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AUGUST 2021

 

President’s Message

Dear Bothers and Sisters:

Hope this newsletter finds everyone healthy, happy, and ready to help with our Festa Italiana this year.

For those who have already picked up your raffle tickets to sell, I thank you. Anyone who wishes to pick up the raffle ticket books may pick them up at my office Monday through Wednesday from 10 am to 4 pm. Anyone wishing for me to mail them books of tickets, please call me at 850-450-1013 or you may text me your name and address to my phone and tell me how many books of 8 tickets you wish to sell. Tickets are selling one ticket for $5, 3 tickets for $10 or the best savings 1 book of 8 tickets for $20. That is $20 per book savings. There will only be 2000 tickets sold. Grand Prize is $1000 donated by Professional Hearing Aid Center; 2nd Prize $500-donated by Buona Fortuna and 3rd Prize donated by Dr. Mark DeNunzio and Ginny Barberi. Thank you to all the Sponsors for the ticket prizes.

Our next planning Festa meeting will be August 8 at 2 PM at Ginny Barberi‘s home. Please bring a dish to share. See you there.

Many Buona Fortuna members enjoyed our outing at the Wahoo baseball game on July 14. We wore our red Sons of Italy t-shirts and attracted a lot of attention. You may even see a new young couple at our next meeting who want to become members. If you see them, please feel free to speak Italian to them. .

Our next dining out will be August 17, 2021, Tuesday, at Lillo’s Tuscan Grille, 51 Gulf Breeze Parkway Gulf Breeze, Florida.

If you wish to attend, please contact Tom Cacciatore

Wishing you a sunshiny summer with lots of fun.

Cordialmente,
President Patricia Russo

Buona Fortuna Lodge

Membership Information

Our next General Membership Meeting will be on Thursday, August 12, 2021, at 6 pm. It will be held in-person at St. Joseph’s Parish Center located at 140 W. Government St, Pensacola and visually through the Zoom video conferencing program. The Zoom link will be emailed to the membership the day before the meeting. A business meeting will follow at 7 PM.

2021 lodge dues 

Lodge dues are $45 per member for a year.
If you pay by check, please make the check payable to Buona Fortuna Lodger *2835.

Mail a check to
Sons & Daughters of Italy in America – Buona Fortuna Lodge #2835.
P.O. Box 12351, Pensacola, FL 32591.

Advertise in the Newsletter

The Newsletter Ad subscription cost is $36.00. See below under Newsletter Ads for more information. All current ads are up for renewal. Please send a check for $36 made out to Buona Fortuna Lodge and mailed to  Buona Fortuna Lodge #2835. P.O. Box 12351, Pensacola, FL 32591.

Council Meetings

Grand Lodge

The Grand Lodge’s website: https://osiaflorida.org/

Here is the link to the Grand Lodge’s Quarterly Newsletter. Click on the name The Floridian. 

The July issue has a section devoted to Buona Fortuna Events.

Charities

If you have a charity that you would like supported by Buona Fortuna, please contact the charity chairperson, Shayla Kaestle, buonafortunafinancialsecretary@gmail.com. The 2021 charity requests must be sent to the committee by August 15.

Lodge Committees

The current list of committees is located on the Buona Fortuna Officers page on our website. Here is the link: 

https://soibuonafortuna.org/home/buona-fortuna-officers/

Buona Fortuna needs your participation. If you would like to join a committee, please contact President Russo.

Our Italian American Heritage

Many Italians came to the U United States from the Southern regions of Italy: Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, and Sicily. A smaller number came from Abruzzo, Marche and Molise. Over the next few months, I plan to feature these regions in the newsletter to add to our understanding of our ancestor’s culture and history.

Sicilia-Sicily
Many Italians came to the U United States from the Southern regions of Italy: Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, and Sicily. A smaller number came from Abruzzo, Marche and Molise. Over the next few months, I plan to feature these regions in the newsletter to add to our understanding of our ancestor’s culture and history.Mainland Sicilia is the largest island in the Mediterranean and Italy’s southernmost region. Famous for its blue skies and mild winter climate, Sicilia is also home to Mount Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano. This fertile land was settled by the Siculi, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, Normans, Spaniards and Bourbons among others and the remnants of these cultures cover the entire island, from the temples of Agrigento to the priceless mosaics of Piazza Armerina and the ancient capital of Siracusa. Smaller islands, such as the Aeolian, Aegadian and Pelagian chains, as well as Pantelleria, just 90 miles off of the African coast, are also part of Sicilia, offering superb beaches.

