On one of my most recent trips to Italy I had the privilege of stopping in Slovenia to visit my partner's family. After a beautiful day on Mama Stefka’s farm, his grandmother, she left us with one statement that struck a chord with me: “Never forget who you are and never forget where you came from.”
I have always been infatuated with understanding how regionality played such an important role in Italian cooking. Despite my lifelong love of my Sicilian heritage, I shifted slightly East to Apulia, the heel of Italy’s boot, where my great grandmother, Immaculata Francavilla, came from Palagianello, a town right outside of Bari. She helped raise my father, aunt and uncles. Knowing the connection that the Pugliese have with the earth and their utmost respect for the simplest ingredients made me proud of the chef that I have become. This further inspired me to revisit a favorite book of mine by Patience Gray ‘Honey From A Weed’, a novel she wrote while living in Puglia. In that book she writes “Poverty rather than wealth gives the good things of life their true significance”.
