Lindsay Marie Morris

As an Emmy-nominated international journalist, host, and producer, Eszter Vajda traveled the world to pursue stories and subjects. But it was actually a trip back home to Massachusetts, where the Hungary-native grew up, that led her to Sicily. 

"There are no coincidences," Eszter reflects. 

She had interviewed Merrimack Valley-based radio host Tom Zappala of The Sicilian Corner a few times, including for a story on Lawrence, Massachusetts' Feast of The Three Saints (patterned after Trecastagni, Sicily's Saints Alfio, Filadelfo, and Cirino Festival). 

One day, Tom called to see if Eszter could fill in as host for his show. The scheduled guest was Tom's brother, Alfred M. Zappala, a Northeastern Law School professor, who had just returned from Sicily.

"I really had no idea what Sicily was about," Eszter says. "We did an hour-long interview on the radio. I've always been very passionate about history, so it struck a chord with me."

 

Alfred described Sicily's important strategic location in the Mediterranean and the many peoples and cultures that passed through and influenced the island. And Eszter wanted to know more.

She invited him to appear on her TV show. The interview ended, the lights and microphone were off, and the crew was ready to go home. But Eszter and Alfred kept talking.

 

He invited her to lunch, and they began discussing a plan for Eszter to spend a month making a few videos in Sicily. 

 

Eszter arrived in Sicily in June 2014, intending to stay four weeks and produce seven videos. She ended up staying five months, and the videos took on a life of their own. The couple split time between Sicily and the U.S. while Alfred was still teaching. He retired in 2016, and they officially became island residents.

Today, you can catch Eszter and Alfred's popular video series, You, Me & Sicily!, on YouTube, sign up for one of their Sicily tours, or consult the couple for your own Sicilian vacation. Additionally, the two are deeply involved with the Sicilian Project, which raises money for academic grants to provide English-language education to students in Sicily—Alfred as Chairman of the Board and Founder, and Eszter as Public Relations & Social Media Director.

 

Eszter shared more about their work and what she ultimately hopes to give back.



Ortygia, Sicily

How do you approach capturing the essence of Sicily in your video series?

We literally zigzag the island. We've covered the island up and down. There are very few must-see places in Sicily that I haven't been to. And we don't mind going back. 

Festivals are a very important part of Sicilian culture. Every town has its own patron saint, and it's a big deal. It's multi-generational; the kids, parents, and grandparents go together. I went to the Three Saints festival in Lawrence before I went to the festival in Trecastagni. The religious feel, the excitement, the fireworks… It's very different here. So we do that, of course.

There's a lot of food and cooking because you've got to have that. Then maybe there's an event we'll cover, like an art show or music. We'd like to be very diversified.

 

Inevitably, something, like a natural disaster in Etna, happens, and we cover it. Obviously, we were doing that during COVID.

 

We do a lot with the history. We're very fortunate to be aligned with a lot of professors from the University of Catania, and we've had [retired professor of Italian and Chairman of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages at St. John's University] Gaetano Cipolla on at least a half-dozen times. So, a lot of that, sharing the history and the culture, is really just providing what we think would be good information for the people.

 

For example, we published a video about the new Italian citizenship rules because Al does dual citizenship. There were 200 comments on it. Italian citizenship is trending on Google. So we're focused on that. We stay on top of these types of things.

 

We take people to the markets and introduce them to the people, not just the produce. We feature the vineyards, and you meet the family behind the wine. We do that a lot. We feature a lot of family-run businesses. There's even a playlist. "Family-Run Businesses." That's very important. 

 

Eszter in Taormina

 

What makes your private and group tours unique?

What makes them unique is that we live here. You'll go to places we frequent. We take you to restaurants where the owners are our friends. The owners of the hotel you're staying in are our best friends. We've vetted the vineyards and have been going there for years and years.

 

We have made incredible connections. We have drivers and guides and hotels all over the island. We visit vineyards, do olive oil tastings, go to the Sicilian cart museum, and ride boats. We offer a basket of experiences.

 

For the private tours, I work one-on-one with the families multiple times to make sure that it's what the family wants. And 99.9% of the time when a family comes, it's because they want to come to Sicily and see an ancestral home. So those are some very special tours.

 

We keep our group tours very small, so they're very personalized and customized.  

 

A colorfully decorated boat in Aci Trezza

 

Tell us more about the Sicilian Project, which Alfred founded.

English as a second language is a huge problem in Sicily. Alfred wrote in one of his books (and I'm not quoting him exactly), "If someone gave me a donation, I would start some kind of an English-as-a-second-language language program that would be free for Sicilian kids." Someone who read that book called and said, "I'm going to send you a check."

 

This man, Steve Carbone, who is still a good friend of ours, sent Al a $10,000 check. And Al said, "Oh my God, I've got to do something." So he made it a 501(c)(3).

 

We've had very regular classes. We had one in Brolo, we had one in Bagheria outside of Palermo, and we have them in Canicattì, Aci Trezza, and Aci Catena. We hold these classes, and they run as sort of summer camps. We play (depending on the level of the kids), we sing songs, and have conversation.

 

When COVID hit and we had to cancel two classes, what we started doing was handing out money to the churches. So for about two years, we did that for Easter and Christmas. Some churches had more need than others. Then, we literally restarted the Sicilian Project.

 

I'm so thankful we're able to have classes now. We had four classes this past fall, and we started an adult class where Sicilian professionals who want to improve their English come and do that.

