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How One Young Leader Is Reviving Italian-American Heritage

The bulk of Italian immigration to the United States occurred between 1880 and 1920, with approximately 4 million Italians arriving during this period, mainly from Southern Italy and Sicily. That means most Italian Americans are at least four generations removed from their Italian heritage.

Traditions fade along with those connections. It’s no wonder that one of the most pressing concerns among cultural organizations is how to reach and inspire younger audiences.

At 27 years old, Patrick Ross Campesi bucks the trend. 

While many of his peers may feel distanced from their roots, he’s spent the past five years leaning in. It all started with the passing of his Sicilian grandfather in 2016 and a desire to better understand and embrace his legacy. He began researching his genealogy, learning more about his great-great-grandparents, who emigrated from the Trapani area to the United States in the 19th century and found work as sugarcane farmers in Louisiana. 

About five years ago, Patrick decided he could do more and help other Italian Americans connect with their heritage. He’s since taken on leadership roles with St. Expedite Lodge Order of the Italian Sons and Daughters of America, American-Italian Federation of the Southeast, and Italian American Future Leaders. In 2023, he founded the Louisiana Italian American Heritage Foundation, for which he serves as president. 

Patrick shared his experience, present and future challenges, and what he hopes to give back to the greater Italian American community.

 

Patrick Campesi’s great-grandfather Joseph Campesi with parents, Vincenzo and Gaetana

 

Tell us about your background and connection to your heritage.

My great-great-grandparents Vincenzo and Gaetana came to America in 1890 from Sicily because there were not many job opportunities for them in Sicily. 

Some of the families stayed in New Orleans, and not long after that, the other half went up to what’s called Iberville Parish, where I was born and raised. We moved up there probably in the early 1900s. 

We were sugarcane farmers there until the 1927 flood, which pushed us more toward the river. Once that flood happened, the levee broke, water crested, and my family worked with the Army Corps of Engineers in our little town to rebuild the levee. Half of the men in the family used the mules and the donkeys to help rebuild the levee with whatever forming equipment we had. The other half went down to some smaller towns in Louisiana to trade fur and provide for the family. It wasn’t long after that, after the Great Depression, my family moved further south, about 15 minutes by car now to White Castle, and that’s where I was really brought up. 

My connection to all of this was my grandfather Ross Joseph Campesi. He was born in 1925. He grew up farming sugarcane, but he was the one who really took the family from tenant farmers to owning the land. He started building businesses from there, and with only a high school education, achieved the American dream.

 

Poggioreale, Sicily

I was 18 when he passed, so I knew him for a good portion of my life, and he always would talk about how we’re Sicilian. We’re from Poggioreale, and there’s an organization called Poggioreale in America. I didn’t realize that there were other Poggiorealesi in America outside of my family. We grew up in what they called the Campesi Compound. I was with my uncles, cousins, and everyone in that area. I was just so confined to that little box. But then I found this organization, and this opened my world up.

 

My grandfather would say, “Family first, always.” It is something that stuck with me and was very impactful to me.

 

Once he passed, and as we entered the pandemic, I started learning more about the family, genealogy, and history. My dad was telling me more and more stories; I was just more interested in it.

Not long after that, I reached out to a gentleman named Charles Marsala, who is very involved in Louisiana. He’s been my mentor and has brought me through the ranks, introducing me to people like Marianna Gatto, Basil Russo, and John Viola, the Italians pushing to get young Italian Americans involved again. And I’ve been very lucky because of that.

 

I was instituted as President of the St. Expedite Lodge of the Order ISDA. That was my first foray into any type of nonprofit cultural leadership position. From there, I was elected Vice President of the Federation of the Southeast. Then, two years ago, I started the Louisiana Italian-American Heritage Foundation. Lastly, from 2024 to 2025, I was Chairman of the Italian American Future Leaders. It’s been a busy four years, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

 

Tell us about St. Expedite Lodge Order ISDA and your role.

St. Expedite Lodge of the Order ISDA is a local chapter of ISDA. I was put in as vice president in 2021, and then the president ended up stepping down. He said, “Look, you’re really the one who’s pushing to get the younger people into it; you should take the presidency.”

 

I had to bring together people that I knew at the time, four years ago, to help create an organization. Some of the roster has changed; now, it’s just an amazing group of people. They’re hardworking.

 

A group of us went to the Italian American Future Leaders Convention. We typically go down to New Orleans a couple of times a quarter, and we’ll see Louis Prima’s daughter Lena Prima perform and maybe go to an Italian restaurant. Our focus is on social events for young professionals. But we do have events like a Christmas event at a place called Houmas House, where we have people of all ages. We want anybody who is Italian or Italian-loving to celebrate the culture with us here. 

 

Patrick’s great-grandparents, Margherita and Joseph, in the sugarcane fields where the family worked

 

How did the Louisiana Italian-American Heritage Foundation start, and what is your vision as President?

I started that in December of 2023. It began as a political action committee, but because I’m in finance now, I can’t be involved in any PACs. We pivoted straight to a nonprofit, and we focus more on fundraising and some lobbying, but not directly like a PAC.

 

One of the main things we’re focusing on right now is fundraising for a monument to the Sicilian sugarcane harvester. So my family obviously came over here and did that. A lot of Sicilians came over and contributed to the growth of sugarcane production, not just in Louisiana but across the country and the world.

 

My grandfather worked with Louisiana State University to go around the world teaching third-world countries how to actually cultivate a better crop and to have a better yield. We lucked out in that, being here in Louisiana with such great soil. So he was teaching those practices, but that’s a direct contribution just for my family, not to mention all the other Sicilians who came here and did that.

 

Another thing that we’re doing is the Heritage Commission. New Jersey has established the New Jersey Italian American Heritage Commission, a piece of legislation that gets passed. It’s a commission that the New Jersey State government established. It’s not appropriated in any funds by the state. They have internal fundraising or grants from the Italian government. They create coursework that they can provide for schools to teach Italian contributions and Italian history here in America. One of the videos is about the relationship between Italy and America, as far as Amerigo Vespucci (we’re named after an Italian), how the American government is mimicking the Italian Republic, our accounting system, and all these everyday different contributions with an Italian root. That’s something we want to bring to Louisiana. 

 

Share more about your involvement with the Italian American Future Leaders.

It is like a melting pot and a mastermind group where people come from all different walks of life, from 21 to 35, with all different experiences. Whether they run organizations or are members of them or have ideas for social media, it’s a way for all of us to come together and say, “Hey, I was dealing with something with my lodge in Louisiana; how did you do it in Indiana?” And that’s real-life experience. There’s a guy who does amazing festivals up there, and he’s helped coach us on how to do some of the feasts we do down here. So it’s just a great way for us to connect and network.

 

What led me to want to get involved with it? I’m a people person. I like to be connected. I like to network with people and to share in our culture. It’s something that’s so beautiful but will die out if we don’t pass it on to the next generation.

 

As far as leadership was concerned, I saw something great and wanted to be a part of it. But it wasn’t just me. There was a team of people that I was working with, and even while I was chairman, a lot of people helped us put together that conference that we have every year. But just to be a part of something like that and to learn from all the Basil Russos, John Violas, and Pat O’Boyles of the world, who have done so much for the community in their lifetime, but even more so with IAFL, has just been an amazing experience. 

 

Attracting younger generations is a challenge for cultural organizations. How are you working to overcome that?

It’s difficult across the board. One of the things we’ve found is that having leadership positions available for the younger people makes a difference. Representing the young Italians of Louisiana and having the positions I have shows others that if you are active in this, this is also something that you can attain.

 

In many of these older organizations, the old guard doesn’t want to hand over the baton; it could be more vanity or ego. As Italians, we’re sometimes guilty of that; we’re also competitive. When you have an older organization that’s strong but won’t allow younger people to participate, well, they’re going to start their own thing, and now you’re splitting the community you’re trying to bring together. So it is not really fruitful for anybody.

 

It’s important to have good mentors who help bring you up through the ranks and introduce you to the people that you need to know if you were to take that position, so you’re not thrown to the wolves. I’ve mentioned Charles Marsala because he’s just been such a huge part of my life in the Italian world. Working with him was the first time I’d ever been in a nonprofit and working in any type of leadership. So I had to learn a lot of stuff, but he taught me the ropes. He had somebody who taught him the ropes, so it’s like them reaching out that hand.

 

Many younger Italian Americans looking for that identity, and our culture and community will take that offering, that olive branch, if you will, and get more active. One thing that we do is just have events that people want to go to. We want to keep an air of tradition and culture while making it modern and attractive for a young Italian professional to actually want to come to the events, keeping it upbeat but still maintaining that central tradition and culture we all collectively share. 

 

What initiatives or programs are you most proud of implementing or supporting?

