Welcome to Grazia Space. You might be wondering what connects Italian recipes, teaching reflections, travel advice, and stories from a life that has stretched across two continents. The answer is simple: curiosity. This is a space for people who, like me, refuse to fit in just one box. I never did, and as I get older I fit even less.
I am Italian, born and raised on the beautiful Lake Garda in the Trentino region of northern Italy. My parents came from opposite ends of the country, one from the north and one from the south, which perhaps explains why I have always felt at home in more than one place. I have been living in Australia since November 1980, when what was meant to be a holiday with Paul and his family turned very quickly into a new life. That was 45 years ago. In all that time, I have been many things: a wife, a mother, a language teacher, an academic, an online educator, a cook, a writer, a traveller, now a grandmother, and someone who has always believed that the best way to learn anything is to throw yourself into it and experience it fully.
"In order to learn you must experience. With the passing of time, experience is the real teacher."
This quote has been my guiding philosophy for as long as I can remember. It is why I packed my bags on a Qantas flight all those years ago, why I sat down with Vietnamese refugees at lunchtime in an English class in 1981 and let them teach me how to eat Pho with chopsticks, why I have spent decades learning to cook dishes from all over the world in my kitchen in the New South Wales countryside. Experience is the greatest classroom there is, and after 45 years of living proof, I can tell you that one is never too old to learn anything.
So what will you find here?
Grazia Space is not a niche website. I am not here to talk about just one thing. I am here to share a life that has been genuinely varied, and I hope that some of what I have learned along the way will be useful or enjoyable or simply interesting to you.
You will find writing about Italy, because Italy is not just where I was born, it is something I carry with me everywhere. You will find recipes, because food has always been how I connect people and cultures, and because the story behind a dish is often just as nourishing as the dish itself. You will find reflections on teaching, because after a long career in education I have strong views about how people learn and what helps them flourish. And you will find stories, simply because I have always loved telling them.
Firstly, a gift to myself, and perhaps to you
Now that I am reaching the end of my formal working life, rather than sitting still, I wanted to create something that can allow me to share with others my life and experiences. Therefore this website and the blog posts are the answer to the question "so what comes next?" Not retirement in the sense of stopping, but retirement in the sense of finally having the freedom to do all the things I have always loved and wanted to do, without the timetable of work dictating when and how.
My target audience, if you want to call it that, is people like me. People who are interested in many things. People who have perhaps lived between cultures, who love learning new things, who are curious about Italy, or who love cooking and want to understand not just the recipe but the story behind it. People who believe that life is richer when you keep learning and keep your childlike curiosity alive.
If that sounds like you, then welcome. Pull up a chair, make yourself a coffee (another of my passions) or put something delicious on the stove, and stay a while. There is a great deal to explore here, and I am very glad you have found your way in.