dances that night.

Service -This style of dining was different, then what I was used to, We arrived late ...yes you can arrive late, they start serving dinner on Fridays at 7pm, everyone experiences the same meal together, they were going to not let us in but the manager (Vito) asked the chef if they had room for 2 more, and he obliged. They sat us speedily and began to bring the courses almost immediately. Vito visited our table many times to ensure we were fully taken care and happy. And quite interesting, the chef came to our table to check to see if we liked everything.

Experience
This was one of the most unique, non-Dallas, thoroughly enjoyable dining experiences I have had in the past 7 years of living here. It’s like a big Italian family party and you were invited.  If you like Italian wines and art, delicious food, and boisterous, fun, engaging Italian hospitality, then this is the place for you. If you have Italian roots you will feel right at home.

Summary
It is as authentic as it gets here in Dallas...and most any other place I have been too. I believe its Dallas best kept Italian secret, something not to be missed if you are here in Dallas. Grab all your Italian and non-Italian friends and take them here, you won't be disappointed

Round II of the Battle is This Thursday, May 26th – Italy vs. France

This Thursday, May 26th, we’ll present the 2^nd in our series of the “Battle of the Bottles” when we pair Italian wines versus French wines, all accompanied by a great four-course meal and an educational evening.

If you’re not familiar with the series, we launched it with Italian wines versus California wines.  (Read a review of it here.)  During the evening, our guests are treated to a four-course meal prepared for the wines… and the wines are selected for the meal.  Each course is accompanied by two wines, one from Italy and one from France… but we don’t tell you which is which until the end of the evening and after you’ve scored them yourselves. 

Two wine experts, one representing Italy and the other the French, will offer a description of each wine, delineating its history, describing what flavor notes to expect as you sample it, and providing its retail availability locally.  There will also be a purchasing opportunity at the end of the evening.

The menu for “Battle of the Bottles – Italy vs. France” will be:

1^st Wine

Niçoise Salad

A medley of tuna meat, anchovies, hard boiled eggs,

olives, green beans, and tomatoes

2^nd Wine

Gnocchi alla Salvia

Fresh potato dumplings with sage sauce

3^rd Wine

Agnello ai funghi

Lamb loin with chanterelle mushrooms and rice cake (tortino di riso)

4^th Wine

Formaggi Misti

Assortment of matured cheeses, honey, jams, and preserves

The cost is $52 for members and $62 for non-members and reservations need to be made today (Tuesday) by calling Vito at the Club at (972) 931-9167.

I hope to see you on Thursday!

Taste Addison – It’s A Wrap!

Our weekend at Taste Addison is completed and quite simply it was Molto Bene!  We had a great time meeting so many new people that came by to visit us, to try out our Spiedies or to simply have a glass of Italian wine or a cold Peroni and learn more about us!  Grazie Mille to all for visiting us and Taste Addison.

From our side, it was a long but really fun weekend.  Friday started a little rough with some bad weather that came through about an hour before opening (we got evacuated for a brief time) but we rebounded quickly and had hot food ready to go within a few minutes of opening.  The crowds on Friday were smaller but they were troopers and all seemed to be having a really good time.  My personal favorites of Friday were two ladies from another of the booths who stopped by and had a Spiedie.  As soon as they took one bite, they texted their co-workers and before long, we had served most of the staff of their booth our specialty!  Thank you A#1 Air!

Chef Tommaso grilling the Spiedies

Saturday started early with Chef Tommaso at the Club by 7am cooking up Spiedies for an appearance on Fox 4 Good Day.  By noon when the gates opened it got busy and stayed that way all day and night long.  In the early afternoon Chef Tommaso had to duck out for an hour to do a cooking demonstration over in the Taste Showcase.  I personally didn’t make it over there but I heard it was a standing room only crowd.  Later in the day, within 20 minutes of each other, I had 2 people stop by who knew what Spiedies are since they came from my hometown.  Both being connoisseurs of them, they gave ours a thumbs up and thanked me with one saying “I never thought I would see the word Spiedie printed on a sign in Dallas, Texas”.  Around 5pm the concert crowds starting rolling in and it was very busy until we closed that night.

Sunday we slept in (a relative term) and after a noon opening, we took some time to feed some of the security and vendor staffs who had been working so hard behind the scenes all weekend to support all of the vendors like us at Taste.  The day was sunny and hot and the crowds were great.  We closed it at 5pm and had everything struck and back at the Club by 7pm to conclude a successful weekend.  In total, we served somewhere in the neighborhood of 500+ Spiedie sandwiches plus another couple hundred each of our Italian Sausage and Italian Meatball sandwiches.

Now before I recognize some people, I want to add one note.  The voting for the People’s Choice Award is still open at this link on Facebook.  We’re currently in 1^st place and want to hold our lead until the voting closes.  If you haven’t voted for us yet, please take a minute and do so!

OK, putting on Taste Addison took months of effort and there are two groups that I’d like to thank.  First is the Special Events group from the City of Addison and especially Barbara Kovacevich and Chris McMurtry and also to Autumn Reo from Shiroma Southwest PR … thank you - you and your teams make this and every event we do with Addison a joy for us!