 

We just finished a class with 15 kids and six adults, and we were able to get guys from Naval Air Station Sigonella to volunteer because they have to do a number of hours of volunteering. So we had native speakers. I did class, and Alfred taught.

 

When I came here, I felt like Sicily was like a blanket. And then Sicily gave me so much beauty, food, and nourishment, emotionally and physically, that I was hellbent on being a very active member of the Sicilian Project. And not just being a board member, but actively giving back. We are very, very active. 

 

A rainbow of umbrellas floats above a street in Catania.

 

What do you hope to share through your work?

First of all, we started the show to dispel stereotypes and myths about Sicilians and educate people about Sicily's deep and wide contribution—not just to Europe but to civilization.

 

Bringing people to their ancestral home is probably one of the most gratifying things. Hearing the oohs and ahhs of people on my tours when they're out seeing something beautiful or tasting something. When you are in Sicily, it is an experience for all the senses, right? You're emotionally overwhelmed by all the senses that are stimulated. So, that's what I hope my work does. I hope it inspires and educates more than anything.

 

 

 

 

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From curating art to launching a London café and landing a spot on Gordon Ramsey's highly competitive Future Food Stars, Valentina Fois's journey is full of creative turns. Though Lele's has closed, and Valentina has since moved to Rome, the brand remains successful digitally thanks to her passion for storytelling.

I sat down with her to discuss digital marketing, her Future Food Stars experience, and her take on authenticity in building a lasting brand. Plus, check out her recipe for vegan arancini!

How did you transition from art and fashion to digital marketing?

The transition came quite naturally. I have always had a passion for technology; it has always inspired me, and I'm very curious about it. So I always find myself reading and learning, and back when I used to be a curator, I did this MA in digital technologies for the art sector, which was very much about how to introduce digital technology within the art world. It could be through social media or a different way of archiving what happened to a work of art, such as coming up with ideas and different resources and having that knowledge to study combined with all the experience I had with Lele's.

Lele's had a physical community, but it was very much digital. We had nearly 30,000 followers back then. Everything was organic. We didn't invest much in advertising because I didn't have the budget back then, so that wasn't an option. So, I think what I was doing was probably done correctly because it did resonate with people. And that told me a lot about storytelling and what it means to really craft something around a brand. That's how I work right now with my customers and clients; I think about them as unique businesses and people. They all have their own story, and that story cannot be told in the same way because of the public who wants to hear the story; the segment might not be the same, and they need to be told the story in a different way because their perception is different.

So that's something I had to learn, and it's constantly changing. You need to evolve as much as the software you use; the algorithm is constantly moving. You can't fight it and say, "That's what I learned a month ago, and I'm going to stick to it." No, you need to learn. You need to progress; you need to evolve.

This is a job that many people could do. It's not a job that requires you to be a certain genius. To work in digital marketing, you need to be very open-minded, to transform yourself daily, live in time, and, like a sponge, absorb a bit of everything. When you talk about social media, it's very reductive. Because it is so integrated into everything we do, it's not just scrolling on your phone; it's the latest music, the latest trend, politics, economics, journalists, and everything on there.

 

What's been your most successful campaign to date?

Lele's is a good example of a very successful campaign. And I think the secret was that we decided to talk spontaneously and authentically. We really opened the door through the creation and cooking processes. And people appreciated that because they felt they were invited to a real kitchen to cook with a real person with real food. I think at that time, we needed a bit of authenticity, something that wasn't sleek and glamorous but just very genuine. And especially through the COVID period, people wanted to have company and wanted to be entertained, but in a friendly way. Obviously, not every brand is the same, and every brand has a tone of voice. But for Lele's, that was the winning element: the authenticity.

 

How do you measure success?

First and foremost, I measure how much I enjoy doing something. As long as I'm doing something and benefiting from it, it's successful. I don't even care about the metrics because the minute I don't enjoy myself anymore, that's not successful to me anymore. I think they go hand in hand. When you do something with dedication and believe in it, it reflects what you do. And there is a difference, and people perceive that.

Obviously, after that, the answer will be metrics. When you're talking about social media, it will be—not so much the likes—the engagement: how many times people will share. One of the most beautiful things would be when you launch a campaign, for example, to sell some cookies online and suddenly you ship them everywhere, or people come from everywhere around London or even outside London and say, "I follow you on social media. I really wanted to try those cookies." That's obviously even nicer than the like because, yes, it's great to have likes, but if you can't convert that into leads or followers.

 

You were a contestant on Future Food Stars. How did that come about?

What happened with that is that, obviously, I was very passionate about the café and the whole philosophy and ideology of being vegan and promoting healthy living and healthy eating. We weren't preaching; we weren't telling people what to do. We were just showing that there were alternatives. That created an environment that felt genuine and friendly. So we started having lots of followers and built this community around Lele's, not only online but even offline. There was a sense of family. And because of that, the team behind Future Food Stars got to see me on social media, and then they asked me.

 

Tell us about that experience and what you learned.

On a personal level, I learned that I am a little bit less diplomatic than I believed I was. It is a wake-up call when you do something; you obviously think of yourself in a way, but just because you think about yourself doesn't mean that people perceive you that way. So I always thought I was maybe a little bit calmer, but maybe I wasn't. So that's something that I had to learn and work through. So that was good. I think it's very important that you stick to your principles and what is important to you without being aggressive and with respect.

 

I was happy when I had to stick to my beliefs on several occasions. I was the only vegan on the show, and it was really a hard time. It was very frustrating. Even when we used to have lunch or dinner, there were very few things I could eat. I was on set for two months straight and was sleep-deprived, and working schedules were very tight. It was very stressful. Sometimes, we had to shoot at three o'clock in the morning. I was not used to that.

