Annual Columbus Day Dinner Dance!

When one thinks about the typical “Coming to America” story, it’s not hard to imagine the black and white photos

of Italians on ships crammed on deck, huddled together with their children and babies, straining for their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

Biagio Dimercurio may not have had the same experience, but in his heart his dreams were just as big. Born in the small town of Par-tinico, Sicily, the youngest son of Salvatore and Caterina Dimercurio; brother Salvatore, and sister Giuseppina. The two brothers were in-separable, the elder Salvatore always ready to help his brother with advice, or lend a helping hand. By the time Biagio saved up 350 lire to

buy his first bike, the cost had gone up to 500 lire. Seeing his brother’s disappointment, his brother Sal got a job, saved enough money and bought the shiny new bike for his kid brother.

Biagio learned early how important it was to work hard and treat people fairly. From the age of 14, Biagio ventured out from his small

You know it...as you’re flip-ping through

that Italia! magazine, you see the best recipe for lasagna ever. But you quickly dismiss the whole idea because you can’t find the ever-elusive ricotta impastata. Look no further, as Juliet’s Italian Market and Cafe in Frederick, is ready to supply you with all the tools to assure you a spot on the Next Food Network Star. From her humble beginnings in the Philippines, Juliet Kaufman has earned a spot in my heart and stomach, as an honorary Italian in the most sincerest of ways. From freshly made mozza-rella daily, to over-stocked shelves of all types of imported and freshly made Italian goods, you will be buying stuff now and figuring out what to make with it later. Can’t cook? Don’t worry, Juliet will make you the most mouth

watering sandwiches this side of Hadrian’s Wall. Don’t miss all of the frozen fresh Ital-ian dinners either. Newly arrived is really, re-ally refreshing gelato and granita. From San Marzano Tomatoes, to this season’s soon-to-

arrive crop of Panettone for Christmas, you’ll feel glad to be Italian from the inside out. Our area deserves a place like this and Juliet’s heart is really into her work. So the next time

you stock up at her market, be sure to kiss this mama on both cheeks!Juliet’s Italian Market and CafeLocation: 9 East Church Street Frederick, Maryland301-620-0077Hours:Mon-Sat 10:30am-6:30pm

Andiamo!

A Really Good Life

Shop Italian!

Biagio Dimercurio with a photo of his wife Caterina

Dan Di Mucci Lodge of Order Sons of Italy in AmericaSEP09

(continued on next page)

Our Lodge’s biggest social function of the year, a celebration of our wonderful Italian heritage, is just around the corner. This is one event you do not want to miss! As you arrive, you will be greeted by the wonderful sounds of familiar Italian favorites with Jim Phillips on his accorgon. Feast on a fabulous prime rib and salmon buffet. Enjoy hear-ing a native, contemporary Italian, Mila Milesi, speak on today’s Italy. Also present will be one of our former scholarship winner, Angela Ma-rie Porturica, who will share her experiences of her study and travel in Italy, as well as, her experiences as the reigning Queen Maria Regina of the Clarksburg Italian Heritage festival. The entertainment for your listening and dancing pleasure will be provided by the Amici Trio til midnight. We are certain you will agree that Giovanni, their lead singer and instrumentalist is a real sensational!

Please return all sold dinner / raffle ticket stubs and check to Barbara Foulois. The white ticket stubs will be used to draw for the door prizes and the green stubs are for the raffle drawings. Please return all, includ-ing any unsold tickets by October 1st. For any preferred seating, please call Anna Ciampa (304-274-2504).

Please Do Not Bring Items For Door Prizes As You Have Done In The Past. The Lodge Will Provide The Door Prizes.

If you have not done so, you still have a few days to do your part in helping the club by selling a program ad. The funds we raise from the ads go towards dinner dance expenses, charities, and the two scholar-ships we are awarding this year for $500.00 each. Our two winners are Caitlin Brimer and Ashton Vattelana. Please bring ad and money to our next meeting or contact Anna Ciampa. Deadline is Sept 30.

Andiamo Tutti Alla Festa!

Saturday, October 10, 2009 5:30pm–midnight Elks Club, Hagerstown, Md. Prime rib and seafood buffet

Remember to bring your ticket stubs for the drawing!

By John Cangemi

It may be your first time or one of many trips to Italy, but one thing’s for sure...when you decide to go, planning can be the most daunting task of the whole trip. It isn’t until you get there that you suddenly realize that you have too many activities for the paltry amount of time allotted.

I’m here to tell you, you are not alone. Rest assured that you won’t have to look at traveling to Italy as drudgery.