I’m a very proud Italian American from Louisiana. When people think of Italian Americans, they think of New Jersey and New York, but they forget about California, Florida, and everybody across the country. But we’re here, just a different flavor of the Italian American pie. So one of the things I’m most proud of, outside of just seeing the growth of IFL last year, was the Louisiana delegation that we had come in. Some people I was very close with, and some I didn’t even know were from Louisiana, and they showed up there. Now, we’ve got our group, which has experienced IAFL, and we represented Louisiana very well.

Outside of that, locally with the St. Expedite Lodge, it’s just the growth that we’ve had, not only in total membership but also with leaders who want to take action, take part, and take responsibility in the development of this organization. We now have a marketing department that works on social media, whether it be Instagram posts, Instagram Reels, or Stories, trying just to have content continuously put out there, not just something to put out there, but something meaningful. We have an event coordinating department as well, which is planning the Spring Serata. 

 

Patrick’s grandfather Ross with cousin Grace Cannizzaro

 

What do you hope to share with your community?

It’s multifaceted, for one, as I look back to the little enclaves here in Louisiana. We used to have the little Italys across the French Quarter. It used to be called Little Palermo. There were so many Sicilians and Italians there, but as people age, they move out, die out, or become more successful because their families saved enough money to send them to school. They wanted a better life, and when they moved out, that community disappeared.

 

I want to bring that community back, not just locally, but on a national scale where it’s a national enclave, not just limited to Louisiana. I think IAFL is the perfect breeding ground for that.

 

I got stuck in New York two years ago on a flight back from Italy. I had some friends I met from IAFL who drove in from Massachusetts, and I had people who stayed with me for one day, took me around, and showed me around the area. I would never have known them and never would’ve been able to experience that had I not been at IAFL. Another example was when I was in New Orleans last October. Two friends, one from North Carolina and the other from New Jersey, came down for our film festival. Sure enough, we met another guy who happened to be in New Orleans and had attended IAFL the year before from Texas. We all just got coffee and beignets in the French Quarter.

 

It’s just bringing that community together. And I think outside of just the local sense of things, we’re in a digital age where network is just so much more expansive, and that’s something that I’d like to bring for us here is not just in Louisiana, but being able to help a friend who wants to maybe move to New Orleans or who wants to open a business or has a connection that I have here that could benefit them. I’d like to be able to expand that. We will bring that back together, but on a national scale.

 

 

 

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How One Young Leader Is Reviving Italian-American Heritage

The bulk of Italian immigration to the United States occurred between 1880 and 1920, with approximately 4 million Italians arriving during this period, mainly from Southern Italy and Sicily. That means most Italian Americans are at least four generations removed from their Italian heritage.

Traditions fade along with those connections. It’s no wonder that one of the most pressing concerns among cultural organizations is how to reach and inspire younger audiences.

At 27 years old, Patrick Ross Campesi bucks the trend. 

While many of his peers may feel distanced from their roots, he’s spent the past five years leaning in. It all started with the passing of his Sicilian grandfather in 2016 and a desire to better understand and embrace his legacy. He began researching his genealogy, learning more about his great-great-grandparents, who emigrated from the Trapani area to the United States in the 19th century and found work as sugarcane farmers in Louisiana. 

About five years ago, Patrick decided he could do more and help other Italian Americans connect with their heritage. He’s since taken on leadership roles with St. Expedite Lodge Order of the Italian Sons and Daughters of America, American-Italian Federation of the Southeast, and Italian American Future Leaders. In 2023, he founded the Louisiana Italian American Heritage Foundation, for which he serves as president. 

Patrick shared his experience, present and future challenges, and what he hopes to give back to the greater Italian American community.

 

Patrick Campesi’s great-grandfather Joseph Campesi with parents, Vincenzo and Gaetana

 

Tell us about your background and connection to your heritage.

My great-great-grandparents Vincenzo and Gaetana came to America in 1890 from Sicily because there were not many job opportunities for them in Sicily. 

Some of the families stayed in New Orleans, and not long after that, the other half went up to what’s called Iberville Parish, where I was born and raised. We moved up there probably in the early 1900s. 

We were sugarcane farmers there until the 1927 flood, which pushed us more toward the river. Once that flood happened, the levee broke, water crested, and my family worked with the Army Corps of Engineers in our little town to rebuild the levee. Half of the men in the family used the mules and the donkeys to help rebuild the levee with whatever forming equipment we had. The other half went down to some smaller towns in Louisiana to trade fur and provide for the family. It wasn’t long after that, after the Great Depression, my family moved further south, about 15 minutes by car now to White Castle, and that’s where I was really brought up. 

My connection to all of this was my grandfather Ross Joseph Campesi. He was born in 1925. He grew up farming sugarcane, but he was the one who really took the family from tenant farmers to owning the land. He started building businesses from there, and with only a high school education, achieved the American dream.

 

Poggioreale, Sicily

I was 18 when he passed, so I knew him for a good portion of my life, and he always would talk about how we’re Sicilian. We’re from Poggioreale, and there’s an organization called Poggioreale in America. I didn’t realize that there were other Poggiorealesi in America outside of my family. We grew up in what they called the Campesi Compound. I was with my uncles, cousins, and everyone in that area. I was just so confined to that little box. But then I found this organization, and this opened my world up.

 

My grandfather would say, “Family first, always.” It is something that stuck with me and was very impactful to me.

 

Once he passed, and as we entered the pandemic, I started learning more about the family, genealogy, and history. My dad was telling me more and more stories; I was just more interested in it.

Not long after that, I reached out to a gentleman named Charles Marsala, who is very involved in Louisiana. He’s been my mentor and has brought me through the ranks, introducing me to people like Marianna Gatto, Basil Russo, and John Viola, the Italians pushing to get young Italian Americans involved again. And I’ve been very lucky because of that.

 

I was instituted as President of the St. Expedite Lodge of the Order ISDA. That was my first foray into any type of nonprofit cultural leadership position. From there, I was elected Vice President of the Federation of the Southeast. Then, two years ago, I started the Louisiana Italian-American Heritage Foundation. Lastly, from 2024 to 2025, I was Chairman of the Italian American Future Leaders. It’s been a busy four years, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

 

Tell us about St. Expedite Lodge Order ISDA and your role.

St. Expedite Lodge of the Order ISDA is a local chapter of ISDA. I was put in as vice president in 2021, and then the president ended up stepping down. He said, “Look, you’re really the one who’s pushing to get the younger people into it; you should take the presidency.”

 

I had to bring together people that I knew at the time, four years ago, to help create an organization. Some of the roster has changed; now, it’s just an amazing group of people. They’re hardworking.

 

A group of us went to the Italian American Future Leaders Convention. We typically go down to New Orleans a couple of times a quarter, and we’ll see Louis Prima’s daughter Lena Prima perform and maybe go to an Italian restaurant. Our focus is on social events for young professionals. But we do have events like a Christmas event at a place called Houmas House, where we have people of all ages. We want anybody who is Italian or Italian-loving to celebrate the culture with us here. 

 

Patrick’s great-grandparents, Margherita and Joseph, in the sugarcane fields where the family worked

 

How did the Louisiana Italian-American Heritage Foundation start, and what is your vision as President?

I started that in December of 2023. It began as a political action committee, but because I’m in finance now, I can’t be involved in any PACs. We pivoted straight to a nonprofit, and we focus more on fundraising and some lobbying, but not directly like a PAC.

 

One of the main things we’re focusing on right now is fundraising for a monument to the Sicilian sugarcane harvester. So my family obviously came over here and did that. A lot of Sicilians came over and contributed to the growth of sugarcane production, not just in Louisiana but across the country and the world.

 

My grandfather worked with Louisiana State University to go around the world teaching third-world countries how to actually cultivate a better crop and to have a better yield. We lucked out in that, being here in Louisiana with such great soil. So he was teaching those practices, but that’s a direct contribution just for my family, not to mention all the other Sicilians who came here and did that.

 

Another thing that we’re doing is the Heritage Commission. New Jersey has established the New Jersey Italian American Heritage Commission, a piece of legislation that gets passed. It’s a commission that the New Jersey State government established. It’s not appropriated in any funds by the state. They have internal fundraising or grants from the Italian government. They create coursework that they can provide for schools to teach Italian contributions and Italian history here in America. One of the videos is about the relationship between Italy and America, as far as Amerigo Vespucci (we’re named after an Italian), how the American government is mimicking the Italian Republic, our accounting system, and all these everyday different contributions with an Italian root. That’s something we want to bring to Louisiana. 

 

Share more about your involvement with the Italian American Future Leaders.

It is like a melting pot and a mastermind group where people come from all different walks of life, from 21 to 35, with all different experiences. Whether they run organizations or are members of them or have ideas for social media, it’s a way for all of us to come together and say, “Hey, I was dealing with something with my lodge in Louisiana; how did you do it in Indiana?” And that’s real-life experience. There’s a guy who does amazing festivals up there, and he’s helped coach us on how to do some of the feasts we do down here. So it’s just a great way for us to connect and network.