They were very good on many different levels. I met lovely people, and the production team was amazing. They were very accommodating and very lovely. But they underestimated the catering aspect.

 

What advice would you give someone interested in digital marketing?

Understand that it's a 360-degree job. It's not just about marketing, it's not just about social media, it's about life itself. You need to be on top of everything you need to know. You cannot know everything all the time. You want to have the willingness to be informed.

Study or take a course, but at the same time, put that into practice while you study. If you don't have a client, make a client up. Invent, create an Instagram account that doesn't exist, and make that your client. You can experiment and see what works and what doesn't work. 

 

What experience do you want your customers to have?

With every customer, I ensure that I tell their story, the real story, who they are, why they got to be there, and why they're doing what they're doing. That also means the way they're doing things and why. Maybe the product, if they're selling a product, is special and different from other products. But the idea is always to create a story, a narrative around them—not a narrative based on lies but a narrative based on facts. My job is just to make this narrative sexy through graphics, video, and copywriting, but I always start from their narrative. Of course, I could build a spider web of lies, and some people do this as a strategy to sell more, but I don't believe it ever pays back. It's not the way I want to work. 

 

 

 

 

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2024 was a busy year for Rita Prisco, and for once, it wasn't just because of family life for the Queens, New York-based mom of 22-year-old triplets. Somehow, between serving up regular (and frequently viral) TikTok videos to her nearly 500,000 @cucinapalermo fans, she managed to publish not one but two cookbooks—Cucina Palermo: My Homemade Cookbook and Cucina Palermo: Savoring Sicily—and Piccola Francesca, which she envisions as the start of a children's book series.

It all began with a simple spaghetti recipe and a desire to present Sicilian cuisine authentically. She never imagined she'd be competing with professional chefs and cookbook authors. And that homemade approach has proved to be a winning formula. 

Rita shared with me her connection to Sicily, how her incredible journey started, what makes a viral recipe, her future plans, what's been most rewarding, and more. 

  

 

What is your connection to Sicily?

Both my parents are from Sicily. My father grew up in the city of Palermo. He passed away, but I have family in Balestrate, which is more of a beach area, so we would go there when I would go to Sicily. My mother's from a small town called Bisacquino, which is a couple of hours from Palermo. I also have family there still. 

Can you share more about your journey?

Like any other kids, my kids were obsessed with TikTok, but it was more of them doing the dances and all that stuff. And I saw that they were obsessed with it, and it annoyed me that every time I looked for my kids or needed them for anything, what were they doing? They were on TikTok. So I would be upset about it a bit, like, "What the hell? What's going on? You just got to get off of TikTok."

 

And they were like, "Ma, you should watch it. It's not just dancing." They were like, "There's so many other things on TikTok. There are cleaning hacks, and there's cooking."

 

So I started watching the cooking because I am obsessed with cooking, and I noticed that there was no Sicilian food. It was all the food you would see at restaurants on the Italian American menu.

 

I was telling my kids, "Girls, this is not how I ate growing up." And they're like, "Well, why don't you post a video?" I was like, "No. Mommy doesn't do that."

 

It took them months and months of encouraging me that I could do it. So, I just did one to see what would happen and make my kids happy. Literally overnight, it went viral, and it was the foundation recipe, like a staple in my house that I cooked.

 

In a week, I had a hundred thousand followers, and I said, "You know what? Obviously, there's a want for this."

 

People enjoyed it. It was a refreshing thing to them, something that is easy, we could all make, and it looks delicious. It was like people were thirsty for food that actually was real.

So I did another one, and that went viral. Then, another one went viral, and from then on, most of my videos went viral.

 

Rita Prisco with her first cookbook

 

You're now also a published author. Tell us about that experience.

It took a year of people telling me, "You should have a cookbook." And that was another thing that was out of my league mentally. Never in a million years did I think that I would be able to do that! 

I spoke to publishers who were reaching out to me, and it was very intimidating. I didn't want the whole process of writing the cookbook with a publisher. I didn't want any part of it. It was too professional. That's not me. I'm not a chef. I'm not a writer. I'm just a wife and a mom who learned how to cook from her mom and her grandmother. I'm just doing those recipes and having a professional cookbook with professional photos and writers and bloggers, and all that was not a representation of who I am. 

So I said to myself, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it my way. I called my first cookbook My Homemade Cookbook because I didn't want to compete with professionals and be criticized. So, I just laid it out there from the beginning.

 

I did it at home with my daughter, and I warned everybody that that's what they were going to get. So if they were looking for anything different, look someplace else, not in my book. And that's another thing that people enjoyed and were drawn to. They were like, "Wow, that's what we want. We don't want a professional cookbook."

 

How many cookbooks do we have in our house that we never use? Because the minute you open them, they're so intimidating, like, "Oh my God, is this the Bible? What are we doing here?" It's like too much. 

I did my second cookbook because there are so many recipes. I do 50 at a time; it's what I can handle.

 

Then, when I saw the response that I had from people, the connection… I always dreamed of writing a children's book about my childhood and growing up with Sicilian parents in America. But obviously, that couldn't have been done because without a following, without people knowing who you are, it's hard to start writing a book, and then who will buy it if you don't have the exposure.

 

Once I had the exposure, I saw I could do it. So that's where Piccola Francesca came in, and I'm so proud. I feel like I'm more proud of it than I am of my cookbooks because Piccola Francesca is a story of my life. And it's going to continue. That was the first of many to come.