Some of our volunteers at the wrap!

The second and most important group is our own volunteers from the Italian Club.  Unlike every other booth at Taste, our team was composed 100% of volunteers.  In total we had over 40 members of our Club spend anywhere from a few hours to the entire weekend working in the booth.  Without all of you, we never could have done what we did.  


My personal thanks goes out to our Taste Addison Volunteers: Chef Tommaso Lestingi, Sous Chef Edgar, Angelo Vaccaro, Barbie Gumin, Gina & Tony Corazza, Fred Hansen, Doug Delsanter, Kathy Delsanter, Bobby Brown, David & Sue Mauriello, Sue & James Robertson, Matt Dio, Lisa Newman, Semira Pacifico, Tina Neal, Ben & Dottie Parlapiano, Ken & Jan Venuso, Bonnie & John Rahne, Les Jackson, Jenna Trovalli, Sheryl Champlin, Laura Justiss, Charles Castellano, Ron Miglini, Yvonne Chaney, Anthony Massa and Diane Caneva, Rae Gene Mungioli, Karen Mungioli, Chase Newman, Joe Murphy, Nick & Toni Parigi, John Pulley and Salli Goldstein.

Working the booth with
my daughter Jenna

I know we’ll be back at Taste next year but I hope to see you at the Club long before then and again, please remember to place a vote for us for the People’s Choice Award!

Taste Addison Is Here!

It's Taste Addison weekend and we're ready for a really great event!

The new banners for our booth are in and they look beautiful, our new t-shirts are in and they're great and our new Club brochure will be ready today!  And the best part is I sampled Chef Tomasso's Chicken Spiedies yesterday and they are simply delightful!  He has mastered the recipe for them and I promise you if you try one you'll be hooked!

Now all we need is two things... you to visit us at Taste Addison and you to vote for us in Taste: the Competition!

Taste Addison starts today (May 20) and here are the hours:
Friday - 6:00pm - Midnight
Saturday - 12:00pm - Midnight
Sunday - 12:00pm - 5:00pm

When you come, visit us in booth #89 which you'll find on this map.  And if you follow us on Facebook, check us out today for a Taste Addison special offer for our Facebook followers!

If you're at the event on Saturday, Chef Tomasso will be participating in the Taste Showcase in the Addison Conference Center on Saturday at 2:00pm.  You can find his recipe for a Seafood Risotto in the Taste Addison section of our website.

See you at Taste Addison this weekend and enjoy your culinary experience!

Taste Addison - Taste: the Competition - A Follow Up

I wrote last week about Taste: the Competition that is part of Taste Addison 2011 that we are competing in and I wanted to share some more about it.

The great folks from the City of Addison and Channel Three Productions have put together a video tour of the competing restaurants and the Italian Club was featured in Episode 1.  We were featured along with some other really great restaurants in Addison and you can view our segment in the video below starting around the 6:10 mark.

The other big part of the competition is the voting for the People's Choice Award and we could use your help.  Please take a moment and click on this link and place your vote for The Italian Club of Dallas.

And finally, please come visit us at Taste Addison from May 20-22.  It's a great event that features over 60 restaurants as well as live entertainment all weekend and a lot of fun family activities.

The Five Methods of Perception - Hearing

The five methods we as human beings have of perception are: hearing, sight, touch, smell and taste.  I’m sure if you think a little on each of these you will have distinctive ones in each category in your life that you will always remember.  I was sharing a story today with a friend about one of my sounds so I thought I’d write about it.

While I have many, there are 4 distinct sounds in my life that I will always remember and I can instantly snap back to the places and times and circumstances in which they occurred so I thought I’d share them.

My first was a professional moment.  At age 20 I produced a live event for 2,000 people including the Governor of Texas. Moments before the 55-minute multi-media experience began, my client shared the story of all of the technical difficulties we had faced bringing this particular project to life.  We had pieces of equipment arriving only hours before the presentation and quite honestly, we had no idea if it was going to work or not.  When the client introduced the challenges, they introduced me as the person who had overcome them.  Although I wasn’t the one who had, I was in the spotlight and thus that first distinctive sound was that of 2,000 chairs turning on a concrete floor to turn around and see who I was.

The 2^nd was when I was on a safari in Africa.  I was blessed enough to witness a pride of lions chase and kill a buffalo which to witness first hand is a very rare occurrence.  Watching nature take its course, as the lions were taking the buffalo down as it was trying to escape them, the sound of the heavy breaths coming from the buffalo were so distinctive and the experience was so raw and harsh yet natural, it’s one that will always be with me.

The 3^rd happened in Italy, in a town named Chieti, and on my first visit to the region and cities that my family originated in.  During my stay, while enjoying a beverage in a bar, I happened across a man named Nicoli and when he found out I had come back home to explore my family history, he adopted me. Nicoli spent 2 days showing me around, calling my distant relatives to tell them I was there from America and taking me to find the foods my Grandmother made from the region.  As I was leaving, riding on a city bus down from the hilltop to the train station, Nicoli ran alongside the bus  like you would see in a movie yelling arrivederci amico mio (goodbye my friend) at me as I left town.  I can still see that sunny afternoon and Nicoli running.