 

What led me to want to get involved with it? I’m a people person. I like to be connected. I like to network with people and to share in our culture. It’s something that’s so beautiful but will die out if we don’t pass it on to the next generation.

 

As far as leadership was concerned, I saw something great and wanted to be a part of it. But it wasn’t just me. There was a team of people that I was working with, and even while I was chairman, a lot of people helped us put together that conference that we have every year. But just to be a part of something like that and to learn from all the Basil Russos, John Violas, and Pat O’Boyles of the world, who have done so much for the community in their lifetime, but even more so with IAFL, has just been an amazing experience. 

 

Attracting younger generations is a challenge for cultural organizations. How are you working to overcome that?

It’s difficult across the board. One of the things we’ve found is that having leadership positions available for the younger people makes a difference. Representing the young Italians of Louisiana and having the positions I have shows others that if you are active in this, this is also something that you can attain.

 

In many of these older organizations, the old guard doesn’t want to hand over the baton; it could be more vanity or ego. As Italians, we’re sometimes guilty of that; we’re also competitive. When you have an older organization that’s strong but won’t allow younger people to participate, well, they’re going to start their own thing, and now you’re splitting the community you’re trying to bring together. So it is not really fruitful for anybody.

 

It’s important to have good mentors who help bring you up through the ranks and introduce you to the people that you need to know if you were to take that position, so you’re not thrown to the wolves. I’ve mentioned Charles Marsala because he’s just been such a huge part of my life in the Italian world. Working with him was the first time I’d ever been in a nonprofit and working in any type of leadership. So I had to learn a lot of stuff, but he taught me the ropes. He had somebody who taught him the ropes, so it’s like them reaching out that hand.

 

Many younger Italian Americans looking for that identity, and our culture and community will take that offering, that olive branch, if you will, and get more active. One thing that we do is just have events that people want to go to. We want to keep an air of tradition and culture while making it modern and attractive for a young Italian professional to actually want to come to the events, keeping it upbeat but still maintaining that central tradition and culture we all collectively share. 

 

What initiatives or programs are you most proud of implementing or supporting?

I’m a very proud Italian American from Louisiana. When people think of Italian Americans, they think of New Jersey and New York, but they forget about California, Florida, and everybody across the country. But we’re here, just a different flavor of the Italian American pie. So one of the things I’m most proud of, outside of just seeing the growth of IFL last year, was the Louisiana delegation that we had come in. Some people I was very close with, and some I didn’t even know were from Louisiana, and they showed up there. Now, we’ve got our group, which has experienced IAFL, and we represented Louisiana very well.

Outside of that, locally with the St. Expedite Lodge, it’s just the growth that we’ve had, not only in total membership but also with leaders who want to take action, take part, and take responsibility in the development of this organization. We now have a marketing department that works on social media, whether it be Instagram posts, Instagram Reels, or Stories, trying just to have content continuously put out there, not just something to put out there, but something meaningful. We have an event coordinating department as well, which is planning the Spring Serata. 

 

Patrick’s grandfather Ross with cousin Grace Cannizzaro

 

What do you hope to share with your community?

It’s multifaceted, for one, as I look back to the little enclaves here in Louisiana. We used to have the little Italys across the French Quarter. It used to be called Little Palermo. There were so many Sicilians and Italians there, but as people age, they move out, die out, or become more successful because their families saved enough money to send them to school. They wanted a better life, and when they moved out, that community disappeared.

 

I want to bring that community back, not just locally, but on a national scale where it’s a national enclave, not just limited to Louisiana. I think IAFL is the perfect breeding ground for that.

 

I got stuck in New York two years ago on a flight back from Italy. I had some friends I met from IAFL who drove in from Massachusetts, and I had people who stayed with me for one day, took me around, and showed me around the area. I would never have known them and never would’ve been able to experience that had I not been at IAFL. Another example was when I was in New Orleans last October. Two friends, one from North Carolina and the other from New Jersey, came down for our film festival. Sure enough, we met another guy who happened to be in New Orleans and had attended IAFL the year before from Texas. We all just got coffee and beignets in the French Quarter.

 

It’s just bringing that community together. And I think outside of just the local sense of things, we’re in a digital age where network is just so much more expansive, and that’s something that I’d like to bring for us here is not just in Louisiana, but being able to help a friend who wants to maybe move to New Orleans or who wants to open a business or has a connection that I have here that could benefit them. I’d like to be able to expand that. We will bring that back together, but on a national scale.

 

 

 

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Preserving Sicilian Heritage: Independence, Louisiana’s Italian Cultural Museum

With fewer than 2,000 residents, Independence, Louisiana, may be small, but its devotion to its Italian—largely Sicilian—roots runs deep.

It all started in the late 19th century when a large influx of Sicilian immigrants arrived in the state, many taking jobs as sugar cane laborers. A contingent moved to Independence, where they worked the fields of strawberry farms. The rich heritage they brought with them is celebrated at the Independence Italian Cultural Museum. The institution, which is committed to preserving Sicilian and Italian culture, music, art, and language, hosts a variety of fundraisers throughout the year.

 

I spoke with Lesley Vullo, an Independence resident and Italian dual citizen who volunteers with the museum, to learn more.

 

 

Tell us about the significance of the museum’s building.

The building was originally the Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church, built in 1908 by Sicilian and Italian immigrants. My great-grandparents and grandparents actually attended church there. When my dad was younger, it was still in use. Then, they built the new church across the street and turned the old building into the museum.

What are some of the events organized by the museum?

Each August, the museum hosts “Cucuzza Day,” where people bring their cucuzzi and compete in cucuzza-growing and cooking contests. There are also contests for kids, and seeds are available for purchase.

Then, in September, we have “Sotto Le Stelle,” which is essentially a night under the stars. It’s an opportunity to bring back the Sicilian spirit of outside dinners and the evening passeggiata. We turn the street outside the museum into an outdoor family dining experience.

 

We also have holiday cookie sales and spring stuffed artichoke and muffuletta sales. Throughout the year, we offer Sicilian language classes. 

 

Cucuzza Day celebrates the fruits of the giant squash harvest.

What can visitors take away from their museum experience?

The community has donated a lot to the museum. We have everything from wedding dresses and Sicilian musical instruments to a hand-painted Sicilian cart and St. Joseph altar. There’s a lot of history here and an opportunity to reconnect with ancestral roots. Independence is a small town, and having this museum here to connect us all is a big deal. 

 

 

A handmade Sicilian cart is among the displays.

 

 

 

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How Gourmet Girls is Redefining Italian Food in the UK’s Brighton and Hove

Giulia Civello pulls a worn hardcover book from her shelf and flips through it, revealing little scraps of paper marking various pages. It’s a cookbook, and one of the bookmarks is labeled “Franco” for her father, marking his favorite recipe.

 

“What’s amazing about these old Italian cookbooks is that so many of the recipes assume such a high base level of cookery compared to the recipes you see now,” Giulia says as she looks down at the book. “It’s just ‘Cook the fruit; make the pastry.’ There’s no explanation of what that means. And there’s no oven temperatures or anything like that. You just have to know, which I think is totally wonderful.”

 

The cookbook belonged to Giulia’s great-grandmother and was passed down through generations with Sicilian recipes and food traditions. Today, Giulia shares that knowledge through Gourmet Girls, a series of pop-ups and supper clubs she and her team host in venues and homes across Brighton and Hove, a seaside community in southeastern England.

Giulia’s father came to the UK from Catania, Sicily, where her family spent summer holidays. Drawing from that heritage, Italy travels, and her background as an environmental consultant, Giulia serves food stories and sustainably sourced Italian fare with meals celebrating various regions such as the Dolomites, Puglia, and, of course, Sicily. 

Giulia shared more about her business and passion for Italian food, memorable events, favorite dishes, challenges, and what she hopes diners take away.

 

 

How and why did you start Gourmet Girls?

I thought about doing it for a long time before I actually had the guts to launch. I started in ecology and then migrated into the environmental sector. I’ve always been a foodie and interested in sustainable food and farming. 

I was always getting my grandma to teach me recipes. My grandma grew up with her mother, father, and grandmother in the house, so she wasn’t actually the main cook in the house; it was her mother.

 

I worked in London five days a week, commuting up, which was incredibly stressful. I thought, “What am I doing? This isn’t what I want to do.” Then other things happened in my personal life, and I thought, “If I’m going to do it, I just need to do it now.” So, I went for it. 