 

It's been amazing with that book because so many people also related to it. And you don't only have to be Italian or Sicilian to relate to it. It's something that other cultures could relate to. 

So many schools are calling me; they want me to come read. And I've been doing that.  

 

How has your Sicilian heritage influenced your cooking and the recipes you share?

They're the recipes that my mom made growing up: peasant food. My mom grew up during the Depression, when there was no steak. It had to be a holiday to have meat. So there was a lot of pasta and potatoes; everything was made with homemade flour. They would turn a piece of old bread into a dessert. (I have one recipe in my cookbook where you take stale bread and turn it into a cookie.)

 

When I was growing up, my parents weren't poor the way they were when they grew up. They had money, but it didn't matter because even though it was peasant food, per se, it was food that we loved that was delicious, like beans, lentils, and split peas.

 

And the same thing with my kids. If you introduce these foods to your children from when they're born, they grow accustomed to them. So that's what happened to me. 

 

Which of your recipes has received the most attention, and why?

There are a few recipes that have exploded. My first one has over 5 million views. That's my spagetata. People were shocked that you can make delicious pasta like that with just a few ingredients. It costs almost nothing to make. Every region makes it its own way. They put a little twist to it, and it's theirs. So, that is a staple in all of Italy.

 

Another one of my recipes that just blew up with millions and millions of views was my chicken cutlets. I think that those weren't as traditional. What happened is that I have a different way of cutting a chicken cutlet, which is fork tender because you're cutting against the grain. And nobody ever saw that in their life. 

You would think a butcher would know this. I actually now have a butcher in my town who takes orders of chicken cutlets "Rita's way," cut the way I cut them because when you cut a chicken cutlet my way, it becomes so tender, and it's so much better. And now they know and say, "We would never cut chicken cutlets the way we used to."

 

People also love my pasta dishes. My pasta dishes all go viral because there are only three or four ingredients. And people like simplicity. They're tired. They work very hard. And if you can make their life easier, they could feed their family without the extra work. That's what they're looking for. 

That's what I focus on every day. When I know I'm going to show somebody a recipe, I ask, "Is this going to make their life better and easier?" And that's all I'm going to do. Can I make complicated stuff? Of course. But I don't even show that to people.

 

My mom's fig cookies for Christmas take hours and hours of work, but I made a recipe that tastes just like my mom's fig cookies, and it's done in a half hour. That's what I look for when I'm looking for a recipe. I'm looking for something simple with a few ingredients that's going to taste good. It has to have those three components. And I feel like once you have those three components, you have a winner. 

 

What are your plans for future projects?

I'm going to continue putting out a new children's book, always with the same character. I'm going to focus on Francesca. I want to introduce other stories of growing up with immigrant Sicilian parents and the differences between that and being an American child with American parents and grandparents. So many things make us different, including our traditions. And I have a lot of stories from my childhood. 

 

What has been the most rewarding part of your journey?

I think the most rewarding part for me is the people who reach out to me. I try my best to read as many comments and emails as I possibly can. I have people who are in hospice. I have people fighting fourth-stage cancer that I communicate with often who tell me that while they're doing their chemo, they watch me, and it brings a smile to their faces. The fact that I could distract somebody a little from their suffering, even for those few minutes, is all worth it to me.

 

So many people lost their moms or their grandparents at a younger age. They miss their grandmothers or their moms who used to cook for them like this, but they never thought of writing things down. I'm giving them recipes for food they never thought they would make, and they're so happy because I remind them; I bring them memories of their childhood. That is the most rewarding thing in the world.

 

@cucinapalermo Make spagetata with me!🇮🇹 #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #cooking #italiancooking #pasta #goodeats ♬ original sound - Rita

 

 

 

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Mangia was one of the first Italian words Solae' Riddle learned from her mother, Silvana Phillips. For her, to this day, it means so much more than its literal translation, "eat." 

 

"If you know anything about the Italian culture, food is their love language, and there is no better time spent than around the table," says Solae'.

Food has been Mamma Silvana's way of sharing her culture as someone who had emigrated to the U.S. from Sommatino, Sicily, as a young girl. Her passion inspired Solae' to seek to preserve her mother's recipes along with the memories they carried. 

What started as a pet project led to the ladies launching Mamma Mangia, a destination for people who love to eat, a digital brand that feeds the soul.

Solae' recently shared with me how Mamma Mangia started, their recipe method, ways they engage with their audience, their most celebrated achievement, future plans, advice for new bloggers, and more.

 

 

What inspired you to start Mamma Mangia?

In our family, recipes have been passed down only through stories and lessons in the kitchen. If you are lucky, you may be able to find a list of ingredients (without measurements or instructions), but that would be a rarity. 

As a new mom, I felt a push to preserve our family recipes, memories, and culture. So, in 2017, I approached Mamma Silvana with the wild idea that we should write down all of our Italian family recipes. At first, she was taken aback by the idea of writing down these sacred recipes. To her, they are so much more than just a list of ingredients and directions. They are memories of her mother and father, who have long since passed away, memories of a life that is tangible only through our food. The thought that someone else may have access to these sacred recipes felt scary to Mamma Silvana. 

After much convincing at the benefit this would bring to our future posterity, Mamma Silvana agreed to join me in making a family cookbook. We gathered recipes from as many of her eight siblings as we could and pieced together recipes from her mother and father. It quickly became so much more than just another cookbook. We decided to include pedigree charts, our family's immigration story, pictures, and details about the lives of this generation that have never before been written down. Each member of the family had a page dedicated to the details of their lives so that one day when my children make a recipe from this book, they can know who these people are and connect to a part of their own history. 