The 4^th one is a funny one in that it is one that I hear repeated often at the Italian Club Dallas… the clinking of wine glasses and a very friendly “Salute”.  

I first heard this sound at my grandparent’s house as my extended Italian family would gather and toast to America and to their life here.  I now hear it often as I gather with my friends, both old and new, as we toast life.  I can probably describe to you just about every time I’ve heard it and there are many to describe!

This sound isn’t about the wine itself, it’s about the gathering of friends.  People who genuinely care for one another who are celebrating and toasting life and the blessings we have of simply being alive to enjoy it and to share it with one another.

While there are many sounds from the Italian Club Dallas that I enjoy which include the music, the conversations in Italian, the laughter we all share and the popping of the corks, it is the clinking of the glasses that to me signify what we are all about.

The Italian culture is much more than just the culture and the music and the food and the wine… it is all about the spirit and the passion for life we share which is celebrated in that moment when our glasses clink. 

If you’ve never experienced it or if you’ve forgotten what it sounds like… come visit or join us… I’m sure it will be music to your ears and to your heart!

Taste Addison - Taste: The Competition

We had a video crew in the Club today to shoot a video piece for Taste Addison and our participation in Taste: The Competition.  Chef Tomasso has been perfecting his recipe for Spiedies and as an expert on them, I can safely say he’s nailed it!

Taste: The Competition runs from May 6 – June 5 and during that time, Spiedies will be offered as one of the entrée selections as part of our daily lunch.  We’ll also be serving them in our booth at Taste Addison.  When the video becomes available, I’ll post it so you can get a look!

Once the voting opens, you can vote for our Spiedies as the People’s Choice Food either online or at the Information Booth at Taste Addison from May 20-22. 

And if you’re planning on coming to Taste Addison, Chef Tomasso will be featured in the Taste Showcase at the Addison Conference Center at 2:00pm on Saturday, May 21.  In the showcase, he will conduct a cooking lesson on making a seafood risotto. 

I encourage you to come by the Club for lunch and try out our entry or to visit us at Taste Addison for the competition, the Showcase or many of the other great activities that Addison has planned for this fun event on the weekend of May 20-22.

ICD President - Me As A Person

This one will be different… this entry is for me.

I’ve got two friends that write blogs.  One is recovering from an addiction and one is a business professional who has dedicated his life to daily acting in God’s way.  They are very different blogs to read, yet the two authors are very similar.  They are two men I respect very much who care enough and who are passionate enough to share themselves in cyberspace in the hopes that perhaps only one person will be touched by their writings.  Jon & Eric, you inspire me, so tonight I’m going to write one for me.

As the President of the Italian Club my passion is for our Club and for Italy and for all things related to the Italian culture and way of life.  And as a professional it is my responsibility to use this blog for purposes of the Italian Club Dallas.  But behind the title, there is a person, a human being, who also tries to live his life daily following God’s way and caring for all people equally.  In short, I have a passion for life and while everything surrounding the Italian Club and the Italian culture is dominant, it is only a part of me.  So allow me to one time share some of me.

I am a father of 5 wonderful children that I love dearly.  My oldest will turn 21 this year and she is completing her sophomore year at the University of Oklahoma.  My boys are 16 and 14 and they are both young men I respect and admire greatly and my two youngest are twin girls who will turn 3 later this year.  My first job in life is to try to be a role model to all of them.  I’m not always successful, but I do try to the best of my ability.

I am in a significant relationship with an incredible woman who has faced her own share of challenges in life.  She has fought through things in her life that most of us would never wish on anyone.  She inspires me with her strength to fight on each day and I love her dearly.

I am a trainer in a program called the Life Enrichment Boot Camp.  Monthly, this four-day seminar helps people shed their past anger, bitterness and resentment and find a better life and a better spiritual relationship.  Through this program I have been blessed to have been God’s instrument to touch others and I have been touched myself by many of my trainees, my fellow trainers and especially by the person that trained me.  This is my purpose.

I am a traveler... I love to explore the world and I love to experience new places and new cultures and new people.  I have made friends around the world and to me there are no strangers, only people with different backgrounds and experiences and languages, each of whom can teach me something new.

I am an Executive Producer of large, live events and some of my work has been viewed around the world and chances are pretty high you have seen some of it but that’s not really important, it is only my profession.

So what is important to me is how you look at life, which is why my strongest personal passion is for the Italian Club Dallas as well as for my children and friends.  Italians, by nature, know a life a little different than most of us in the United States do.  Italians take time to appreciate and celebrate traditions and family and the simple pleasures of life.  They take time to make friends, to get to know those friends, to share experiences with them and to feel blessed for each day they are alive.  It is something we often lose here in Dallas and through my friendships I’ve made at the ICD, I feel it daily and at each and every event we host or that I attend.

I certainly don’t want to sound preachy, that’s simply not me.  But I wanted to take just one entry in my blog and help you get to know me, the person and human being, so that if you do visit us at the club that you know you’ll be welcomed by me and by people like me with open arms and you will be in the company of a group of people who, using Italy as their common ground, share a passion for life.

I hope you have a good May 1!