It’s a long, long way from Hawaii to Italy. Living in the land of pasta, pizza, and wine is everything you might imagine, but one thing remains true – you can take the girl out of the island but you can’t take the island out of the girl.
Rubber slippers (in Hawaiian pidgin english – rubbah slippahs) are, and have always been, my footwear of choice.
Been here since 2003. Crazy about dogs and all things to do with nature. Together with my Italian-born husband, we hope to open a farmhouse bed&breakfast in this country and truly live ‘la dolce vita’ by sharing it with others. Pastimes include gardening, cooking, baking, reading, hiking, and seeking out Italy’s countless food festivals (sagre) and cultural events.
Thank you for stopping by!
Contact: castelliclan (at) gmail (dot) com
Social 📷: @boots.on.the.grounds
Goodreads: Kobophile
Rubber Slippers In Italy 
Great to meet you, Rowena and I’m looking forward to checking out some of your recipes and reading about Italy and your dog. I smiled when I read about your orange campfire brownies, because my kids have made them at scouts and I should give them a go.
Take care & best wishes,
The Other Rowena
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Likewise Rowena! Australia, for me anyway, used to be a place where you went to see koalas, kangaroos, and to stay far away from Great White sharks. That all changed when I started watching MasterChefAU, as the show surpasses (in quality and content) any of the other knockoffs from the original, Italy included.
The orange campfire brownies by contestant Tamara Graffen were a revelation in my book. Seriously, I cannot believe that I had never heard of them before MasterChef!
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Hey Rowena! Thanks for visiting my blog! Maybe one of these days we can meet up at a street food event!
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I think that would be GREAT! Then that way I won’t feel as self-conscious about seemingly being the only one taking photos of the food (ha! I don’t really care what people might think). The next outing will hopefully be the STREEAT event at Carroponte in late May.
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Hi there, Rowena,
Just a quick note to check that everything is ok where you are… Since I don’t know exactly where you live, I am just wondering. They talk about the earthquake a lot on the news here, and I immediately had a thought for you 🙂
Hugs from Montréal 🙂
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We live in northern Italy (Lake Como area) so the earthquake didn’t affect us. Thank you for the kind thought!
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Happy to know about it!
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Ciao Rowena, thanks for visiting my blog. Your blog looks beautiful and we seem to share a number of interests. I look forward to exploring more. Salute from an Australian come Northern-Italian girl who loves her pasta, pizza and wine as well. 🙂 xo
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Thank you for visiting Miriam! It is always a pleasure to find like-minded souls from all over the world who write to put a smile on someone’s face (intentionally or non). Buona giornata!
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Molto grazie. 🙂
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Hey Rowena, it’s your cousin Laurie Kunipo. I’ll be in Italy on a girl scout trip with my daughter Isabela in late June. We’ll be visiting Rome, Florence and Venice. Would love to see you if we could.
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You live in northern Italy and have a WIRE HAIRED DACHSHUND!?!?!? :O (ok I know a lot of people have them, but I have one and I’m from the States, too, which is exciting).
Happy to (electronically) meet you!
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Aren’t they the coolest dogs? I love all doxies (who could resist that long body/short legs), but have a soft spot especially for the wire-haired because of the beard!
Nice to meet you Rachel, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to subscribe to a new blog so fast!
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Hello!! Thank you for finding my blog, nice to meet you! It’s so cool that from Hawaii you ended up living in my home country! I hope Italy is treating you well. I really miss the food sometime.
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Chalk it up to the internet and the film La Regina dei Castelli di Carta. It’s showing on the tv this week and got me started on googling Sweden, which of course, led me to your blog via the tag Dalarna. I’ve been here for over 10 years now and wouldn’t dream of living elsewhere (well, maybe Sweden and Norway now that I’ve read your posts!).
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That’s an interesting path that led you to my blog! I’ll look this fim up, now I’m curious. Speak soon!