It took five years to finish our family heirloom cookbook. It was an experience we could never fully put into words. For me, it changed me. It filled a void in my soul that I didn't realize was there. It created a connection to a group of people I didn't know in this life, but somehow they were a part of me. Each recipe brought a memory for Mamma Silvana that also connected her to her own past and ancestors. It was a reminder that although she is now an American citizen, she will always be Sicilian. That her immigration changed her life and the life of her posterity, but her past is just as influential. We often talk about having roots in Sicily, and those roots have become deeper and stronger than ever before. 

After we finished the cookbook, we had an overwhelming feeling that this wasn't the end of our journey. We knew we needed to share this experience with others and encourage them to connect to their own "roots." In August of 2020, we decided to launch a little page on Instagram we called Mamma Mangia. Here, we share our family recipes and culture, but our true hope is that it will encourage others to start a similar journey of their own.

 

 

Mamma Silvana shares her memories.

Describe your recipe development process.

Many of the recipes we share are not "new" but rather family recipes that we have been making for generations. That being said, when Mamma Silvana moved to Utah, there were not a lot of options for Italian food items that were available in Sicily or even on the East Coast. So, she started making her own versions so that she could continue to enjoy the food she loved so much. 

Mamma Silvana has an impeccable sense of taste and smell and can dissect nearly any food simply by eating and smelling it. It is like a superpower. When creating recipes, she always knows what she wants and how it should taste and, therefore, does not usually require much testing or perfecting. 

As for me, I love to create new recipes, and though I have been gifted with the ability to create recipes, my powers are not nearly as refined as hers. When I create a new recipe, I always send it to Mamma Silvana for her stamp of approval! 

 

Mamma Mangia's sourdough pasta

 

Your recipes often include unique twists, like sourdough pasta. How do you balance innovation with tradition?

Our sourdough pasta recipe was the first recipe to really go "viral." It was during the pandemic when everyone was experimenting with sourdough. 

The reason we created the recipe was for personal reasons. Both Mamma Silvana and I have dealt with different health issues that have required adjustments in our diet. As Italians, giving up pasta is always the hardest. In our journey, we learned that if we were to make sourdough pasta and ferment it with an active sourdough starter for 72 hours, it would reduce the gluten content by nearly 90% and also add nutritional benefits. So we ran with it, creating a "healthier," more digestible, and yet completely delicious version of homemade Italian pasta. 

We recognize it is not "traditional," but sometimes, you have to move from tradition slightly in order to continue to eat the things you love. Many recipes that we have shared with a unique twist are born from needing a "better-for-you" option.

 

How do you engage with your audience?

We are truly blessed with the best audience that only gives us positivity and encouragement. Many of our followers are looking to us for inspiration and recipes to connect to their culture and ancestors. Though we have been hesitant at times to share our family recipes that feel so special to us, we are often reminded by our audience about the way in which our recipes have blessed their lives. We have received dozens of messages from people who have searched for lost recipes from their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents with no luck, only to find that our recipes are almost identical. This type of feedback helps to remind us of our "why."  

 

Can you share a particular achievement you are especially proud of?

The biggest achievement for us isn't the number of followers or sales received but rather the connections that have been made. Mamma Mangia has brought us closer together as a family as we cook and create together and has introduced us to many members of our audience who have become real-life friends. 

 

What are your future plans?

The first family heirloom cookbook we made was our inspiration for Mamma Mangia, but it is not something we can sell to the public as it contains a lot of personal information and recipes that aren't ours to share. That being said, we have had such a demand from our audience for a similar product that they can purchase. We are currently working on a cookbook with all of Mamma Silvana's recipes. It will include over 150 recipes, high-quality photos, personal stories, and hundreds of cooking tips and tricks throughout. We are hoping to launch the cookbook in the spring of 2025.

 

An heirloom cookbook project started the journey.

 

What advice would you give someone looking to start their own food blog or recipe website?

Understand your "why!" Why are you doing it? What are you hoping the outcome will be? Who do you want to connect with or inspire? People love real life and real people. If you know your "why" and have a fire within you, others will want to follow along and learn from you. Be genuine, be yourself, and remember your "why." 

 

What do you hope your audience takes away?

We have always wanted to inspire others to start their own journey in connecting with their family and loved ones through food. It doesn't matter what your ethnicity and/or background is. Your family has a story to tell. 

Food and recipes have a unique way of telling their story through smell, taste, and tradition that can not be found in any other form. It is our hope that we will influence others to have a desire to gather their family and loved ones around their table and share their love and traditions through food. 

 

 

Mamma Silvana and Solae' enjoy a pizza.

 

 

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Harper Alexander had little experience with Italian food before traveling to Italy and meeting his wife Eva Santaguida, who is from Calabria. But today, as co-founder of the Pasta Grammar YouTube channel and co-author of The Italian Family Kitchen: Authentic Recipes That Celebrate Homestyle Italian Cooking, he's doing his part to educate the masses about the food and culture that's inspired him. 

I sat down with Harper and Eva to discuss their new cookbook, why and how they started Pasta Grammar, what goes into recipe writing, the biggest misconceptions about Italian food, which Sicilian recipe is their favorite, and more. 

 

 

How and why did you start Pasta Grammar?