Taormina is the perfect blend of relaxation, exploring, eating, passeggiare, and culture. From its crystal clear, blue water, warm climate mixed with beautiful hilltop views, Taormina evokes the charm and welcoming atmo-sphere guaranteed to envelope you in a warm embrace.

One of the earliest Greek settle-ments, Taormina provided both security and proximity for trade, and immigrants to settle and start a new life. Temples and the Teatro Greco re-main as reminders of the Greeks devo-tion of faith to both God and the arts. Today Taormina remains the setting of choice as both a place to marry and to experience cultural events at the still-operating ancient theatre.

The steep 800 ft. walk up to the town centre can be a deal-breaker, but don’t worry, as the tram can take you all the way to the top for a couple euros. Once there, it’s gentle walking from pasticceria to Prada.

Joan and I spent a week in Taormina and we’d easily spend another. We arrived in Catania from a week in Ven-ice on a local jet service.

Our 45 minute bus ride went smoothly... riding with locals and enjoying seaside views to the right, and lovely mountain scenery to the left. In no time flat we were greeting our new friend, Marco, at the Hotel Condor. The elevator needed repair, so the two story ride took about two minutes...par for the course in Italy, but hey, go with the flow, right?

As we always do, we went straight for the double-doored balcony, threw back the curtains, and flung open the doors. What a view! Ah... after breathing again, we

looked around the immediate area and discovered beau-tiful lime trees almost within reach, and richly painted houses dotting the hillside. I wondered if someone else in another home was looking at us thinking the same.

Our immediate need was to totally immerse ourselves into the...SEA! We quickly got our stuff together, rode down to the main coastal road, and descended the remaining steps to the pebbly shore. Kawabunga!! I yelled as I heaved my overworked, overfed, under-worked-out body into that gloriously salty sea! It didn’t take long to discover that, like actors in a well choreographed scene, schools of anchovies dithered and danced merrily around as if to greet only me.

We met Salvatore, a 71 year-old retired painter, on the beach that day. Salvatore took to us with delight and invited us to his home halfway up the slopes of Mt. Etna for dinner the next eve-ning. Good idea?...oh yes, we accepted.

Sal cooked five courses, which were delicious! Our minds delighted in the stories he told of life growing up in Sicily. After several glasses of wine and more tasty treats late into the night, we stayed over, and Sal took us back the next day.

Lesson learned? Go for it! Make friends, eat, walk, swim, explore. Find a hotel online and

take your time. If you arrange to go to Italy, my recommendation is to pick one city only and stay there for two weeks. From one town it’s easy to explore the area around you. As you get to know the lo-cals, and make tourist friends you’ll meet, you will never run out of things to do. Andiamo a Taormina!

Online resource for reasonable hotel rates: www.venere.com, and; www.homeaway.com

Andiamo a Taormina!

Salvatore the retired painter grilling pesce.

Can you guess where this is? It’s a film location from Godfather I. Some day I’ll tell you how we got there.

The beautiful blue water of Taormina!

town to the big city of Palermo, and learned the secrets of building a business…for after only a few years as a shoe cobbler, he started his own shoe store, making and selling shoes in his home town.

Success meant he could now afford to support a wife and soon he would marry his sweetheart, Caterina Greco. After several years of continued success in business and marriage, the couple gave birth to two sons, Sal-vatore and Dominic.

It wasn’t long before his mother-in-law and brother-in-law who had already moved to Ameri-ca, urged the family to join them. Once settled in Ozone Park, New York, Biagio quickly found work and started the process of assimilation. He took driving lessons and English classes, two skills he felt would get him ahead in life. Since he already prac-ticed good customer relations, Biagio’s skills did not go unnoticed. A manager from American Airlines was treated exceptionally well by the gracious shoe merchant and instantly offered him a job with the airlines. He went for an interview and was hired on the spot.

Biagio was always the first to volunteer for over-time and invested his money in his children’s fu-ture. His son Salvatore is a successful plastic sur-geon and son Dominic has a masters degree and is employed by the Social Security Administration. After a long career at American, Biagio retired in the early 90’s. Since then he’s moved to Hagerstown, close to his family, and enjoys the company of his friends, especially at the Eagles lodge, and the Sons and Daughters of Italy in America. He enjoys gar-dening, watching his grandchildren, and always keeps a steady stream of coffee on hand for whom-ever comes calling.

Biagio Dimercurio’s gentle smile and calm de-meanor made him a lot of friends. While he misses his wife dearly, he is never bitter about life…he is quick to point out, “I have a good life. I have seen many places, and made a lot of friends. I have had a good life.”