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Hi Rowena,
I was very excited to see that someone so very far away saw and liked my blog. Thank you so much for the compliment. My mom said to tell you that while she has always had dachshunds and loves them to pieces, she hopes that yours is less of a pain in the rear than our lovely Klaus, aka The Defiant Ween. Your dogs are so cute. Oh, we are soooo envious that you live near good pizza and penne pasta. My mom said to add wine to the list too. Thanks again, Piper
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Hi Piper,
If I had known earlier what complete characters dachshunds can be, I would have gotten Mister B first and Maddie the westie second. While Mister B isn’t much of a social-type with (he bites strangers and other dogs so we must always keep him on leash and/or muzzled), at home he entertains us endlessly with his clown personality.
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We love both Kaua’i and Italy!!! We’re about halfway in between…
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Dear Rowena,
we are Expo worldrecipes Team, the global cookbook of Expo Milano 2015. Visit the portal http://worldrecipes.expo2015.org/en/ and be part of the project.
You will share you best recipes and your passion for food with chefs, media publisher, foodbloggers and association from all over the world.
Take part is very simple: register at http://community-worldrecipes.expo2015.org/en, create your profile and write in your recipes.
Expo worldrecipes will give you a unique worldwide visibility. Everyone in the world could see your contents.
Now it’s up to you! Enjoy our food-community and be part of Expo!
The Expo worldrecipes Team
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Found your blog through a yahoo link, but it seems to me that they got it wrong? Love the snippets of life in Italy (the food festivals!) and the splashes of humor in your posts. Cute dogs!
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Hi Rowena, I was trying to find another way to contact you. Are you on Facebook or Twitter? Anyway, question is, do you live in Lecco? On Lake Como, I seemed to think you did. Here is my email address, annearnott1@virginmedia.com …. anne x
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Hi Anne, you just revealed an obvious hole in this blog, and that is a way for readers to contact me directly! I can’t believe I missed that (blogger had a contact page if I remember well).
Anyway, I live in the province of Lecco but not the city itself. Lecco claims the eastern branch of Lake Como so it can get confusing between the 2 names. Now I’m off to figure out the contact settings… 🙂
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Hi Rowena, yes Blogger has a contact page , I hope that you figure something out. Ah ok , I was a bit unsure where you lived but I know Lecco was in the name, I am going to be in Lecco itself on the 3rd of September for 5 nights, going to watch the Italian Grand prix , I was hoping you were close so that we could of met up , which would of been fab. Never mind, one day maybe. take care Anne ,
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Anne I sent you an email regarding September. We live in a remote area in the moutains (I can’t even see Lecco from where we’re at). I am sorry that we can’t meet up!
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How could I have lived in Vicenza for almost 2-1/2 years and only now see your blog as we prepare to go to Bahrain! We also came from Kaua’i – 10 years there (German Hill) – our previous time on Oahu (I’m an Aiea girl).
Looking up how to get a corzetti stamps before we leave – and here you are! Will read back through your stuffs. I so want to live in this wonderful country forever!
“No cinese, uchinanchu”
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2 and half years? Been blogging longer than I thought I ever would, and it’s always nice to read a comment from anyone who has lived in or visited the islands. Good luck in finding the corzetti stamps — if anything, they make a nice conversation piece when people ask about them.
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Just discovered your blog – very interesting. Hawaii to Italia is such a huge leap…
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An emotional, enormous and crazy one at that! The initial plan was the other way around (he was to move to the islands), but 10.5 years later and here we still are.
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Hi – I just stumbled across your blog and have been having a good read back through all your old posts. It’s a really great read, and I love your photos too. I look forward to reading more!
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Thank you for stopping by and leaving a note, but you over there in the Langhe! It seems that we can never get enough of Piemonte, so I do hope to discover more of the region through your experiences.
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Aloha Rowena,
I stumbled upon your blog about a year or so ago and love to see your posts. I have dreamt of visiting Italy among many other countries and may finally get the chance to go next year. So excited but stressed. The safest bet would be for us to do an escorted tour but we also don’t want to be tied down & want to explore and be in awe. Anyways, I just wanted to finally post something instead of just visiting your page.
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Aloha Ursula,
Thank you for visiting! I can understand why you would want freedom to explore, and hope there’s a tour outfit that spends a little more time at each destination instead of city-hopping all over the country. For first-time visitors it’s a must to see Rome, Venice and Florence for the art and history alone, but those places zap a lot of energy because the experience is just….awesome. If you have any questions I would be more than happy to help if I can.