Harper: We started shortly after we got married and right as COVID hit. It was one of those COVID hobbies that a lot of people did during the pandemic when they weren't working.

 

I'd been to Italy a few times to visit Eva when we were dating, but food wasn't something I deeply cared about or knew very much about. And so, at first, I made these videos joking around with her because she was new to America and getting her reactions to American food, whether it's Domino's Pizza or the prices at Whole Foods, whatever. At the end of every video, Eva would cook to show how she would do things. And more and more people started asking for recipes. As we did more of these videos, I realized something I didn't even know when I married her: "Oh, you're a really amazing cook, and Italian food is very different from what I thought." and "I really like it, and I want to know more about it."

 

For me, it was an evolution of not really understanding what I had at home, which was a very talented cook and discovering this whole world of Italian food.

 

Behind the scenes of a Pasta Grammar video.

What goes into writing your recipes?

Harper: As the native English speaker, it is always kind of a fun challenge because part of my job is translating what Eva does, which is a very home-cooked Italian style. Nobody measures anything. You ask any Italian cook how much cheese they use. And they'll look at you. You're absolutely crazy for even asking such a silly question. But of course, when you publish recipes for people unfamiliar with that kind of food or write a cookbook, you have to translate something she does intuitively into a recipe. So we work very closely together when we're developing recipes. And so obviously, she's doing the cooking and coming up with the food, but then I'm measuring, seeing how much cheese she actually used, and then translating that into a recipe.

 

Eva: This is also very useful because if I write the recipe, I write from my point of view, whereas Harper's recipes are very detail-oriented. He writes for every kind of home cook.

 

What are common misconceptions about Italian cooking?

Eva: What I discovered coming here is that people think we love garlic. Yes, we do love garlic in Italy, but we don't love garlic as much as Americans think. In Italian food, the taste of garlic is very, very mild. Even if we cook with a lot of garlic, we usually remove it or let it cook for such a long time that it becomes completely delicate.

 

Harper: Another big misconception that a lot of people have is that Italian food even exists because Italy is so regionalized. When people visit Italy, they think, "I'm in Italy. I am going to get good pizza at every restaurant."

 

You sometimes need to go to a specific town to get a dish made properly. Don't go to Sicily and order a carbonara. It's not the place for that.

 

Our second-highest viewership on our channel is Italians. They watch the channel to learn about food in other regions they don't even know about. Someone from Naples might not even know what they eat in Milan. So, a lot of people need to disabuse themselves of the idea that there is Italian food. 

 

Which kitchen skill should everyone master?

Eva: The first thing people should understand is that you need to put salt in the food and taste it. You need to taste everything you cook to understand if you made a mistake and if it actually needs more salt or spices.

 

Harper: Unless it's a very specific baking thing where you kind of need some specific chemistry, we never give an amount of salt to any recipe. It's always to taste because that's a really important skill. When you see a recipe that says "a half teaspoon of salt," it is like, "Well, what kind of salt are you using? Some salts are saltier than others. Are you using professional Diamond Crystal salt?" 

One of our biggest pet peeves is recipes that give specific salt measurements. You really need to learn from every step. Also, with pasta, people are used to following the package instructions, where you just put a pinch of salt into the water. But people don't understand that you need to actually taste the pasta while it's boiling and make sure that it's properly salted even before you incorporate it into the sauce. So, we put all of that in the cookbook because I know, as someone who knew nothing about cooking before I met Eva, my approach to salt was always, "I just have to put a pinch of salt in my dish. It's just a mandatory thing." But I never tasted it and never added nearly enough to make the ingredients really stand out.

 

You feature several Sicilian recipes in your cookbook. Which is your favorite?

Eva: One of my favorite recipes in the cookbook is pasta alla Norma. 

Harper: Pasta alla Norma probably takes the cake because we consider it to be the perfect pasta dish. When we talk privately about trying a new pasta, our conversation always ends with, "Well, it was good, but is it pasta alla Norma good?" On an objective level, it's just kind of the perfect pasta, and that's why it's actually on the cover of the book.

It is just the balance of flavors. It's a tomato sauce in which you incorporate some of the oil you use to cook the eggplant. The combination of eggplant, tomatoes, ricotta salata (dried grated ricotta), basil, and olive oil just sums up that southern Italian flavor.

 

Why is incorporating the historical and cultural context of recipes important to you?

Eva: This is very important because if you understand the history of a dish, you can appreciate the dish by itself. A lot of people think that we Italians don't like to change our recipes. That's not true because what we have today is just the evolution of what we've discovered through tradition.

So knowing why, for example, they use these ingredients more than others makes sense in the dish. For example, the food of Venice: In the Veneto region, they use a lot of spices like cinnamon and cloves. Venice was one of the main cities during the medieval age that had the availability of all these spices. So they started to use them, and what we have now are spiced dishes that you don't have in other regions. Knowing the history gives the food a new meaning.

 

Harper: I have a dish that is tremendously important to me, which is just a really crappy grilled cheese on white bread, like Kraft American cheese dipped in Campbell's tomato soup. It's not that the food is particularly good, but it brings back memories that I had as a kid out in the snow in Maine. You would come back in from the cold and have this hot grilled cheese and tomato soup. So, the story informs how we eat and changes how the food tastes. I don't think food is ever objective. Those stories matter a lot.

 

You introduce people to experiences on tours. Tell us about them.

Harper: We do a couple of different tours. The one we started doing years ago is a more traditional tour through Southern Italy. We start in Naples and go all the way down through Calabria and into Sicily. What makes it unusual is that we wanted to make a tour that took people off the beaten touristy track. I'd actually visited Italy before I met Eva, so I thought I had the place figured out.