It started as—and mainly still is—supper clubs, which are a great model for me because I host these pop-ups at venues. I don’t have my own catering kitchen, but I go into places, cook in their kitchens, and invite people over for an evening. Everybody sits together, and it’s all very much about community. I come out and tell them about the dishes and the heritage of the dishes. But the real thing for me is cooking Italian food that people don’t get in an Italian restaurant here. I want to cook regional Italian food, which is what Gourmet Girls is all about—everything from the Dolomites to Sicily to Tuscany to Puglia.

 

Many friends say, “Oh, we don’t go out for Italian; we just go out for Asian. You can just cook Italian at home, can’t you?” And I say, “No, no, there’s so much more than what you get in your High Street pasta/pizza restaurants.” And so that’s what it’s all about, really.

 

Guests enjoy a Gourmet Girls supper.

What makes Brighton and Hove a special place to offer events?

Brighton is a brilliant place. It’s very multicultural and open. It has a very big LGBTQ community, and you get a lot of people who come down from London, love it, and stay from all over. You get people interested in trying new stuff and lots of different groups. It’s interesting to see the kind of people who attend my events. You get all age groups, people who are learning Italian online, who are really obsessed with Italy, real foodies who just want to try something different, or people who have just heard about it. It’s a nice mix of loads of different people coming together, who are joined by their interest in what the food will be like.

 

 

Suppers are served with stories to complement the courses.

 

Share a memorable Gourmet Girls event.

The biggest one I did was a Roman street food pop-up. That was challenging. There were 70 people, and I was churning out the Roman version of arancini (supplì).

 

Every time I do an event, I get anxious in the lead-up—that’s just my personality. But then I come away feeling so warm inside because people just love it. They love that you can tell them interesting anecdotes and the heritage of what they’re eating. 

I had a job in a cheese shop when I was studying at university. People would love it if you told them how cheese is made and the story about the people making it. It’s just that connection with food, isn’t it? It’s totally different. And that’s what the supper clubs and catering are all about, really. It’s about sharing my love of the dishes and the heritage of the dishes.

 

Pasta alla Norma

 

What are some favorite regional dishes you introduce?

I always do pasta alla Norma, which people have sometimes heard of, but often the aubergine is so badly cooked. People try to bake it. It’s like, “Get a pan of oil and fry it!” That’s the way to get the best out of an aubergine. I make a really good pasta alla Norma, with a lovely ricotta salata, which I get from a really amazing Italian cheese guy in London.

 

That recipe comes from Catania, so I’m particularly fond of it. It’s named after the famous opera by Bellini. As the story goes, playwright Nino Martoglio said, “Chista è ‘na vera Norma!” when he tried it for the first time.

 

I also enjoy serving granita, traditionally a breakfast food, as a dessert. I serve it with a little brioche just as you would have at breakfast time in Sicily. I do an almond granita with a little shot of espresso that the guest can pour on top. When my dad has granita, it’s always alla mandorle with caffè on top. It’s just the most divine combination of flavors, so that’s another favorite as well.

 

Giulia Civello in the kitchen.

 

What were some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced?

The challenge I find is that Italian dishes are based on the quality of ingredients. The UK climate is so different from that of Italy, especially Sicily. If you try to cook pesto alla Trapanese, which has almonds, tomatoes, and basil, you won’t get the same flavor. A lot of British chefs who cook Italian food throw everything at it to compensate. You end up with these pasta dishes with 17 ingredients, which you never get in Italy. I seek out really high-quality ingredients to try and replicate those Italian flavors, which is not all that easy. And so I have to kind of tailor the menus around what I can get. Staying true to the authenticity of the dish is key for me.

 

Another challenge has been marketing and learning to spread the word about the events. Fortunately, I have a good family network and friends in Brighton and Hove. So my events initially were filled with friends and family, but once they’ve been once or twice, you need to move on to the next set of people. It’s like, how do you reach them? That’s been a big learning curve.

I attended networking events and posted my event on all sorts of random event websites, trying to get the venues where I was hosting to post it on their socials. That helped a lot. I’m lucky my best friend and her husband have a branding agency. They did all my branding, which was amazing. 

 

Giulia Civello adds the finishing touch to a Gourmet Girls meal course.

What are your future plans?

Probably not immediately, but I would like it to be my full-time job. The supper clubs are great because they allow me to test recipes. It’s quite a friendly setting to do it. I haven’t had to make huge investments financially in terms of catering equipment and things like that. The venues also have staff that I can rely on. But the plan is to eventually transition to having my own prep kitchen and all my own kit and doing much more private catering—not mass wedding catering though; I’m not interested in doing 250 plates of food for a wedding. I want to do small things, where it’s still very much about the food I’m cooking. It’s not just the event; it’s about food. That’s what I’m all about, really.

 

Gourmet Girls guests typically sit at a long table for a communal dining experience.

What experience do you hope to share?

I hope my guests will come away having eaten something new and learning about Italian regional food.

 

This winter, I’m planning a Dolomites menu. After university, I spent a ski season in Italy, where I lived in the Dolomites in Val Gardena for six months. It was a glorious experience.

 

The food there is just wonderful. It is quite Austrian in terms of its influence because where I was, it actually used to be Austrian; the border moved during the war. When you’re skiing there, you see these beautiful mountains, and they’ve got all the holes where the soldiers would be hiding and fighting. It’s an amazing place, and it’s all dumplings, polenta with sausages, and strudel. It’s so different from anywhere else in Italy; really hearty mountain fare. So I think that will be nice around Christmas.

 

I hope people come thinking, “Wow, this is Italian food? I don’t associate this food with Italy!” That’s the kind of reaction I like. It’s just a voyage of discovery.

 

 

 

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From Literature to Luretík: How Elise Magistro Transformed Her Passion for Italian Culture into Award-Winning Olive Oil

In many ways, Elise Magistro’s work as an Italian language and literature professor influenced her trajectory to olive growing and oil production. 

 

“Daily contact with Italian language and literature reinforced the prominent role that food (or lack of it in poorer regions) has played in Italian life over the centuries,” says Professor Magistro. “Olives and olive oil are woven into the fabric of Italian culture—the literature, art, and cuisine—much like the olive trees that grace the Italian landscape. Although the route wasn’t direct, literature led me to connect with many facets of Italian culture, and olive oil was simply one of them. When I knew that my teaching career would be winding down, I found myself heading in that direction as a way to remain connected to Italy.”

 

Drawing from a childhood shaped by her Sicilian paternal grandfather’s cooking and memories of her French-Basque maternal grandparents’ farming, she left the classroom behind after more than three decades to plant an olive grove in California’s Santa Ynez Valley. She has since embraced olive oil production and elevated her region’s reputation with internationally acclaimed, award-winning Luretík certified organic extra virgin olive oils.

 

We talked about her journey and influences, the challenges she’s faced, how she chose her olive varieties, the story behind the Luretík name, what sets the brand apart, her advice for business owners, and more.

 

What inspired your transition from academia to olive growing and oil production?

My relationship with Italy and Italian culture is deeply personal and goes back more than 50 years. When I was young, my grandfather was a constant presence in our home. He was a shoemaker and did not speak much English, but he was an impressive cook and often prepared our daily meals. The dishes were not elaborate, but the quality of the ingredients was excellent, and the food was always prepared with great attention to detail. However, other than our grandfather’s cooking and his conversations in Sicilian with my father, there was nothing particularly “Italian” about life in our house. If anything, my mother’s Basque traditions figured more significantly in our upbringing. With grandparents who had immigrated from Sicily and France, my siblings and I were aware of our foreign roots but raised to be very American.

 

I went to Italy for the first time when I was 19 years old. That is where the personal link with my grandfather’s linguistic and culinary influences took a surprising turn into a new and exciting cultural territory. In Tuscany, it was a head-over-heels, fall-in-love Stendahl moment: the architecture, the food, the fashion, the daily rituals, the slower pace of life, the intimate connection to a place, all so very different than anything in the U.S. The final leg of my sojourn that year was in Sicily, a visit that brought me full circle back to the world of my grandfather’s kitchen. The experience left an indelible mark and was the start of an enduring love affair with Italy.

 

After completing my undergraduate studies and an M.A. in Italian, I went on to get a PhD, with a focus on southern Italian writers and Italian women’s writing. There is often a very regional component in Italian literature, one that reflects the tendency of Italians to identify with their region of birth and to take pride in that identity. (When I first went to Italy, it was far more common for people to introduce themselves as “Siciliani, Toscani, Calabresi,” or even with more city specificity as “Palermitani, Fiorentini, Romani” rather than as Italians.)

 

This regional identity is front and center in Italy’s food culture, and olive oil, as everyone knows, figures centrally in Italian cooking. Whenever I was in Italy, I would inevitably end up in people’s kitchens, where I discovered that olive oils (depending on the region I happened to be in) all had distinct flavor profiles. Tuscans tended to favor oils made from Frantoio, Leccino, and Moraiolo varieties that are native to the area, while Sicilians favored oils made from Nocellara del Belice, Cerasuola, Biancolilla, and Tonda Iblea olives.

