09/28/2026
Growing up Italian on Long Island in the ’70s and ’80s wasn’t a childhood—it was a full-contact cultural experience with absolutely no adult supervision and enough olive oil to lubricate the Long Island Expressway. Nonna was 4-foot-11, wore a black dress and orthopedic shoes year-round, and could chase you down with a wooden spoon despite having complained about her bad knee since Eisenhower. The living room was strictly FOR LOOKING AT. Nobody actually sat in there. The sofa was wrapped in industrial-strength plastic that would suction-cup the back of your thighs in July, surrounded by ceramic cherubs, a giant wooden fork and spoon hanging on the wall, and table lamps with long dangling crystals that looked like Liberace furnished the place after three glasses of anisette. Somewhere there was a statue of the Blessed Mother with a rosary hanging off her, watching you make every bad decision you ever made.
The kitchen was where civilization actually happened. There was basket cheese sitting on the windowsill under absolutely no refrigeration whatsoever because apparently bacteria respected Nonna, zucchini frying in a pan on the stove since approximately 6:14 that morning, a pot of sauce big enough to baptize a toddler, and a gallon jug of cheap red w**e sitting on the table with no label because Uncle Tony “knew a guy.” Espresso was served in cups the size of a thimble but somehow kept everybody awake until Tuesday, followed by anisette, pizzelles, Stella D’oro cookies, and somebody aggressively pushing fruit on you after you’d already eaten enough food to require emergency surgery.
Outside, the garden looked like the Vatican had opened a landscaping company. Tomatoes tied to sticks with old pantyhose, basil growing everywhere, zucchini the size of Louisville Sluggers, a concrete Virgin Mary, plastic flamingos for reasons nobody understood, and CLAM SHELLS. Thousands of freaking clam shells. Around the tomatoes. Around the roses. Around the shed. You’d swear Grandpa personally ate every clam in the Great South Bay just to avoid buying mulch.
And then there was THE BASEMENT. Every Italian house had a second illegal kitchen downstairs with a refrigerator from 1957 containing seven pounds of provolone, homemade w**e in an unmarked bottle, peppers in oil, and a Tupperware container nobody had opened since the Carter administration. Folding table. Metal chairs. Wood paneling. Drop ceiling. A mysterious freezer packed so tightly with meat that if the power went out, the entire family had 45 minutes to throw a barbecue.
Sunday dinner started sometime around breakfast. By 1:00, fourteen relatives had arrived without anybody actually inviting them. Somebody was yelling, somebody was crying, somebody was arguing about the Yankees, and three women were simultaneously screaming, “MANGIA!” while putting more food on your plate as you begged for mercy. And God help you if you tried leaving the house while the heat or air conditioning was running: “CLOSE THE GODDAMN DOOR! WHAT ARE WE DOING, HEATING THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD?!”
But somehow, underneath the plastic furniture, clam-shell landscaping, questionable food-storage practices, cigarette smoke, Sinatra, cheap w**e and nonstop screaming…there was love. Loud, chaotic, sauce-stained, completely insane Italian love.
And if Nonna asked if you were hungry, there was only one correct answer.
Yes.
Because “no” just meant she was making you something anyway. 🇮🇹😂
