I've been to Italy more than a dozen times, visiting relatives on both sides of my family. My Mom's people are in Matera, Basilicata. But it's my father's people, in Lauropoli, Cosenza, who I more closely identify with because I lived there for eighteen months before I was married back in the '80s.

Many of our posters have spent a good deal of time in both Sicily and on the Italian mainland. Off the top of my head, Carmela and Sicilian Babe have both spent plenty of time in Sicily. Especially Carmela.