Biagio’s birthplace in Partinico, Sicily

(Biago from previous page)

By John Cangemi

honoring the past

Recipe of the month

Filippo Mazzei

Palermo55/51/12

Venice43/30/10

Rome55/39/6

Milan44/25/8

Italy’s Average TemperaturesOctoberDay/Night/Rain days

Kay Corso’s Lemon Meringue PieIn Memory of Kay Corso

Ingredients (Filling)

4 jumbo eggs, at room temperature

1 scant c. sugar

4 level T. corn starch

2 c. water

1.3 c. lemon juice, fresh-squeezed,

pitted (approx. 2 lemons’ worth)

1 rounded T. grated lemon rind,

(yellow part only)

Meringue

Pinch of salt

4 egg whites

1/8 t. cream of tartar

6 T. sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Separate eggs; reserve whites for me-ringue. Beat yolks with fork. Combine sugar, corn starch, lemon juice and rind; add to eggs; mix well. Bring water to boil. Slowly add water to egg/sugar, etc. mixture, stirring constantly. Return that mixture to saucepan; bring to boil over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick and until it “sheets” the spoon. Remove mixture from heat and cover top loosely with waxed paper so the surface doesn’t become firm. Cool completely.

With mixer oh high, beat egg whites, cream of tartar and salt to-gether until very frothy and opaque. Add sugar slowly, one T. at a time, beating thoroughly after each added T. of sugar. Continue beating until still peaks form and meringue won’t fall off spatula, but don’t over beat! Pour lemon mixture into pre-baked pie crust and spread meringue over top, making sure it covers custard completely and seals to the crust all the way around. Bake for about 12 minutes until meringue is slightly browned.

September Lodge Meeting/Dinner–6pmJoin us Tuesday, September 29, at the St. Joseph’s School in Martinsburg. Your $7 will get you one delicious dinner of penne with vodka sauce, homemade bread, salad, non-alcoholic drinks, and tiramisu...all prepared by John Cangemi and the Chefettes! (Barbara and Anna).

Columbus Day Annual Dinner Dance

Prime rib and seafoof buffet, Saturday, October 105:30pm–midnightElks Club in Hagerstown, Md.

Steak FeedThe Knights of Columbus in Hagerstown is having a steak feed on September 26th. Time 6:00pm–10:00pm Cost is $15.00 12 oz. New York Strip steak, baked potato and cole slaw. Lou Scally is the D.J. Anyone interested can call Tony Dattilio 301-790-0135

Calendar

Back to the Future? No, it’s just OSIA member Victor Triolo testing out his friends collectable Delorean.

Day Year Famous Italian October dates in History2 1870 Rome made Italian capital17 1904 Bank of Italy (Bank of America) opens its doors10 1813 Giuseppe Verdi, composer, born 6 1935 Bruno Sammartino, wrestler, born27 1952 Roberto Benigni, actor, born

15 1964 Roberto Vittori, astronaut, born

Birthdays & wishes

Oops! We’re sorry, but we forgot to include two member’s birthdays in August:

August 2 - Anthony DattilioAugust 31 - Robert Dattilio

The members of the Dan Dimucci Lodge would like to extend our deepest sympathies to Paul Corso

for the loss of his wife Kay. Please remember Paul and his family in your prayers.

Got an interesting story, photo, travel tip, or recipe? Then we’d like to write about it, and take photos. Contact John Cangemi, 240-291-0741 for an interview and photos to appear in upcoming issues!

October 20091 Euro equals $1.4721 U.S.

Born: December 25, 1730 Died: March 19, 1816 Physician and a promoter of liberty.

I n 1773 he led a group of Italians who came to Virginia to introduce the cul-tivation of vineyards, olives, and other

Mediterranean fruits. Mazzei became a neigh-bor and friend of Thomas Jefferson. Mazzei and Jefferson started what became the first commercial vineyard in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They shared an interest in politics and libertarian values, and maintained an active correspondence for the rest of Mazzei’s life.

By the time he was 43, he had been an itiner-ant surgeon, a teacher of Italian, and a wine merchant, and was now intent on initiating

trade between Vir-ginia and Italy.

The great doctrine ‘All men are created equal’, incorporated into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, was paraphrased from the writing of Philip Mazzei.

After his death the remainder of his family returned to the United States at the urging of Thomas Jefferson. They settled in Massachu-setts and Virginia. Mazzei’s daughter married the nephew of John Adams.