 

As I would later discover, there are more than 1,200 olive varieties in the world, with roughly 700 found in Italy, most of which are autochthonous or native to a specific region. When I started out, I didn’t know anything about growing olives and making olive oil, but the idea of growing different Italian varieties in California soils was very exciting to me. By the time I retired from teaching in 2019, I had already started taking coursework in Italy and at the UC Davis Olive Center in preparation for what was to come.

 

Luretík olive grove in Santa Ynez Valley. Photo by Jeremy Ball

 

What challenges did you face at the beginning?

My husband and I decided to buy a piece of property, knowing that we wanted to try our hand at growing olives and producing olive oil. We looked up and down the state, searching for the right spot, and landed in the Santa Ynez Valley, just north of Santa Barbara. 

 

The Santa Ynez Valley is one of the most fertile agricultural areas in California, so growing olives there wasn’t so much of the challenge. The closest town to our grove is even called Los Olivos, and the area is blessed with a mild Mediterranean climate, ocean breezes, and ideal soils. Initially, not even water presented much of a worry since olives are fairly drought-resistant. For me, the greater challenge was navigating a world that was completely new, one in which I had zero experience. I talked to everyone, especially agronomists and olive oil experts, as well as to small producers who were having success with their olive operations. I continued to take coursework and read everything I could about soils, water management, tree pruning, pest control, harvest timing, and sound milling practices. And I spent a lot of time in the grove simply observing, something I continue to do today.

 

To draw a cooking analogy, one can start with the best ingredients and still not end up with a great result. Good soils, great weather, and optimal growing conditions don’t guarantee that you will necessarily end up with high-quality olive oil. In the end, my approach to making olive oil was similar to the one I had adopted in my own study of Italian and one that I often shared with my students: “Immerse yourself in the subject and find a way to do so every single day. Repetition and daily contact are the keys to succeeding.” At the time, I’m not quite sure I fully realized the scope of what is entailed in producing a high-quality olive oil, but I was committed and have not looked back.

 

 

Olives used to produce Luretík extra virgin olive oil are estate-grown.

Tell us about your olive trees.

We purchased our first 50 Nocellara del Belice trees and 50 Cerasuola trees, both Sicilian varieties, in 2012. We kept them in pots in our backyard until we were ready to put them in the grove in 2016. We gradually added more of each, along with other varieties, and nearly a decade later, we are at a little over 1,000 trees, comprising nine Italian cultivars.

 

I chose Italian varieties for several reasons, not the least of which were sentimental. Sicily and Tuscany were my touchstones, and Sicilian and Tuscan oils had always been my favorites. When we were getting ready to plant, however, I received some very good advice from two small producers in Italy who were guiding us through the process. They encouraged me to be open-minded and to plant a variety of cultivars so we could see which ones adapted best to our California soils. They also noted that the strategy made sense for the overall health of the grove, as pests that attack one variety may ignore another and diseases that strike some varieties might not show up in others. Finally, they insisted that biodiversity would not only help physically protect the grove but also protect my financial investment. It was the best advice I could have gotten. Our Coratina trees (a variety I had never intended to plant) began producing after only two years and have produced one of our most frequently awarded oils.

 

I continue to spend much of my time in Italy visiting small producers who grow the same varieties we do at Luretík so that I can better understand how to work with a particular cultivar, especially when it comes to timing the harvest and milling olives, as no two olive varieties are the same. Some cultivars in our grove are more sensitive to cold; others are less tolerant of heat. Some varieties come into production after just a couple of years; others take four or five. Some olive varieties mature early; others mature late. But more importantly, the same variety grown in a different geographic area will produce a different oil, and there are harvest timing and milling decisions that will also affect the final product. All these considerations must be taken into account when managing a grove and making a quality olive oil. Finally, I’d say that varietal diversity in our grove has opened up options for blending different oils to create oils with unique sensory profiles.
 

Olive oil production

 

How do you choose the blend of olives for each type of olive oil, and what makes them unique?

Italy has a comprehensive database of native cultivars that catalogs the chemical and sensory profiles of over 198 Italian varieties. The site has the additional benefit of tracking taste profiles of oils made from the same cultivar but not grown in the region of origin (important for me as I am growing Italian varieties in California).

I started out with the idea of producing monocultivar oils, but the problem in the beginning was that no single cultivar in the grove was producing enough olives to make more than 20 gallons or so of oil. Rather than simply milling all my olives together and producing a “field blend,” which is what people normally do in this situation, I decided to take a certain percentage of olives of one cultivar and mill them together with an equal or lesser percentage of another variety that I thought would produce a pleasant oil.

I based my decisions on what I had learned about the different taste profiles of individual varieties and information gleaned from other Italian producers and databases. While the method was a bit unorthodox (oils are typically blended after having been milled separately), all three of the resulting blends we produced that year were recognized with the highest awards in international competitions. Now, as the grove nears full production, we will be able to mill our varieties separately and blend with more precision. With the help of a professionally trained, expert olive oil taster, I am learning more about this process, and the prospect of continuing on this path is very exciting.

 

Where does the name Luretík come from?

When it came time to plant the grove, I was looking for an Italian name or something that reflected both the Mediterranean roots of olive oil and the California provenance of our oil. And I was really struggling. My mother, who was Basque and whose parents farmed, suggested the name Luretik. Lure in Basque means earth. And when the suffix -ík is added (luretík), the word translates roughly to “what comes from this ground” or “from my own land.” It just seemed perfect, because not everyone grows the olives that go into making their oil. Growing my own olives was a source of pride and important to me, so the name resonated. In the end, the name Luretík was a nod to my mother’s Basque farming roots, while the Sicilian cultivars that make the oil honor my father.

 

 

You’ve won numerous international awards. What sets your oils apart on a global scale?

On the one hand, what sets our oil apart is what sets every good oil apart: they are produced with care and attention to every detail in the journey from the grove to the mill. Fruitiness, bitterness, and pepperiness are the three positive characteristics of a quality oil, and in a perfectly crafted oil, these characteristics will be in balance, with one sensory trait never overpowering the other two.

 

How you arrive at that balance, again, is a combination of many factors, with perhaps the most important being healthy olives that are harvested at the optimal moment, then milled by a knowledgeable miller within 12 to 24 hours of picking. 

 

On a more personal level, I would say that our oils have been recognized because we adhere to the highest standards when making Luretík olive oil. Although we are quite small, we are fully certified organic with an eye on becoming certified sustainable. We have earned the trust of our customers by being principled and transparent about how we make our oils, and maintaining that trust is key for me. In a very real sense, it goes back to the work ethic instilled in me by my parents, and particularly my father. He never told us, so much as showed us, that if you are going to take the time to do something, you need to work as hard as you can. I think that philosophy has paid off for us.

 

What business advice would you give?

I would say start with the product, because everything else is secondary. If you can find a way to make beautiful oils, all else will fall into place. Before introducing our oil to the broader market in 2022, I wanted to be as informed as possible about all aspects of what I was doing and selling. That is why I still spend much of my time talking with experts and visiting small producers who have been successful over time in maintaining the quality of their oils. Ideally, one should have a sound business plan in place, but I was admittedly a little slower on that front as all my energies were geared towards learning how to farm the olives and make the oil. 

 

Olive oil is having a moment. It seems we read about it everywhere: chefs interested in food pairings, fitness enthusiasts touting health benefits, and marketers looking to create gorgeous packaging for a product that is on everyone’s mind. And that is all good for olive oil, but producers should be cautious about feeling the need to get involved in too many areas at the outset. I would argue for a slower approach that is focused on the product.

 

Elise Magistro – Photo by Jeremy Ball

 

What do you hope to share?

The world of olive oil is as vast, and for that reason, a lot of what I do is education. Part of my mission is to help people make informed decisions about their choices, especially because there is a great deal of confusion around olive oil. Labeling, for example, has become a minefield of misleading terms. For starters, I try to walk people through the essential terminology on a label so that they can feel more confident about their choices. People have been very responsive about becoming more knowledgeable about olive oil, and that has been gratifying for me.

An equally important part of what I want to share about olive oil, however, is tied to my love of Italy and the historic role olive oil has always played in Italian culture. While almost every trip to Italy still includes stays in Tuscany and Sicily, I am always happy to visit other regions, to learn something new that I can share with others. This olive oil venture is part of a longer journey that started decades ago, and it happily keeps me connected to a country and a culture that I have never ceased to love. I feel very fortunate that I was lucky to do something over the course of my life that kept me so engaged. I could do it forever. 

