Perfect comfort food for a day-after-sick-day: Pasta e Fagioli, Olive Garden copycat recipe for those who'd rather pay a fraction of the cost for a whopping potful of tasty Italian zuppa, the gift that will last all. week. long. *heavenly!*

For lack of anything substantial to post on Halloween, I decided to post a rarely-been-seen image of me visiting the Italian Air Base in which my Dad was the Commander, Ghedi A.B. This photo was taken while I visited Mom & Dad and had the ABSOLUTE TIME OF MY LIFE touring around Italy, the Vatican, and throughout Europe - an experience as effervescent in my brain as trick-or-treating back in the day.

Flashing back to 1989, this precious photo displays Grandma, me, and Mom sporting "VIP" (Very Italian Person) t-shirts that we purchased at a local shop in Bradford, Pennsylvania, during the Festa Italiana. Bittersweet in so many ways, this photo captures a rare moment in time where Mom and I were able to visit Grandma before she passed to celebrate a small piece of our heritage - Grandma actually has German and French roots and I am 50% British.  But at that moment in time we were "Very Italian Persons" and nobody was going to argue with that.