Significant Historical Influences

Because Sicily is at a strategic point in the Mediterranean, on a route where east meets west, it’s not surprising that everyone wanted a piece of this fertile land. Yet to understand Sicily’s complex history, you have to understand the many peoples, who have come and gone from the island, and their legacies that are still embedded in the culture, the architecture and the language. Colonized by the Phoenicians and the Greeks and fought over in the Punic Wars, its architectural and artistic remains bear witness to its past grandeur found in the great Greek temples and Roman mosaics located in the Piazza Armerina. The Byzantine influence in Sicily begins with the capture of the island from the Ostrogoths in 535. The clash between the pope and the Byzantine emperor prompted the emperor to give the Patriarch of Constantinople jurisdiction over Sicily, removing it from papal rule. As a result a large number of Greeks moved there from the Balkans to flee from invasions by the Slavs. It was largely Byzantine in culture by the 9th. century, when a new threat emerged. In 827 the Arab peoples began arriving from North Africa, in what amounted to a slow conquest of the island.

The last Byzantine stronghold fell to the Arabs in AD 965, beginning a century of Muslim rule. Arabs settled in large numbers and many Christians converted to Islam. Sicily on the 11th. The century was a mixed community of Arab Muslims and Greek Christians, when a third element arrived in a new wave of conquest. The newcomers were Latin Christians. The pope in 1059, wishing to recover Sicily, granted feudal rights over the island to the Normans. One of them, Roger I, the first Norman count of Sicily, completed the conquest of the island in 1091 and set a pattern which characterized Sicily for more than a century. Roger I brought Christianity to the island, but he also encouraged the Greeks and Muslims to continue to live in Sicilian towns and he employed them in his army. The complexity of this culture is evident in the fact that the Normans issued their official documents in three languages – Latin, Greek and Arabic. The small palace chapel in Palermo, with its walls covered in bright pictorial mosaics, is one of the most exquisite buildings of the Middle Ages. Known as the Capella Palatina (Latin for ‘palace chapel’), it was begun in 1132 and completed around 1189. The mosaics are in the Greek tradition, created by craftsmen from Constantinople. Round the walls are sequences of scenes from the Old Testament and scenes from the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The roof of the Cappella Palatina, by contrast, is unlike anything in a Byzantine church. Constructed in vaulted wood and carved and painted in intricate patterns, it would seem at home in a pavilion of a Muslim palace or in a covered section of a mosque. The sturdy round arches supporting the walls are from yet another tradition – that of European Romanesque. Classical pillars inherited from an earlier period of Sicily’s rich history, complete the influences seen in this building. Sicily endured numerous rulers and ruling countries during the centuries that followed and in 1282 the Sicilians revolted against the Anjou French in the dramatic episode, known as the Sicilian Vespers, and ceded sovereignty to Peter III, King of Aragon [Spain]. In 1442 Alphonso V of Aragon reunited the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples.

In 1738 the Treaty of Utrecht lead to the New Kingdom of Two Sicilies and in 1860 Garibaldi lead forces from the Kingdom of Savoy and conquered the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, creating the Kingdom of Italy, the first unitary government of Sicily and the Italian peninsula since the Roman Empire. 1860 was not the end of Sicily’s troubles, however. In the late 19th. century northern Italy was rapidly industrializing, while the south remained agricultural. Sicily in particular lost its population to the north and in the 1890s massive emigration to America began. Industrial growth was slow in Sicily, with the main non-agricultural activity being sulfur mining. In 1901 there were violent clashes between striking workers and police and in 1920 there was a full-blown farmers’ rebellion against landowners, in which kidnapping was first used as a political tool. The Mafia emerged as a major force in these years, being used to break up workers’ organizations and to assassinate state officials.

The Christian Democrat party was founded in Sicily. Socialist uprisings shutdown Milan and Turin in 1920 and in 1922 Benito Mussolini’s Fascists seized the government in a coup. Political repression was the norm and in 1930 Mussolini sent a special prefect to try to stamp out the Mafia, who were helping Sicilian landowners fight the Fascists. Some of the Mafiosi (including the notorious Lucky Luciano) emigrated to America; those who stayed became the main anti-Fascist group in Italy. Sicily was the bane of Mussolini’s existence. Sicily suffered badly during the war. In July 1943 US forces landed in western Sicily and the British and Canadians landed in eastern Sicily. Many hard battles were fought and a number of cities were bombed. Postwar Sicily remained very troubled. Sicilian separatists waged an armed rebellion against Rome in 1944-46. Bandits, police and Mafiosi fought battles and also switched sides in complicated double-crosses, but all three generally united to suppress Communists, labor organizers and peasant cooperatives.

