Events
When: Wednesday, May 22 – 6:30 p.m.
Where: I AM Books – 124 Salem St, Boston MA 02113 (Register Here)
In her new cookbook, Italian Snacking: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Every Hour of the Day, chef, author and culinary influencer Anna Francese Gass invites food lovers and home cooks on a delectable journey through the heart of Italy, exploring the rich tapestry of flavors that define Italian snacking culture.
Combining simplicity and creativity, at its best, Italian cuisine charms us through a combination of the highest-quality ingredients, simple recipes tied to the specialties of each region, and the experience of being at the table.
Order the book here!
When: Monday, June 10 – 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. (Book signing)
Where: I AM Books, 124 Salem Street, Boston MA 02113 (Register Here)
Kacie is an American travel content creator living in Florence, Italy with an audience of 2 million+ across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. She shot to popularity through her authentic, humorous, and honest report of life abroad after leaving her life as a pro dancer in NYC to move to Italy, where she began covering everything from travel fails and homesickness to the joy of endless culture shocks.
You Deserve Good Gelato is a refreshingly honest, heart-warming, and captivating take on navigating a new life abroad that offers readers a flavorful glimpse into a life of change, cultural exploration, and the pursuit of joy. Kacie reflects on the pure terror of driving on Italian roads, the trials of speaking a new language, and the genuine beauty of a slower pace of life, all with humor and heart. By sharing her personal stories of life under the Tuscan sun, Kacie explains how travel is a privilege, why cultural differences are the coolest things in the world, and how there’s a positive you can take away from literally any situation. Travel meets narrative in this book that confirms the belief everyone deserves a taste of the good gelato that life has to offer.
When: Wednesday, June 12 – 4 p.m.
Where: I AM Books, 124 Salem St., Boston MA 02113 (Register Here)
Wayne Kalayjian is a civil and structural engineer who has designed and built all kinds of buildings, bridges, and tunnels around the world. Of them all, his most memorable was moving an historic lighthouse to safety and away from its precarious perch on Cape Cod National Seashore. He has a special attachment to Boston’s historic North End, too, where as project manager during the Big Dig he led the effort to preserve and protect its many distinctive neighborhoods. In his book, Saving Michelangelo’s Dome, Wayne has tried to create a similar sense of daring, drama, and uncertainty – as well as a colorful cast of characters – which to him make the world of construction so compelling.
When: Saturday, June 15, 2024 – 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: I AM Books, 124 Salem St, Boston MA 02113 (Register Here)
Italianità: Contemporary Art Inspired by the Italian Immigrant Experience is an anthology of the art and writing of 59 artists, most the children or grandchildren of people who escaped the poverty of the Mezzogiorno to make new lives for themselves here in l’ameriga. ”We carry the history of our families and our culture in our psyches as well as our genes,” says B. Amore, one of this event’s four speakers, all of whom call the Boston area home.
B. Amore researched seven generations of her family, culminating in a monumental exhibition of sculpture, collage, and artifacts at the Ellis Island Museum in 2020. Lifeline, Filo della Vita: An Italian American Odyssey, traveled to Boston, San Francisco, Rome, and finally to Napoli where her family’s journey began. She continues to exhibit.
Joe Cultrera tells stories through film. Over the decades he has brought us into his hometown of Salem with stories about the decline of factory life and the commercialization of the city’s witch history. Hand of God, which was featured on PBS’s Frontline,documents the effect on his close-knit family of sexual abuse by clergy in his own parish.
Joanne Mattera is a widely exhibited painter (in Boston at Arden Gallery) who brings her visual art community together through word and image, whether in her Joanne Mattera Art Blog or in projects like Italianità, in which the descendants of Italian immigrants relate how culture and experience have shaped them into the artists they are today.
Charyl (Urbano) Weissbach) comes from a family of makers—a grandfather and uncles who worked in Connecticut’s metal foundries and grandmothers who imbued their handwork with a sense of Neapolitan Baroque. “Given my creative heritage,“ she says, “it’s not surprising that I pursued a creative path.”