 

 

 

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Beyond ‘Bella Vita’: AIS-Phila Redefines Italian Identity in America Through Culture and Education

Post-World War II, Italy was a nation in recovery, rebuilding its economy, infrastructure, and identity under new democratic leadership. In June 1947, the United States drafted the Marshall Plan, a program designed to provide financial assistance to Western European countries devastated by the war. As the third-largest recipient, Italy received 10% of that aid. In turn, U.S. government agencies, organizations, and business groups expanded their efforts to build strategic partnerships with their Italian counterparts. That collaboration led to the formation of civic organizations committed to cross-cultural and educational exchange among Italians and Italian Americans. And it paved the way for the 1956 launch of the America-Italy Society of Philadelphia (AIS-Phila).

Since its inception, AIS-Phila has embraced arts and education while continuing its commitment to the Italy-U.S. friendship. Meanwhile, in Italy, AIS-Phila has participated in restoration projects, such as the Committee to Rescue Italian Art in the aftermath of the 1966 Arno River flood, and built a center in 1980 for survivors of an earthquake east of Naples.

As the collaboration continues, AIS-Phila remains focused on deepening the understanding of contemporary Italian culture as it exists in Italy and moving beyond stereotypes. Chief among its offerings is a language school, offering 45 courses to around 350 students in person and online. The community can also participate in AIS-Phila lectures, films, concerts, and art exhibitions. 

AIS-Phila Executive Director Elisa Schwab Clewis grew up in Brazil and Italy before moving to the U.S. She’s lived in Philadelphia since 2006, working in the non-profit sector and gaining over 16 years of experience teaching Italian culture and language in higher education. 

Elisa shared more about AIS-Phila, its unique offerings and mission, upcoming collaborations, and her leadership goals.

 

 

What new initiatives have you taken on as the organization’s third director?

My mindset is that I will consider everything we get in. I never say no to anyone until I first talk with them.

 

It was maybe my fifth day here when we received this email from the Philadelphia Museum of Art inviting us to get tickets for the craft show in November, where Italy would be the guest country. I said, “This is interesting. We need to get deeper on this.”

 

I found out who the artists were and decided to write a letter inviting them to a party here. They told me, “We cannot really talk to you directly. You need to talk with our curator. But he’s actually amazing.” So, I talked to him and began collaborating with him, and they came here. Some did not have enough money to stay in a hotel, so we arranged for them to stay with host families. And we had a welcoming dinner.

 

It was totally made up on the spot, but it went well. It was great.

 

AIS-Phila teacher Cristina Vea holds up a peace sign while posing with her language class.

 

Share more about your school.

The school seriously started about 11 years ago. The former director did an amazing job of building the basis of the school from one that had just a couple of courses. The board decided to bring in an executive director and a director of the school, and we are working together to take it to the next level. We are offering cultural courses, accelerated courses, and pronunciation courses. Our teachers are the heart of it. Several have PhDs in literature, one is a sociologist, and we have a film studies person. We have such expertise among our teachers.

 

Study abroad with AIS-Phila in Todi, Italy. 

Tell us about your study abroad program.

We’ve been doing this for about 15 years, every June for one week in Todi, which is in Umbria. It is a very nice medieval town. Our students would take classes from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and then in the afternoon, we do sightseeing. The cool thing is that they can pick between homestays—a family home, a hotel, or an apartment. I will say that 70% of them want to stay in a home with a host family, which is great because you really get the best.

 

Anna Kraczyna spoke to AIS-Phila members about translating Pinocchio for Penguin Classics.

What events and activities do you offer, and what is their role in the mission?

The mission is to really bring Italian culture to the U.S. We are not a heritage organization, so we are a little bit different. Our events are getting deeper into aspects of Italian culture through history, art, music, and lectures.

 

We have been historically involved with the restoration of art in Venice. We do a series of conferences on Venice. It can be any aspect, like literature in Venice or the environmental situation of Venice, with the water rising. We just hosted Anna Kraczyna, the translator of Pinocchio into English for Penguin Classics. She presented the real meaning of the book, and it was absolutely wonderful. The event could also be seen on Zoom because some people are not in Philadelphia or have mobility problems. If you offer the event on Zoom, you open up to the entire U.S., so we will be looking into doing that more.

 

AIS-Phila’s Amerita Chamber Players Concert Series

Can you share any memorable moments or success stories?

The November show with the artists was quite amazing. We ended up receiving art from three of them who decided to leave their art behind and donated it to us so that we can do an auction and a joint fundraiser. So I will try to sell it and pay them a fair amount. But then I can also do some fundraising with “100% Made in Italy” art pieces.

 

Success stories? There are a lot. We’ve been doing a lot of backstage work with the financial part of the organization. I was with an official at City Hall, welcoming high school students from the sister cities, one of them being Florence. The reception was wonderful.

 

It’s such a rich job, yet so natural to me because that’s what I am. I’ve always been between the two countries.

 

What upcoming projects or collaborations are you particularly excited about?

We are going to collaborate with Robert Campana, who has built Stop Italian Sounding. What is that? It’s when someone approaches the supermarket in the United States and wants to buy a product. Often, products use Italian-sounding language, the colors of the flag, or the Tower of Pisa to show that the product is actually authentic, but it’s not.

 

He wants to educate the public about this. He’s been doing a terrific job to the point that when I was teaching at Arcadia University, I offered a course titled “Made in Italy,” and part of my course focused on stopping Italian sounding. We went to his website and looked at his videos, and then my students had to build an advertisement to educate the public on that. So, Robert and I want to start offering master classes at AIS-Phila. Then, we’ll have a tasting so you can also taste the product. We are looking into collaboration with restaurants or places where you buy Italian products.

 

We haven’t really done much with food because I didn’t want to fall into the “Let’s cook together!” This Robert Campana collaboration is so perfectly in line with us; it’s our way of, “Let’s talk about food, but let’s talk about it in an educational way. Let’s give you some options so you can decide.” For me, it’s a great accomplishment that we will collaborate. 

 

Philadelphia has the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, the oldest nonprofit that deals with the international environment in Philadelphia, and we are officially collaborating. We are already organizing the welcoming event for the new general consul from Italy, who is coming this summer. We want to do an official welcome between us and them.

 

We are also collaborating with an organization that helps people get Italian citizenship. Especially now, we get a lot of requests. We absolutely do not give any legal advice. So, I decided to collaborate with an organization called Italiza. They’re based in New Jersey, but they work with the entire U.S., and their legal office is in Rome, so they can really help people with that. We help people with translations. 

 

AIS-Phila presents Vittorini awards to University of Pennsylvania students who study abroad and encounter sights such as Ravenna’s Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo.

How do you hope to impact the community?

Sometimes, the understanding of Italy is very romantic. It’s very, “Wonderful wine!” and “Bella Vita!” My underlying mission is to really bring Italy and the understanding of the complexity of a country with a huge culture, history, and diversity. So, I am just really going beyond what people might superficially think and trying to really educate the public. And sometimes, Italian Americans are the ones who need to move away from their stereotypical idea of Italy and move to “This is a country that lives today. Things didn’t stop 60 years ago.”

 

We have 20 teachers, including the director of the school. We are from Italy, so that’s what we are, right? That’s what I like to promote.

 

I hope to share the complexity of Italy and the reality of today. I’m happy some of our students want to travel to Italy. The fact is that most tourist places don’t really represent the country, so really, it’s all about this authenticity.

 

 

 

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Rooted in Tradition, Grown in New Jersey: Angelico Winery

Wine has always been a part of Ottavio Angelico’s life. He grew up amid generations of winemakers in Grammichele within the Province of Catania, Sicily. While he chose to embark on a different path, studying robotics engineering in Canada and finding work in the packaging industry in the United States, those roots drew him back. 

Three years ago, he and his wife, Lily, opened Angelico Winery in Lambertville, New Jersey, near the banks of the Delaware River. Visitors can pull up a chair at the 50-person tasting room and sip wines from familiar grapes, such as Barbera, Sangiovese, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and Riesling, as well as more unique varieties, like Baco Noir and Traminette. All are picked by hand from the couple’s vineyard. The wines are produced using low-intervention, natural winemaking techniques that embrace the unique microbial environment of the Angelico vineyard, in contrast to the more technical, controlled winemaking approaches common in the United States. 

Lily and the two Angelico sons oversee most operations for the team of 10, while Ottavio continues to work as a full-time packaging manager for L’Oréal. Thus, the winery is truly a family business.  

Ottavio and I discussed his journey, unique winemaking process, challenges, rewards, and what he hopes to share along the way.

 

 

How did Angelico Winery get its start?

I’m an engineer in L’Oreal’s packaging department. I would buy grapes from a local supplier and make wine at home. It was, for me, a passion, a hobby, something that expressed my culture.

 

I was buying equipment to the point where I had a mini lab in my basement. I read books, and my winemaking improved. One day, I just said to myself, “The wine here, in the United States, honestly is just waking up.” I felt like it was missing somebody who could share some background or maybe share what the culture means for wine.

