Fwd: 🏠 Stay at home: this is the critical week

TF Weekly, March 17

Year XVI - March 2020 - Issue 265 View this email in your browser NEWS    EVENTS    ART+CULTURE    FOOD+WINE    LIFESTYLE    TRAVEL Stay at home: this is the critical week I am the worst of journalists. To stay mentally strong, I've been switching off to the 6pm update from Italy's Civil Protection team. The statistical nature of quarantine means that more contagions and deaths will occur (on the brighter side, more and more people will be clinically cured) before the tragedy peaks and our collective victory over this virus ensues. The Italian PM, Giuseppe Conte, made this clear in his address to the nation, when he made the unenviable call to close all non-essential businesses. But yesterday, there was a glimmer that the contagions might be beginning to slow down. And hope is what we all need right now, to reassure ourselves that the selfless sacrifice of doctors and nurses, supermarket workers and grocers, and our own resolute immobility at home, is worthwhile. If there's one positive thing to emerge from the lockdown, however, it's the outpouring of creativity and sense of community. That's why The Florentine is launching TF Together, our daily online moment to meet up and share activities and interests. It's not just webinars or learning; it's the monthly TF drop-in breakfast now held online; it's the TF Wine Club, but the cheers are virtual; it's the revival of TF Sessions, the Facebook Lives we've held in the office with local musicians. It's also a series of events and opportunities offered by Florence's creative community: please email Jane if you'd like to be involved. We're going to keep you limber, sane, cooking, reading, and so much more. Please tune in every weekday at 5pm: details and schedule here. We're going to get through this together. Helen Farrell, editor-in-chief   Please consider making a donation to our magazine to help us continue our coverage through this time of need: La Mia Italia "We will win this war. We will not give up. We will rise again, as we have always done." La Mia Italia is a film by Marco Stobbia, a young Florentine filmmaker who has chosen to express this moment of fear and hope in the medium he knows best. HOW TO HELP Ways to help Italy during the Covid-19 pandemic Here's how to help Italy and Florence during this time of unprecedented need.   Read more CLASSIFIED ADS Seeking but not finding? If English is your first language and Florence is where you live, you might find what you're looking for in our classifieds. CHECK NOW EVENTS This week's events in lockdown From musical performances inspired by the weather to a St. Patrick's Day toast, here's what we can do online during lockdown this week. Read more FOOD STAPLES Recipe: Onion soup Onions are my current obsession: I cry while chopping them, having tuned into the latest 6pm death toll, and my other half thinks I'm just preparing dinner. Read more Poem: If you give a girl a chickpea Mary Gray praises the pulse in this witty verse. Read more