I began looking for food topics to post about for today, and ended up buying this book. I wanted something about food traditions surrounding the Feast of Santa Lucia, December 13. In our family, our oldest daughter, starting when she was nine or ten, dressed in white with a crown of candles (battery operated!) and delivered freshly baked Orange Danish rolls to us in bed. We usually thought of the celebration through the lens of my husband’s Scandinavian roots. But she was, after all, a Sicilian girl.

I’m looking forward to cooking my way through Carol Field’s beautiful book of Italian festivals and their foods, and you are sure to hear more about them as I go along!

To allow you time for your Christmas preparations, I’m keeping this short. Enjoy the journey through Advent, to Christmas.