Ciao, I’m Sommer.
I’m so glad you’re here! I’m a mamma to 3 boys and married to my amico del cuore. For as long as I can remember I have had a love for all things Italian and I was blessed to be able to live in Italy for many years.
Living in Italy deeply develops a love and beauty for the Italian culture. There is a magic about Italy that changes you. I wanted to find a way to share that magia with others and help you bring a piece of it back to wherever you call home.
Join me as we celebrate and capture the beauty of old world Italian living in everyday life: Italian cooking, home and garden inspiration, and enjoying the simplicity of la vita italiana.
Old World Italian is a place where we can come together to appreciate the beauty and slow living of Italy. After years of living in Italia, I wanted to share my experiences and love for the culture that became a part of my own—a way to have Italy at home. ™
Old World Italian began with a love for all things Italian.
In our twenties, my husband and I opened up two gelaterie. Handcrafting gelato for others and providing them with such a simple pleasure that had the opportunity to entirely change someone’s day created a deeper spark inside of us for the things of Italy. After a trip to Italy to be trained in gelato-making, we were absolutely mesmerized. The people and culture, the food, the pace, the textiles and colors, and the slow living truly changed us.
It would be years later before we really saw the full effect of that trip. After years of creating gelato each day, we sold our businesses and nearly *all* of our belongings, left our dogs behind, and moved with our little baby boys to start a new season of life in Roma. Those next 5 years would shape us in ways we couldn’t even have begun to imagine.
In many ways, our experience in the Italian culture has shaped our own family culture. If you’re someone who has truly experienced another culture, then you know what I’m talking about. You see the value that each culture possesses and learn to love the beauty that each has to offer.
Now back on the west side of “the pond,” I realize that my way of living life had changed so much while I was living abroad. I think there is a bellezza to choosing your culture with some intentionality. We do this all of the time. Even if we don’t realize it. We are setting the tone in our homes, in our offices, and in our communities. What kind of culture do you want to create? For me, I want to implement the parts of the Italian culture that helped give me a new perspective and a love for slow, intentional living.
If you’ve found your way to this little angolo on the internet, I have a feeling you might be a bit of a romantic Italophile like me. This space is where I get to share my love for the things that I came to value in Italy and share what I learned along the way.
My hope is that this space provides you with inspiration, reflection, and joy as we seek to live out la dolce vita.