 

But then, when I started traveling with a local, she would take me to the places she wanted to go, and it was a completely different experience. So when we started that tour, the idea was to share a lot of those experiences that most tourists would never have, but in a way where it was accessible to someone who doesn't speak the language and doesn't even know about these places or foods to try or things to see.

The second one that we do is expanding off of that idea. We do something called the Week in Dasà, which is where a group of people come to Eva's small village in Calabria and spend a week living there with us. We cook together, we eat together, and we party together Calabria-style. It's a project that we're really proud of, something that's very unusual. People come to a place where there's never been any tourism, and they get the real deal of what it's like living in a small Calabrian village.

 

What experience do you hope people take away from Pasta Grammar?

Eva: What I see right now is that a lot of people treat food like something just to put in the stomach. It doesn't matter where you are or where you are eating. This is very bad because it's a moment that you need to use to take care of yourself and of the people that you actually love. So I hope they understand spending more time in the kitchen is a very important time of your life.

 

Harper: I went from being someone used to convenience food culture where I would say, "I'm busy. I'll just grab a sandwich or get takeout." And now I've gotten to the point where I can't imagine not spending time every night cooking food and eating together. It's something that is very important. And I didn't realize how important it was, and now I can't imagine going back.

 

 

 

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Pina and Rosemarie Sparacio showed up to our interview wearing red—like mother, like daughter. In their case, it's more like being a part of the same winning team. Since September 2021, the New York-based duo has amassed millions of views on TikTok. They also have more than 242,000 followers on Instagram and have a new and growing YouTube channel. 

"The most surprising thing has been walking in the street and someone stopping their car and saying, 'Oh my God! You're Pina's Kitchen!'" laughs filmmaker and content producer Rosemarie. 

"I feel so privileged, so honored to be recognized by them," says her mother, Pina, who came to the United States from Roccamena, Sicily, in 1970.  

The thrill ride started with a few simple, raw videos Rosemarie filmed of Pina cooking her favorite Sicilian specialties. And it just took off.

The three of us sat down to discuss more about how Pina's Kitchen got started, their favorite recipes, surprises, and their next steps.

 

 

Tell us more about how Pina's Kitchen began.

Rosemarie: I'm a filmmaker, so I'm always filming or wanting to come up with something to film or a story. I had this idea of a cooking show for a long time with my mom, but it was always too big in my head to put together. I was being very perfectionistic about it, so I forgot about it. And then, when COVID hit, I was just dancing on TikTok like everybody else was and having fun. I garnered a little bit of a following. 

I wasn't serious. I was working in film production. Then, one weekend, my mom was cooking something: caponata, a Sicilian dish. I was like, "I'm just going to record it for fun on TikTok." I didn't really think much of it. The way I recorded it was not very cinematically, just in the moment. And I posted a month later. It got 100,000 views. I was like, "That's something! Let's try it again. Maybe sometimes on TikTok, you get one hit, and then that's it."

So we tried it again, and the second video was a dish in the oven: baked ziti. It got 500,000 views. I said, "Welcome to Pina's Kitchen!" And that was the start of it. 

Then we did a third video—polpette di ricotta.

Pina: It's a very old recipe. When people in Sicily had no money to buy meat and make their Sunday dinner, they would come up with different ideas for something to serve with the sauce. So, if it was spring and a lot of people made ricotta, they'd make something with that ricotta. They used to make it in my town. It's got a lot of mint and sugar, plus breadcrumbs.

Rosemarie: You could imagine the controversy when she was throwing sugar into this ricotta thing, putting it in the sauce, and eating it with pasta. It got a million views, which was kind of its takeoff. And we just kept going with it. 

 

You draw your recipes from your family. Can you share any fond cooking memories?

Pina: My earliest memory is watching my mother cook.  My mother was a great cook. She had a knack for cooking; it tasted good, even if it was simple. 

I remember her making sausage and drying it for the winter, and I remember watching her making bread. 

When I was little in Sicily, my mother had a brick oven, and she would make a big batch of bread because bread was everything in those days. That was how you supported yourself: with bread, pasta, and vegetables. She would make all these breads, and then, in the end, she would always make pizza—not the American pizza you see: the sfincione on which my mother would put the tomatoes, sardines, cheese, and breadcrumbs on top. 

She would start in the morning; by the time she finished, it was night, and that would be what we had for dinner. I was very little because I could hardly reach the big table that she was working on. 

I also remember my grandma. She and my mother would sometimes bake a very big batch of bread together. Or she would get together with her sisters, and they'd make it together. They always did things together—even in America. They were very close. 

 

Pina and her mother in the kitchen

Did you two cook together?

Rosemarie: When I was younger, my mom worked, and my grandmother lived downstairs. I would go downstairs and stay all day with her, and she would make the pizza, cookies for Christmas, and rice balls. I was next to her, and I would kind of just watch, and I would try to help, too.

I know how to make homemade pasta, and I know how to make all the big stuff. I've observed a lot, but I feel like I've been surrounded by Italian women who can handle the kitchen. And they're like, "But you're busy!"

Pina: The short answer is yes, we cook together. When I broke my arm, she did Christmas by herself. Her father helped cut stuff, but she cooked. And I was telling her, "Okay, do this, and don't forget to do this." And she cooked the whole meal.

 

Rosemarie and her grandmother

What impact has filming your mother had on you?

