The following excerpt is typical of the type of stories found hidden in between the recipes.  As you are going through the book, you will discover many heart warming stories of an Italian-American family.

Start today to cook and think like an Italian!

• Many years later after I was married, my wife Ellen

decided to make a dinner for my mother, father, sister

Pat and her husband Billy. 

• My wife is of German and English decent.  She is

always smiling, is quiet and very self assured.  Nothing

bothers her and thank goodness, marrying into an Italian

family. In other words, to my family she was an

"Americaaannn."  If you weren't Italian, you were

automatically an "Americaaannn." like it almost was an

insult. 

• My wife by cooking this dinner, was like throwing

her to the wolves.  She cooked vegetables and steak in a

wok.  Then she served it over rice in Japanese bowls. 

Very small bowls and we gave them only chopsticks

to eat with.  They didn't eat with the chopsticks for

very long.  You can only imagine how the dinner

went.  My whole family ate very slowly like my wife

was serving poison. 

• For dessert, she served yogurt with fresh strawberries

in large parfait glasses.  My family asked what is was

and we told them "strawberry surprise."

They never had yogurt.  They were eating

very tentatively when all of a sudden, my brother in

law Billy yelled, "Hey!"  "This tastes like yogurt!"

Then, all you heard was the clanging of spoons hitting

the glasses one at a time.  Clang, clang, clang, clang! 

No one was hungry any longer.  Saying an unfamiliar

word like yogurt to my mother was like saying she

was eating bean curd or horse manure for that

manner.  Her face would crunch with this look

of pain and she would say "eegth" (means yuck).  My

wife and I laugh every time we think of those spoons

hitting and making those clangs. 

• I feel for every non Italian female that marries an

Italian man.  If yo