 

So it started from that, and I told my wife one thing we could do: stay working for a corporation for the next 20 years and retire or spend the next 20 years doing it on our own.

 

My wife is from China; it’s a different culture, and she was born in the city. She told me, I see that you have the passion you spend every weekend or during your hobby time. She knew what I had in the basement. We had a cellar with over 2,000 bottles of wine, something crazy, all kinds from 2002 when I started until now.

 

She said, “This is your passion, so why not work for another winery instead of spending money on a winery?”

 

And I said, “Let me try to work for somebody and see if it’s just a temporary fever that I got.”

So I went to work for a local winery, went straight to the owner, and said, “I’m here just because I want to open my own winery.”

 

He told me, “You know what? I see you have a passion. I see you want to open a winery, and I need somebody who works a little bit everywhere.”

So I ended up working for 11 years, making wine with his staff members. I spent my vacations and my weekends working with them.

 

Six years ago, my wife and I said we were ready. We sold our house, and with all our savings from selling the house, we purchased this 10-acre land that we have here today with all the things you see here when you come to visit us: vineyards, the winery, and all the landscaping. And it was done by my family. 

 

Sons Antonio and Giulio started helping at a young age. 

 

Tell us about your unique winemaking process.

I started simply with Old-World tradition. I planted Italian grapes. When I purchased the vines, I selected Italian grapes that would adapt here in New Jersey. If they die because they’re not comfortable in the environment, I try to replant different ones.

 

Our wines are, firstly, grown with New Jersey soil, on the original vine, so they’re Italian. The second thing is what we call a low-intervention winemaking style. We try not to overkill the wines using sulfites. And my wine does not travel. I am not bringing my wine out of the state. I’m not bringing the wine across the world, so I don’t have any necessity to buffer the wine with any preservative. Years from now, I don’t know where we will be with my winery, but so far, I’m just embracing all the European techniques we used to do.

I met someone who makes wine here. They have a lot of equipment. They spend a lot of time making impeccable wine, trying to control the process. I agree with that. But if you look at the Europeans, they start from a basic winemaker style. The most important thing is to have the cleanest and healthiest fruit. Yes, we do sanitize. But when we splash the wine on the floor or when we splash the wine on the walls of the winery, we like to have the flavor left there.

 

When you ferment the wine from your own grapes, from your own wine in itself, it builds that kind of microbial step with the environment inside. Those microorganisms that might stay around the winery add a unique flavor or identity to our wine. We embrace what we call the natural fermentation of the wine, the natural yeast.

When you are a local producer, if you’re making 5,000 bottles and you want to represent your local place, you better find out what kind of yeast your grapes catch from the environment where you live and if it is a good one. You want to embrace that yeast. 

 

Lily has roots in China. How have your combined cultures influenced the winemaking process and winery experience?

The culture of wine in China is not as well-known as in Italy, of course. My wife, Lily, has spent the last 20 years learning to enjoy wines, recognizing the quality of the product, and pairing it with food. She offers huge support to the family business today since her culture is really wired for running an effective and profitable business. She is a perfect combination that adds value to our winery.

 

She runs marketing and sales. I take care of the quality of the product, bringing my background and experience. She provides unbelievable hospitality and service to our guests, boosting the sales of our products.

 

I can make all the great wines in the world, but Lily can connect with people and deliver the product to their minds and hearts. She is an awesome hospitality guru!

 

Angelico wines: Grown, produced, and bottled in New Jersey.

What were your biggest challenges along the way?

The first and possibly the only major challenge is the “People Mindset.” New Jersey has a reputation for having no wine at all or fruit wines. A lot of people need to be educated about what wine truly is, and that’s one core value of our winery.

 

Great vines grow in any region of the world, producing unique grapes that represent the territory/area (terroir) where they are grown, so great wines can be produced with such grapes. It will take another five to 10 years to recognize New Jersey as a great AVA (American Viticultural Area) with great wines—a lot of tasting, a marketing campaign, and education. 

 

What are your goals for the future of Angelico Winery?

Based on our core values, we have determined our goals. Our core values are education, quality of the product, and outstanding hospitality for our guests.

 

One of our sons is studying and will soon graduate as a winemaker and viticulture expert. He is studying for an associate’s degree at the Finger Lakes Community College and, hopefully, for a bachelor’s Degree at Cornell University next year.

 

I’ve personally been taking classes as a winemaker, winery designer, wine connoisseur, etc., at Texas University and UC Davis.

 

Our team, led by our tasting room manager and Lily, focuses on wine education for the whole staff so they can relay their knowledge to our guests.

 

Lily is continuing to network and take classes/lectures about hospitality.

 

We keep investing in more sophisticated equipment, machines, and buildings to improve the quality of our wines and hospitality.

 

Overall, we still want to remain a small winery; we prefer small but unique with our own identity. We believe that once a winery becomes big, it starts losing contact with its guests and fails to deliver excellent hospitality.

 

The Angelico sons have first-hand experience in viticulture.

What do you hope to share?

Italians, especially Southern Italians, are all about hospitality and connecting to people. I am already doing it. When people come to see us, it’s more about what we express in our wine, who we are, and how the wine can embrace in that little cup who we are, what I have, and what I’m trying to do here: talking about wine and sharing how it was made and what it’s about.

 

This is what I know, and this is what I make for you, and you can be proud of it because I put in part of who I am and part of who you are, because this is coming from your own soil. This is coming from New Jersey; this is coming from the United States.

 

I also want to teach people and eliminate skepticism about making wine in New Jersey. I want to tell them that grapes, wines, and human beings adapt wherever they go. For every region in the world, there is always a wine grape that is the most suitable for the soil and microclimate.

 

My wife and I are really, really into hospitality. Hospitality is not just a service for us. Hospitality is more about embracing culture between people. That’s what I’m trying to do.

 

Everyone who comes to our place does not leave until they have met us and the team. We don’t just shovel a cup of wine and walk away. We don’t want that. We want people to come, experience the place, and experience the wine as a good time, while somebody pays attention to them and educates them, telling them about what we’re trying to do with the wine.

 

Wine is more like a chain of connection between our culture and the world and their culture. So that’s what I’m doing. This is not a rich business. It’s more of a passion and labor of love.  

 

 

 

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Preserving Sicilian Heritage: Independence, Louisiana’s Italian Cultural Museum

With fewer than 2,000 residents, Independence, Louisiana, may be small, but its devotion to its Italian—largely Sicilian—roots runs deep.

It all started in the late 19th century when a large influx of Sicilian immigrants arrived in the state, many taking jobs as sugar cane laborers. A contingent moved to Independence, where they worked the fields of strawberry farms. The rich heritage they brought with them is celebrated at the Independence Italian Cultural Museum. The institution, which is committed to preserving Sicilian and Italian culture, music, art, and language, hosts a variety of fundraisers throughout the year.

 

I spoke with Lesley Vullo, an Independence resident and Italian dual citizen who volunteers with the museum, to learn more.

 

 

Tell us about the significance of the museum’s building.

The building was originally the Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church, built in 1908 by Sicilian and Italian immigrants. My great-grandparents and grandparents actually attended church there. When my dad was younger, it was still in use. Then, they built the new church across the street and turned the old building into the museum.

What are some of the events organized by the museum?

Each August, the museum hosts “Cucuzza Day,” where people bring their cucuzzi and compete in cucuzza-growing and cooking contests. There are also contests for kids, and seeds are available for purchase.

Then, in September, we have “Sotto Le Stelle,” which is essentially a night under the stars. It’s an opportunity to bring back the Sicilian spirit of outside dinners and the evening passeggiata. We turn the street outside the museum into an outdoor family dining experience.

 

We also have holiday cookie sales and spring stuffed artichoke and muffuletta sales. Throughout the year, we offer Sicilian language classes. 

 

Cucuzza Day celebrates the fruits of the giant squash harvest.

What can visitors take away from their museum experience?

The community has donated a lot to the museum. We have everything from wedding dresses and Sicilian musical instruments to a hand-painted Sicilian cart and St. Joseph altar. There’s a lot of history here and an opportunity to reconnect with ancestral roots. Independence is a small town, and having this museum here to connect us all is a big deal. 

 

 

A handmade Sicilian cart is among the displays.

 

 

 

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Why This Birthday Tells a New Story

August 16 marks another trip around the sun.

It has been a year of firsts, unforgettable experiences, and reconnection. My last birthday was spent on a two-week research road trip for Beneath the Sicilian Stars, visiting the WWII internment camp at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, paddling Oregon’s Lost Lake, and seeing Glacier National Park’s few remaining ice masses.

Four months of nonstop writing followed as I finalized The Last Letter from Sicily. Although my debut was published in January, the hometown launch came in February with a front-page feature in Racine’s Journal Times, bookstore events at Vintage and Modern Books and Boswell Book Company, and reunions with friends and family.

