Sicily: In honor of our Italian Citizenship 🇮🇹
...and other February news from Our Italian Table 🍋
Joey was recently granted his Italian citizenship and I received mine about a year ago. 🇮🇹 ❤️🇮🇹 For us, it was a process that took us over 10 years to complete with all of our fits and starts. Perhaps most important to us is the knowledge that we were only able to obtain citizenship due to the sacrifices of our Italian grandparents and specifically our maternal grandparents, Antonino and Francesca Drago, who immigrated from Sicily. #grateful❤️
Like so many Sicilians, our maternal grandparents left behind a life of hardship and poverty in their little village of S. Stefano di Camastra to immigrate to the United States in the early 1900s. On the wall of both Joey's and my home are framed photos of the ships on which they traveled. We have pieced together from the Ellis Island manifests that our grandfather first came to America in 1907 but then returned to Sicily shortly thereafter. We are unsure as to why he returned but perhaps it was to help, following the massive earthquake near Messina, a few hours from their village, in 1908.
While in Sicily, he married our grandmother Francesca in January 1913. Ship manifests show him returning alone to America in 1914 but his status had now changed to “married.” Our grandmother followed him to America two years later with their first-born son, Louie, then age 2. 😉 (Can you imagine traveling across the ocean back then with a 2-year-old? 😳) They settled in a tiny row home on Mercer Street in Phillipsburg, NJ. Our grandfather worked as a night watchman; our grandmother was a seamstress in a blouse factory.
She went on to have nine more children, which she was forced to raise alone when my grandfather died suddenly in 1941 at the age of 49. Their little home had only one bedroom for 10 children (2 beds: 1 for the boys and 1 for the girls) and an outhouse to boot. I still remember the bed sheets that my mother saved for years - old sheets made from old scratchy flour sacks. My grandmother, Francesca, died peacefully on New Year’s Eve, 1968 at the age of 79.
I often think about what their life might have been like in their little village that sits high above the water’s edge on the northern coast of Sicily. Joey and I have visited the little village known for its distinctive ceramics on numerous occasions. The smell of the wind and the view of the sea has stayed with me always. Did they miss that beautiful view and the feel of that wind once here in America?
In honor of this beautiful island, Joey and I have been cooking up Sicilian-inspired recipes over the past month. RECIPES HERE! And early in March, Jay and I will be visiting Joey and Mark in Los Angeles 🥳 where we have planned a little party to celebrate our citizenship together - a very White Lotus-esque party to celebrate our grandparents and their island. (If you haven’t yet watched Season 2 of White Lotus on HBO, step away from the screen now and head on over to this quirky but fun show that is set in Sicily. And you MUST download this White lotus playlist which we have had on repeat! 💃🏻)
We are also so excited to be heading back to Sicily in September for a family wedding 🥳 #staytuned
A few other Sicilian recipes from our archives
If you need a few other Sicilian recipes for your own White Lotus party, try:
our tasty Involtini di Manzo - little meat rolls filled with raisins and pinenuts and gooey provolone cheese; all tucked between fresh bay leaves
as a side, try our Fennel Grantinata - one of our favorite ways to prepare fennel;
and for dessert, a brightly colored Blood Orange Crostata with beautiful crimson orange slices nestled in a very simple mascarpone filling.
Projects! We ❤️ projects! (or what we have been up to)
We do love our home projects!
Out in California, Joey and Mark have been busy working with the city on a detailed plan to replace their entire backyard with drought-tolerant, California native plants in an effort to do their part for water conservation in California. It has been a few years in the making but it is finally coming to fruition and will make their most magical 1920s Spanish home into even more of an oasis in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, we have spent the better part of the last year working with contractors to build our new garage here in Pennsylvania. Jay and I are so lucky to be the current stewards of a historic home that was a former Locktender’s home and was built in 1832. Our home sits on the historic Delaware Canal which was active for about 100 years beginning in the 1830s until the railroad became the dominant means of transport. Mule-drawn boats traveled the canal as locktenders waited to manage the series of locks and aqueducts enabling the canal boats to bring the coal and other goods from northern Pennsylvania to the Philadelphia or New York ports. Our garage mimics the colors and rhythm of our little home. Jay has been managing the tangle of contractors that have come and gone and doing a lot of the work himself - including building pergolas for the ends of the garage. During these winter months, he has been hard at work putting his woodworking skills to use and making the beautiful pergolas come alive from wood delivered last fall. ❤️
The new honey from Montalcino is here! 🐝
Last year, as part of a shipment, Massimo, our dear friend at Montalcino564, sent along a little gift - beautifully packaged little jars of honey with the most perfect name - Settimocielo - which translates to ‘Seventh Heaven’. The company was started by a group of young friends in Montalcino, Andrea, Dario, and Vincenzo, along with Massimo’s daughter, Giuditta, and others, who had a dream to produce small quantities of sustainable, high-quality products from Montalcino - honey, olive oil, wine; and a desire to do something beautiful together with lifelong friends. We now carry a limited quantity of their exquisite honey; varieties with their beautiful names - Trifoglio (clover), Millefiori (thousand flowers), Girasole (sunflower), Castagno (chestnut), Fiori di Bosco (forest flowers), Sulla (honeysuckle) and Acacia. Order yours today!
And lastly, in case you missed the Sanremo 2023 music festival in Italy that just ended, a few links below from a few of our faves 💃🏻🕺to dance our way out…
Gianni Morandi at Sanremo 2023
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Tanti baci, xx
Michele and Joe(y) too!
Hi Michelle and Joey!
Great stories! I have been wanting to get my Italian citizenship for awhile. Was it 10 years difficult? Or as you said fits and starts? On your part or the red tape you had to go through?
Where did you begin?
Any light you could shed on this would be appreciated!
We will and have tried a few times to ring the bell, but you were probably in Italy! I'm on crutches at the moment so when I'm back in my sneakers we will definitely knock!
xoxo