Running for Your Life: Radio to Finocchio

At Christmas time our family looks for one elegant gift, something to mark the year that’s past in a special way.

Most recently, there was the case of a fancy radio that I bought in Windsor, Ontario, during the mid-1980s. For years since I came to the US in late 1988, the radio was either in a box or sitting unused on a shelf in my basement workplace.

M’s radio from college finally gave out in the early 2000s, and for years we went without one.

Then, one day, I looked on a dusty shelf and considered my radio. I had thought, for some reason, that it was either broken, or just ill-suited for our home.

Then, during one recent Christmas season, I brought it up and found it worked like a charm, offering public radio news and classical music, in a way that M’s old college radio had done. It’s a glorious gift – especially during the holidays. M has said more than once that my old radio has changed her life.

This Christmas, it’s finocchio. Finocchio, as poured during special occasions with our dear friends in Puglia, is a chilled cordial made with fennel – and other homey ingredients – all true to the family recipe of our southern Italian friends.

M has made two batches, and we plan to give away little bottles of finocchio to friends and family during the holidays, with the idea that people will listen to music or news before their “radios” and toast all that is right with love and life.

Next: Running for Your Life: Where Canada Met Portugal