Rosemarie: I used to take for granted how good a cook she was and how good my homemade meals were. I didn't realize how good they were until I started filming her, observing, watching, and paying attention. And then that caused me to be like, "I should be learning this." 

I realized she learned from my grandmother, and there's so much already lost and so much we're trying to hold onto. Now I'm like, "Okay, let me jump in and help you so I can learn."

Pina: Yeah, because my mother never really wrote anything down.

Rosemarie: So it's really all that she remembers from her mother and mother's mother. And there's already so much lost in that word-of-mouth.

 

Pina, which of your mother's dishes have you shared on social media?

Pina: My mother used to make stuffed artichokes, and we had a lot of views on that video. She used to make it plain, and sometimes, she would put them in the sauce. That was Sunday dinner. This comes from the old days when we didn't have any meat, so they had to come up with stuff.

You stuff the artichoke and dip it in the egg, fry that part so the stuffing doesn't come out, and then put it in the sauce. The sauce takes on the flavor of the artichoke, and it's so good!

We just made eggplant rollatini, according to her recipe. Here, they stuff them with ricotta. My mother used to stuff them with cheeses, cured meat, or whatever we had on hand. She would stuff them, roll them in the sauce, and bake them.

 

When I think of my grandmother, the famous ones are the fig cookies—cuccidati—for Christmas. We film that every year because it's such an important recipe. Many people don't even do it anymore because it's a lot of work.

 

I remember her every December making Christmas cookies, and everyone was helping. She'd probably make 10 pounds. 

Rosemarie: We have made 15 pounds of Christmas cookies all by hand, from the mixing and rolling to the cutting and filling.

Pina: It's a lot of work! That's why you only do it once a year.

 

What's been most exciting or rewarding so far on this journey?

Rosemarie: Probably the level of recognition when we go to events with the community of other food influencers that we've connected with. They've been so great. And then there are people who are fans, which is so weird to say that there are fans. I am still shocked!

We're technically filming just cooking videos, but it's more than that. People write us the most beautiful messages, like, "I lost my mom when I was 13 years old, and I remember she used to do all these things, and Pina's like my mom now." 

They also remember recipes that they forgot about and that their grandmother used to make, but now she's no longer alive. And they say, "Wow, I've been looking for this recipe for 20 years!" It makes you realize that food and recipes are a connection to history, family, and culture that can be easily lost. Recipes are stories. That's probably been the most rewarding. 

Pina: You can give that kind of memory back to somebody. At first, I was nervous because nobody really wants to be judged by people. I asked, "Why will people be interested in my recipes and what I cook?" But then, when people started to really be very positive and loving it and saying how much they appreciate it, I felt that I was giving them something, which made me feel good.

 

We're doing it because now we like the community that we have. We have all those people that are following us. They're good people, and I just love it. It's making friends. 

 

What are your plans for Pina's Kitchen's future?

Rosemarie: I hope that we can grow a bigger following. We're starting this YouTube channel, and I want to create a longer format show where we could really show the recipe so it feels more real, like you're stepping into the kitchen with us. Because you only get a minute and 30 seconds on Instagram versus a 20- or 30-minute YouTube video where you feel like you're in the kitchen and cooking with us. And then, hopefully, we can kind of expand to having different guests and having people showcase their recipes and share something with other influencers or maybe just other people in our lives who show what their family used to do—even past being Italian. 

I love promoting Sicilian and Italian culture, but I think what's more important is telling the story of immigrants and showcasing everyone's culture because we're all connected in that way, and recipes are very connected. Even Sicilian food is very connected to the Middle East, Greece, and Spain. So having it expanded past just Sicilian cuisine would be cool, too. 

We're slowly working on a cookbook, and it would be great to build the brand and reach more people that way.

 

Rosemarie, you've worked on music videos. Tell us about that.

Rosemarie: So, I started in film production, and I was on this track to be like, "Okay, I want to make connections. I want to be a director. I need to be in the industry." I focused on making a documentary and growing our page. Then, I stepped away from the industry completely, and I was just in social media, working for social media marketing and working on Pina's Kitchen. I started to feel kind of low, like, "I don't know. Maybe I'm making the wrong choice. I'm out of the industry. I'm not working on films anymore or big shows, and I'm losing those connections. Maybe it's not the right choice."

Then I got this random message from Tina Baione, who owns Keep Good Company Records with her husband, Matt. She was like, "We have this artist. We want to make this music video in Italy. I want you to direct it. We'll fly you out to Italy." 

From there, I'm now working on another music video, directing that music video. 

It's not the same as it used to be. Social media is the new push forward that creatives need to get their work out there. 

 

What do you hope people will take away from your videos?

Pina: For me, it would be positivity; they could connect with their memories and families. Maybe their loved ones have passed, but they can reconnect with them spiritually. That's a beautiful thing to do. And I want people to realize we're just normal people.

Rosemarie: I think that it's kind of like a call to action. I want people to honestly get back into the kitchen with their grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, or whoever it is. Because, like I said, there are so many stories and recipes, and you don't realize how fast time goes, and you could easily lose the things that keep you connected to your heritage, culture, and family. 

I think people won't regret getting into the kitchen with their loved ones and learning those family recipes. It's just a good time to spend with your family. So I hope it inspires people to be closer to their family and to sit down for dinner together.

Pina: You're going to build so many memories just being together, sitting around the table, even if you don't say anything, and if you just eat. It's that energy of togetherness and love that vibrates around the table from your family. That is memory. It's important. 

 

 

 

 

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