Adriana Trigiani - Cooking With My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes From Bari to Big Stone Gap

ALSO BY ADRIANA TRIGIANI

Big Stone Gap

Big Cherry Holler

Milk Glass Moon

Lucia, Lucia

The Queen of the Big Time

C hecka reminded me that Dad always used to say you should leave the world better than you found it. I had forgotten that I first heard this from him. Theyre extraordinarily powerful little words, leave the world better than you found it, and they can strengthen the resolve to do the right thing in the face of whatever challenges or irritates or even hurts. No family is perfect. And each one of the Trigianis would compete to be the first one to remind you of this fact, with an I-can-top-that story as proof. Siblings perfect the barb. Parents make mistakes. Grandparents pick favorites. Cousins poke fun. But in our expansive family, the positive messages are the most powerful, and these messages play out in an entertaining variety of ways. Its the reward I wouldnt trade for the perfect world of peace, quiet, and reason that once was my fantasy. Our family has helped me realize that just as theres affection in every cookie and a story in every strand of spaghetti, there is a laugh looking to be found in every conflict. Maybe its because were half Bergamaschias in the thespians who gave the world Punch, Judy, and the commedia dellarte. Or perhaps it comes from being one quarter Venezianias in the adventurers who would just as soon throw you over the side of a gondola as they would serenade you. Or it could be from the part that is Puglieseas in the mystics who invented superstition while they were directing traffic at the crossroads of every Mediterranean civilization. I like to think, though, that we find lifes fun in the same way families all over the place do: by spending time together doing something we love. In our case, the connecting happens around the kitchen table. I hope that in this complicated world, every family can find a treasure to share passionately and graciously, and to laugh over, for the dear ones here now and those who surely will follow.

Mary Yolanda Trigiani
San Francisco

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

A DRIANA T RIGIANI is an award-winning playwright, television writer, and documentary filmmaker. The author of the bestselling novels Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler, Milk Glass Moon, Lucia, Lucia, and The Queen of the Big Time, Trigiani has written the screenplay for the movie Big Stone Gap, which she will also direct. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

M ARY Y OLANDA T RIGIANI is a business consultant in corporate marketing and executive communications. In addition to speechwriting for business leaders, she writes and speaks on a wide range of management topics. Now that shes completed this project, Trigiani is qualified to address family relations as well. She lives in San Francisco.

I am the third of seven children: five girls and two boys. Our kitchen was raucous, busy, and the center of our home. To say that we love good food and good conversationand the occasional knock-down, drag-out discussionis an understatement. Its in our DNA.

No one ever asks what its like to be a middle child, whether my emotional needs were met in such a large group, or if I had my own room growing up. (The answers: everybody be happy, please; I hope so; and, of course not.) No, the first thing people ask me is, how on earth did your Italian family wind up in the coalfields of southwest Virginia? The short answer is that Dad established a blouse factory there. The long answer is the story we tell in this book.

Our forebears all hailed from hill townsRoseto Valfortore in Puglia; Schilpario and Vilminore in Lombardys Alps; Vittorio Veneto, just west of Venicewhere the work ethic was fueled by hearty peasant food. The dishes we prepare today date back for centuries. And like the recipes that have been handed down for generations from mother to daughter, mother-in-law to daughter-in-law, and grandmother to granddaughter, our familys celebrations are anchored in the familiar stories and legends that are told and retold a tavola (at the table). As immigrants from the old country, the Trigianis and the Bonicellis were vagabond-ohs, as my father used to say proudly. When they left Italy, they packed their native traditions with their needles and thread (making clothes was the family business on both sides) to come to the most exciting country on earth to make their way.

We tried very hard to be the Partridge Family in the early seventies.

Its no accident that we wound up in the mountains of Virginia. I believe our journey was fated centuries ago, when our ancestors made their decisions in rustic kitchens by old hearths with stews simmering slowly over the fire. We are country people, mountain dwellers. However, in culinary terms it was a leap as wide as the jump from macaroni and sauce to soup beans and cornbread. Making it even more complicated is the dynamic of a large family: Everyone in a big tribe has his or her own view of the events that form the family history.

True to her profession as a librarian, Mom will give you a perfectly honed set of directions. You can imagine the precision of her recipe file. Mom is also a master flower-show judge and a thirty-plus-year veteran of Big Stone Gaps Dogwood Garden Club, which means she can also set a lovely table with a blue-ribbon-quality flower arrangement in the center. Her perfectionism and attention to detail have been gifts to us. She was the first to record many of Grandmom Trigianis recipes, so we were able to check Violas Secret Files against Moms copies.

Mom says: Grandma Lucy liked to follow her recipes. Grandmom Trigiani used a recipe only as a guideline or framework. If you watched her make something, it was slightly different every time. And if you asked her how much of something she was putting into a bowl, she would get impatient and ask, Why do you need the exact measurements?

Mary, my cowriter, likes to improvise from a recipe and be creative in a small dinner-party setting. She never quite got over the fact that six other people entered her space in rapid, noisy progression.

Mary says: As the oldest, Im still searching for peace, quiet, and reason. The chances of finding all are better in the intimate little meal (Bonicelli) versus the rococo extravaganza (Trigiani).

Pia likes to share family dishes at big dinner parties. She enjoys entertaining and is the queen of warm hospitality.

Pia says: I love testing new recipes on my guests, but its just as much fun for me to prepare the family favorites Ive loved for so long.

Toni spent hours in the kitchen with Grandmom Trigiani, and she adores the family traditions. So she has the best perspective on the antics and anecdotes that color our family history. And she is passing these along to our nieces and nephews on their level (at this writing, theyre all four years old or under). Its no accident that Toni is their favorite auntie.

Toni says: After the kitchen, my favorite place in the house is wherever the kids are.

Francesca, who still answers to her childhood nickname, Checka, has invented brilliant shortcuts for many of our recipes, with delicious results. Like Mom (seven children, one right after the other) before her, Checka (three children, one right after the other, and at this writing,