Auguri a me! Oggi Un po’ di pepe compie 9 anni! Yeah me! Today Un po’ di pepe turns 9! Another bloghiversario– blog anniversary.  It is hard to believe it has already been 9 years since starting Un po’ di pepe.  Where did the time go?  It feels like only yesterday I had trouble coming up with a blog name that was not already taken. This has been an amazing, rewarding experience and I have ‘met’ so many virtual friends and even reconnected with old ones. The first thing I published was my ‘Perché questo blog/Why write a blog?’, which can be read here. My first actual post was Il Gigante, about Michelangelo’s David.

Last month, I published post #200!  To celebrate this milestone, I held a giveaway.  The names of the 10 readers who left a comment on the post Bialetti Moka were placed in a bowl and drawn by Mamma.  The 3 winning readers of my linocut print ‘Espresso per uno‘ are Daniel P, Joanne S and Anna M!  Your prints are in the mail and I hope you like them.

The actual 200th post was a link to a 90 minute zoom workshop I gave on creating a mixed media self portrait collage.  It was part of a post pandemic grant received by Accenti magazine and is now up on Youtube.  To read more about it or to participate in the activity, the link is Countering Isolation with Creativity and the post outlines the materials needed.

In 2022, I only published 13 posts, but I feel like I am finally recovering from the post pandemic writing blahs. Yipee! I was also away a lot, trying to make up for almost 3 years of no travel.  Take a peak at my adventures in Post Pandemic Travel Postcard.  I have upcoming posts about Torino, Venezia, Peggy Guggenheim, Ostia Antica, Napoli and a recipe for polpo e patate…maybe even off-topic ones on Paris and Santorini!

One of my posts was sort of a public service.  Anyone planning summer travel to Italia needs to read Beat the heat-Surviving Summer in Roma.  Prego! I only participated in the monthly ‘In my kitchen’ worldwide blog community once last year, and it was from my kitchen in Puglia.

April 25th is also La Festa della Liberazione d’Italia, the anniversary of the liberation of Italia from Fascist occupation in 1945.  Since 1946 it has been a national holiday.  Viva la libertà!

Grazie to all of you for taking the time to read, comment, send messages and especially for giving me an excuse to share my images and research and write about things that interest me!   You know….’Devo fare ricerca per il blog’ (I need to do research for my blog) is my reason to do all the things I want to do! If you have any suggestions for future posts or just want to say ‘ciao‘, leave me a comment.

Grazie a tutti i lettori di ‘Un po’ di pepe’ per continuare a leggere e per avermi dato una scusa per usare le foto che ho scattato e per scrivere di cose che mi piacciono. Ormai posso usare la scusa ‘devo fare ricerca per il blog’ per tutto quello che voglio fare. Lasciatemi un messaggio se avete delle idee per un post o se semplicemente volete dire ‘ciao’.

Un abbraccio, Cristina