Since then, I have finished a third novel, taught writing workshops, attended the Historical Novel Society North America conference in Las Vegas, and celebrated Beneath the Sicilian Stars’ release with a virtual launch party and a Railroad Book Depot appearance.

Now, just over a month after my second launch, it is incredible to see reader reviews and hear about the ways people connect with my work.

What a remarkable trip around the sun it has been. Thank you for your friendship. Here’s to another year of adventure together!

How Convivio Is Giving San Diego’s Italian Past a Home for the Future

With 19th-century roots as a fishing village of immigrants from Genoa and Sicily, San Diego’s Little Italy came into its own in the 1920s as a vibrant neighborhood and tuna capital of America.

Fishing was plentiful, but so were opportunities for seafood processing and marketing. Other Italians chose to open restaurants where they served the fish that locals caught.

 

But World War II brought change.

 

Italian residents without U.S. citizenship were labeled “enemy aliens.” And in San Diego, fishermen (like their peers on the East Coast) were restricted from their livelihood. In some cases, boats were requisitioned for military use.

 

The city’s tuna clipper fleet would shrink nearly 30% by 1959, and when Interstate 5 opened, it sliced through Little Italy. But while families were displaced, many held onto their businesses and places of worship, like Our Lady of Rosary Church.

 

Today, Little Italy stands as downtown San Diego’s oldest continuous neighborhood business district, supported by civic and heritage organizations, including Convivio, founded in 2003.

 

Executive Director Tom Cesarini grew up immersed in Italian culture and language, with parents who emigrated to the United States from Aspra, Sicily, in the 1960s. He launched Convivio with a focus on preserving and promoting his heritage and its contributions to San Diego.

 

We discussed the factors that informed that decision, the key challenges he and his team have faced, the most impactful programs they have developed, and their plans for the future, including the establishment of a new Italian-American cultural center and museum.

 

 

 

Men stand in the racks along the edge of the boat, three-pole fishing for tuna in rough seas.  The larger tuna often ranged between 100 and 200 pounds, requiring two to three men to pull the fish on board. (Courtesy of the Portuguese Historical Center)

What led you to launch Convivio?

Our Little Italy in San Diego was getting redeveloped at the time, after having almost disappeared altogether through the 1980s. The Merchant Association brought that back, but culture and history were disappearing rapidly.

 

I had volunteered in San Diego for several arts and cultural groups, all promoting Italian culture. But there was a lot of infighting. And so as a volunteer, I was left in the cold, wondering, “What just happened?”

 

I decided to give it a go myself. I had enough knowledge as a volunteer and was self-educated on nonprofits in general, but I looked at the gaps in knowledge that I had to fill to do it properly. I applied to a nonprofit leadership program at the University of San Diego, got accepted, and that opened up the doors.

 

Between 2003, when I founded Convivio, and 2005, when I started the program, I was just putting it together—events and programs—and looking for support slowly but surely.

 

Two years of the Master’s program really helped a lot, and for 22 years, we’ve done a lot. We have a great track record. I’m really proud of it.

 

We have a good volunteer team, and it’s still growing. We’re always trying to get to the next level in the nonprofit world.  

Washington Elementary School was architecturally modeled after the White House. When this photograph was taken in 1940, the interior was made predominantly of marble, and lion heads originally marked the front entrance but were later removed. The school served the entire Italian community. Sadly, the original building was torn down in 1980. The school, however, was rebuilt for another generation of young San Diegans. (Courtesy of Fran Marline Stephenson)

Describe Convivio’s focus.

One of our core components is our heritage preservation program. We establish digital archives to save those stories through photographs and oral histories. It’s one of the things we do, but it’s a very important one.

 

We do a lot. There’s something for everybody. Films, author presentations, a book club, a film club, concerts, Italian classes… You name it, we are open to it. The goal is to provide a space for people just to come together, congregate, and build relationships.

 

Why is creating a community space so important?

Other ethnic communities have cultural centers and shared spaces. We had Little Italy, we had the neighborhood, and we had the church that served as an anchor for a hundred years. But I wanted to do something a little bit different, expand our vision for the community.

 

I asked people, “What are your ambitions as an Italian-American, as a leader, as a community member? What are your aspirations? What are you looking for?” And across the board, they all said the same thing: we need a home.

 

It aligned with what I already knew, but I needed that data. It’s not just me saying it, it’s the entire community saying it, and this is what we have to try to deliver. So we try to fill in those gaps in programming.

 

Processions were of vital importance to the parishioners, and remain so to this day. In this image, circa 1945, the San Diego County Administration building is prominent in the background. The procession is heading toward the wharf, as was customary, culminating in the return to the church. (Courtesy of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish)

How does collaboration play a role?

We’re all about collaboration. Who can we work with? How do we leverage each other’s strengths, and how do we better our community and work more efficiently?

 

Instead of saying all the time, “I’m Sicilian” or “I’m Tuscan,” let’s also unite and not be so competitive. We saw many San Diego clubs competing for resources. I said, “We’re not going to get anywhere this way. We’ve got to really focus our efforts on coming together.”

 

We’ve partnered with San Diego Opera, San Diego Symphony, and non-Italian arts and cultural groups. With those, it’s about “How do we leverage their power? How can they best work with us to benefit both us and them?”

 

That component of what’s in it for us often has a negative connotation, but it’s important. We have to look at ourselves if we want to keep going. It’s almost like that self-care notion of if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anybody else.

 

So, how does it benefit both our organizations? If we can look at that and come up with something, it’s win-win literally for both parties involved in the project.

 

What have been your challenges to date?

The biggest lament is funding for all nonprofits, especially in the arts. We’re constantly struggling to deal with either budget cuts or grant cuts.

We have private donors who support us. On the grant side, we have fee-for-service programs to raise money. We have retail that we try to raise funds for, so we’re always exploring new funding streams.

 

As far as heritage goes, a big challenge has been overcoming stigmas with the community, and overcoming the fact that Italians can be very private. For example, we published a couple of books.

 

There were pictorial history books on the community. One was on San Diego’s Little Italy, and a couple of years later, we did one on the fishing industry, which was huge in San Diego.

 

I was out knocking on doors, trying to collect photographs. That was a challenge. Some people donated photos, but others were concerned about what we would do with their photos.

 

We’re trying to educate the community at large about the importance of our organization, mission, and vision. Our vision is to create a museum and a cultural center on a large scale. And so now we’re introducing that in many ways and trying to gather everybody together.

 

It’s getting better now. New generations have come into the existing organizations. We’re seeing a lot of partnering with events with different organizations that you wouldn’t have seen before. If the Italian community is going to prosper and move forward, we have to come together eventually.

The fishing canneries employed many of San Diego’s residents, especially women, during the 1920s and 1930s. This group of young women worked for the Westgate Cannery and is pictured outside the company in 1936. Sarah Gangitano Bono is seen kneeling in the front row, on the left; others in the photo are unidentified. (Courtesy of Marie Bono Sohl)

    

Which program has had the most significant impact?

The Heritage Preservation Program. We’ve amassed thousands of images, done oral histories, and now, we’re putting together a repository, moving toward an actual physical museum for San Diego and an arts and cultural center space.

 

I think that’s the most important one, because that was severely lacking. We have other groups doing spaghetti dinners and fish fries, and similar events. We do a lot of those things, too. But as far as a more academic bent to organizations, that was lacking. 

 

Is there a success story that stands out from your initiatives?

We had a donor buy property in Little Italy and donate the use of it to us. So we will be establishing a larger cultural center and finally a museum.

 

We have a small space we work out of now. It’s a little cottage, a little fishing home that’s been preserved, and it serves its purpose well for us now, but we want to expand and create a larger museum and cultural center.

 

We’re in the planning stages right now. So after 22 years of knocking on doors and saying, “This is important,” it’s coming to fruition, and people are starting to buy into it.

 

My philosophy is essentially the Lao Tzu mantra: a leader is best when people barely know he exists; the people will say they did it themselves. When all is said and done, the goal is to get the people to do what they need to do. It’s a huge deal for San Diego’s Italian American community.

 

AMICIBAR in Little Italy, Convivio’s current space

 

What do you ultimately hope to share?

It goes back to why I started the organization, which was to create and sustain a space where people can come together, put their phones down, sit at a table with strangers, start a conversation, and just learn from each other. That’s what our space is meant to be.

 

There’s this notion of a third space or place. The first place is your home. Second place is your work. Where’s your third place? Where do you go for community?

That’s really what Convivio is about in a nutshell: where you go for community. That’s what we try to cultivate.

 

I ultimately hope to share a place where people can do that and learn about Italian culture, but also learn about each other.

 

When I chose the name Convivio, I was looking for a name that represented that, and hopefully it does. I can’t find a better one. Uniting and coming together. That’s what I hope to share with purpose. 

 

Discover Convivio in person and meet me for this special book event.

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