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Aloha mai e Rowena,
Been reading your blog for a couple of years…mahalo nui! A few years ago, a dear sister/friend and I traveled to Sicilia. Made our way from the gritty, energetic streets of Palermo, through the lovely sea town of Trapani and Ai Lumi (a oh-so-fabulous eatery with amazing eats!), to Porto Empledocle, Syracusa and jetting out of Catania to Roma. It was a memorable time. I hope that you can find ways to connect back home to Kaua’i too. I was just there in April after nearly 35 years. Much has changed, but much has remained the same. I now live on the East Coast, and miss Hawai’i everyday (I’m from Hilo). I know what you mean when you say that you can take the girl out of the islands, but the islands inhabit our soul…
Mahalo nui e malama pono!
~Tina
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Aloha Tina! Sicilia is certainly a fascinating place to visit even if I’ve only been there once in the decade that I’ve lived here. Your words made me want to go back there again (especially to stuff my face with freshly-made cannoli). As for Kauai, I still “check in” every 2 to 3 years since I still have family there, but it sure gets harder each time as I have never liked traveling the long distance. Hilo used to be my home as well for a few brief years after Hurricane Iniki — really miss the farmer’s market on Wed. and Sat., spending a lazy morning at Ken’s, etc. What a trip down memory lane, and thank you for stopping by!
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Hi Rowena, I’ve spotted your fantastic photo of Greengaes on Flickr. Under the CC Licence people wishing to use your photo for commercial or other purposes must attribute the work in the manner specified by you. Please could you let me know how you would like me to attribute the photo to you? Hope it’s more sunny in Italy than London today! Thank you very much for your time, Katherine
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Aloha, rubbah-slippahs! 😉 Stumbled upon your blog randomly while looking up recipes for taro. I always get excited when I find other people from Hawai’i (I’m from Windward-Oahu) living in the Mediterranean …doesn’t make me feel so alone over here! 🙂 Keep blogging, I’ll subscribe and let me know if you ever get over to Cyprus! Mahalo for the recipes!
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Island gal in Cyprus!! I met a couple of italian hawaii-o-philes here and an ex-Kona resident at a party once and that’s it. I think it would be neat if newlyweds Antonio Sabato Jr. and Cheryl Nunes (from Kauai!) would move here to Italy. You should start your own blog!
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Thanks for your blog. I enjoy the pictures a lot and also your writing style. Thank you also for letting us know about the 100 ways to celebrate Italy — great stuff. A question I have for you is can you recommend a place somewhere between Milano, Castelletto Sopra Ticino, Tirano and Verona where we can enjoy truly delicious porchetta? I know that you are an island girl – we have had Kalua pig, pig roasted in a caja china (cuban style), rotisseried whole pig , and Chinese style roast suckling pig. By the way, your ‘spam’ post was wonderful. We get an urge to make spam musubi at our house every once in a while. Fortunately, we live on the US mainland and we don’t have to drive very far to get the ingredients..
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Hapa haole, I wish there was! I’ve been led to believe that the best porchetta is in central Italy (Tuscany, Umbria, Marche) and nothing that I’ve tried up north can compare. Thank you for dropping me a note and if by chance you do stumble upon a good place for porchetta, please let me know!
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Hi I am a senior at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Colorado. For
my World Literature class we had to pick a country that we found interesting, so
I chose Italy! Since August I have been researching information about Italy’s
fun and unique culture. I thought I would read through some blogs about everyday
Italian life and as I was reading your blog I could tell you knew a lot about
the Italian culture and the personalities of the Italian people. But I have
always wondered what makes modern day Italian life so different from modern day
American life?
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Hi Joe,
Speaking solely from my corner of Italy, I wouldn’t say that things are that much different since we do have a lot of overseas influence with american movies, television shows, music and holidays (Halloween). There will always be some resistence to total modernization (hanging laundry on a line instead of owning a dryer), and choosing to keep/maintain the family car instead of buying a new one every few years, but on the whole it seems to me the most noticeable contrast is how americans do things “BIG” while Italy does it smaller.
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