The Truman Doctrine, an American commitment to helping democratic European governments rebuild and fight Communism, led to very flawed outcomes. Most historians think that by 1950 a covert alliance had formed between the Christian Democrats, the police and the Mafia, with American approval, in which, preventing land reform in Sicily, was the price of keeping the Communists out of power. Even in the late 20th. century and early 21st. century, the Mafia is a strong influence on the island, in spite of a campaign against it, by the leaders in power in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Modern Sicilians are a complex group who, dispossessed for centuries, now find themselves custodians of the cultural monuments of their oppressors and their history. The visitor to Sicily senses a resurgence of interest and pride in their past and the beauty and richness of their island and. with visitors all year round, it provides the locals with a source of sustainable economic income.

Tour Sicily with the famous English baker, Paul Hollywood.

This is a delicious and very entertaining tour of Sicily’s food culture and history. After you watch this video you will want to make the bread below.

SICILIAN SAUSAGE BREAD {Scaccia}

 

For the dough:
1 1/3 cups warm water
1 package dry yeast (7 grams or 2 1/4 tsp)
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cups durum wheat semolina flour
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp granulated sugar
For the filling:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions, thinly sliced
1 pound (450 grams) mild Italian sausage, casing removed

Directions
To prepare the dough:
In a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the warm water and yeast. Let stand for about 10 minutes.
Add olive oil, salt, sugar and flour. Mix by hand until a dough is formed. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.
If using a stand mixer, use the dough hook to mix the ingredients on low speed for 1 minute. Increase to medium speed and knead for 7 minutes.
Transfer dough to a large bowl lightly coated with olive oil and turn it once to coat both sides with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.

For the filling:
While the dough is rising, prepare onions and sausage. In a large skillet on medium heat, sauté the onions in olive oil until golden, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and let cool.
In the same skillet, brown the sausage until it is no longer pink. Transfer to a bowl and let cool.
Preheat the oven to 400F and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.

To assemble:
Once the dough has risen, transfer it to a well floured counter top. Begin flattening the dough using the tips of your fingers to stretch it out. Next, use a rolling pin to roll out the dough into approximately a 24″x 16″ rectangle.
Evenly spread out the onions on the dough, followed by the sausage.
Roll the dough in a jelly roll fashion beginning with the long end closest to you.
Transfer the rolled dough on the parchment covered baking sheet. Connect both ends to form a circle. Cut a few slits on the top and let rest, covered, for 1 hour.
Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven to 350F and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden. Let cool for about 15 minutes before cutting into wedges.

Buona Fortuna 2835 Lodge Officers

Guard Shirley Cotita

Mistress of Ceremonies Liberia Reid

Master of Ceremonies Andy Fricano

Corresponding Secretary Jovina Coughlin

Past Presidents Gene Valentino, Mark De Nunzio, Pete Resedean, Joyce Russo Bollenbacher

Herald  Tod Wilson

Public Relations/Webmaster/Newsletter Editor: Jovina Coughlin

Lodge Chaplain  Tom Cacciatore

Lodge Photographers: Thomas Cacciatore/Shirley Cotita

State & National Officers

Lodge Contact Information:

Sons & Daughters of Italy in America – Buona Fortuna Lodge #2835. P.O. Box 12351, Pensacola, FL 32591.

Corresponding Secretary/Webmaster/Editor – Jovina Coughlin.  jovinacoughlin@gmail.com

Website Address: https://soibuonafortuna.org/

Visit Us on

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/sonsofitalybuonafortuna 

Remember Those Who Are Ill

• Vera Fricano
• Joyce Bollenbacher
• Marsha Mirra
• Giovanni Mirra

Birthdays

Lou Brizzi
Carmen Ciardello
Jovina Coughlin
Andy Fricano
Dina Linn
Elena Loftus
Tami Pecora

Italian Cookbook For Sale

Preserving Our Italian Heritage. Cost per book $15.00. Great gift for Birthdays, Weddings, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter, and Christmas. 

Grand Lodge 2021 Calendar For Sale

Calendars are available to purchase and the program is part of the Cash Three-Evening Florida Lottery Program. Prizes range from $100.00 to Special Holiday prizes for up to $1000.00.  You may purchase a calendar at the General Membership Meeting. Checks should be made out to the Grand Lodge of Florida for $50. Or mail to Buona Fortuna Lodge #2835. P.O. Box 12351, Pensacola, FL 32591. Attention: Patti Russo.

Newsletter Article Deadline

The newsletter is published monthly on the first day of the month. The deadline to submit information is the 30th of the previous month. Submit all information to Editor:  jovinacoughlin@gmail.com

Newsletter Ads

Members’ Personal Ads for Selling Consumer Goods cost $3.00 per month. Business Ads cost $36.00 for 12 months and are payable each January. Email a copy of your business card information or your personal ad information and a photo of the item you are selling to  jovinacoughlin@gmail.com . Please make the check payable to Buona Fortuna Lodge and mail it to Buona Fortuna Lodge #2835. P.O. Box 12351, Pensacola, FL 32591.

Community Business Ads