January 14, 2018

Dear Rossella,

I am a member on your website and want to tell you that I am a big fan of you and your nonna.  I wanted to share a story about something that just happened that involved your recipes!

I am about to have surgery in a couple of days and I thought about making a soup that my mother, who has passed away, used to make but she never taught me how to make it or left a recipe.  It is a soup that had noodles and a chunk of beef in it and we used to take the beef and dip it in vinegar.  I didn’t know what it was called. It was delicious.  I really wanted to make it so that I would have it made when I got home from my surgery.   I searched the internet for italian soups, italian soups with beef, and I searched your website and didn’t find the soup.  I was disappointed and thought I could try to make it on my own but I wanted it to taste the same and didn’t know what kind of beef she used. Anyway, that night I prayed to my mom that she give me a sign that she will be with me for my surgery.  The next morning when I woke up, I checked my email and there was an email from your website with the same exact soup recipe I was looking for.  I felt like my mother sent me an email from heaven.  I believe we receive signs from loved ones who have passed and I truly believe this was a sign from my mother, especially since I couldn’t find that recipe on your website the day before.

Thank you so much for what you do.  I just thought maybe you’d like to know how what you do brings so much joy to those around you.

Sincerely,

Barbara Ialacci Pfeifer

 

Link to: Beef Soup Recipe

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November 11, 2017

Cooking With Nonna Cookbook Review
by
Annunziata Dellagrotta

    There are 63 cookbooks in my library – 23 of which are devoted to the Italian cuisine of the many diversified regions of Italy – and while I have my favorites, not one has touched me the way Cooking With Nonna has.

    Upon receiving the e-mail telling me my book had shipped and was on its way, I anxiously awaited its arrival.  When it was finally delivered, and I removed the packaging, opened the book and saw Rossella's handwritten dedication to my grandmother and me, saw our names together on the flyleaf, I felt my grandmother with me again.  An overwhelming wave of emotion washed over me, and before I knew what was happening, I'd wrapped that book in my arms, pressed it to my heart, and cried.

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October 31, 2017

Rossella,

My mother passed away in August of 2009, she was from Capurso (Bari).  She was only 69 and as we were growing up, myself and my two brothers and two sisters and I were taught to cook as we were growing up.  My mother always said that especially for the boys they needed to learn to cook as they should not expect to find a woman in America to wait on us as much as she had waited on my father (he passed at 53 about 20 years ago).  Anyway, my wife kept asking me to make the cartellate for Christmas as my mother always had done. I told her that I really wasn't up to making them... at least not this year, plus I had never made them all on my own... I just always helped my mom as we were growing up.  We called them "the pinchy, pinchy cookies" because of having to pinch the dough together every inch or so.

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