Why I went to Italy & why I still go back (thank you Sir Roy)

roy strong italy

Above: Sir Roy Strong was the person who suggested I go to Italy and study Italian (image via the London Evening Standard).

Samantha’s heart-wrenching post this morning, “In the name of the father,” got me thinking of my own fatherless teenage years and a man who played a very important — however brief — role in my life, Sir Roy Strong.

People often ask me why I’ve devoted my life to the study of Italian language, history, and culture (before enogastronomy, I spent nearly more than ten years studying Italian prosody, narrative, and cinema, and lived and worked in Italy for most of that time).

The answer is Sir Roy.

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