Day Our member’s birthdays in October

4 Joseph Dattilio

4 Karen Santamaria

8 Katherine Cooker

14 Robert Vidoni

21 Judith McIntyre

22 Joseph Cordell

28 Anthony Petrucci

Scholarship Awards

This year’s scholarship winners are:Ashton Vattelana – Parents, Benito and Deborah VattelanaCaitlin Brimer – Parents, Amanda and Bruce Brimer, Grandfather, Vincent Mussolino

Congratulations!

Juliet’s Italian Market and Cafe, Juliet Kaufman9 East Church Street, Frederick, Md.301-620-0077 Hours: Mon-Sat 10:30am-6:30pm

Di Parma Spinoni Italian Dogs for Hunting, Conformation and Companions D. Katherine Cooker & Dorothy B. Davis 301-582-2788 – www.diparmaspinoni.com

Dr. Robert Cirincione, Orthopedic Surgeon 1120 Professional Court, Hagerstown, Md. 301-739-7900

Lawn Medic Tom Wenner Shepherdstown, W.V . 304-876-2494 – Cell: 304-279-4563

Masterpiece Painting & Home ImprovementsFree Estimates Insured, MHIC # 79358 Joey Sottile, Hagerstown, Md. 301-797-8238 – Cell 301-988-2290

Appraisal Associates Frank & Dodi Bradley P.O. Box 1206, Martinsburg, W.V. 304-263-1167

Moore Sheds Quality Structures, Inc. 10236B Sharpsburg Pike, Hagerstown, Md.www.mooresheds.com J. Kelly Moore, President Toll Free: 866-337-7433

Tony’s Italian Ristorante New York Pizza 14224 Pennsylvania Avenue, Hagerstown, Md. 301-739-TONY

Frank Fargo, Insurance Agent 500 Williamsport Pike, Martinsburg, W.V . 1-800-283-4915

Bank of Charles Town Martinsburg- 304-262-0089 Hedgesville- 304-754-0000 Charles Town – 304-725-8431 Kearneysville - 304-876-2563 Harpers Ferry- 304-535-6336 www.mybct.com

Broccoli Hall Antiques, Gifts, Crafts Elsa Burns 4505 Williamsport Pike, Williamsport, Md.

John Salvatore 82 W. Washington Street, Hagerstown, Md. 301-739-3600

Salvatore Di Mercurio, M.D. Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Center FREE CONSULTATION 11110 Medical Campus Road Suite 241, Hagerstown, Md. 301-714-4460

Petrucci Ice and Fruits Storage Anthony & Raymond Petrucci Route 9, Martinsburg, W.V.

Guy’s Buick, Pontiac, GMC Guy & Gary Chicchirichi Charlestown, W.V . 304-725-3448

Edward Jones® Benito Vattelana 301-733-9465 Stonehouse Square, Hagerstown, Md. Retirement (IRA, 401Ks) Estate Considerations, Education Savings, Insurance

Triolo Real Estate & Construction “From Tepees to Mansions” Victor Triolo 304-876-2985 – Cell: 304-676-2950

Sycamore Pottery Reynolds & Paela Parziale 5210 Paynes Ford Road, Kearneysville, W.V. 304-725-4251

Karen’s Kraft’s Specialty Crocheted Baby Apparel Karen J. Santamaria Designer & Creator 304-267-1455

Cecil’s Building Supply, Inc. 210 Adams Street, Martinsburg, W.V. 304-263-5442

Rosedale Funeral Home Joseph R. Spewock 917 Cemetery Road Martinsburg, WV 304-263-4922

Russo’s RX Family Pharmacy & Natural Concepts 25 N. Cannon Avenue Hagerstown, Md. 301-791-5220 Mon.–Fr. 9:00am–5:30 pm, Sat. 9:00am – 1:00pm, Closed Sun. & Holidays

Joseph B. Cordell, Lawyer 115 1/2 W King St, Martinsburg, W.V. Md: 301-745-6464, or W.V: 304-263-3377 Practicing in Maryland and West Virginia

Apple Ridge Counseling Assoc. 2914 Hedgesville Road, Martinsburg, W.V. 304-754-8495 Andrea Petrucci-Kackley, MA, LPC, NCC Licensed Professional Counselor

C & O Tile Showroom & Design Center 10226 Governor Lane Blvd., Suite 4004, Williamsport, Md. 301-223-1717 – Toll Free: 1-866-663-0567

Tina M. Mussolino Certified Public Accountant 714 Potomac Street, Hagerstown, Md. 301-714-2047 Email: tmussolino@mussolinocpa.com

Cafe’ Italia Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, Hagerstown, Md. Antonello Scotto, Proprietor 240-420-6677

Dan Di Mucci Lodge #246512628 Trinity Church DrMartinsburg, WV 21772