A note from ISDA National President Basil M. Russo: Each year, we honor women of Italian descent to spotlight their contributions, from culture and industry to philanthropy and activism. April’s Donna Distinta Award goes to Ms. Rossella Rago.
An Award-winning cookbook author and entrepreneur, Rossella Rago has straddled two cultures since she was born. Her deeply rooted heritage began in Mola di Bari, a small fishing village in Puglia, where her parents were from. The physical home she has always known is Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, where she still resides today. She actually had no idea she lived in America until she was five years old. She feels especially lucky because she was able to experience the depth and richness of two dynamic cultures. Summers by the sea in Mola, and then in the same breath a Brooklyn upbringing.
After meandering through a career in entertainment and coming to the realization that her calling was to safeguard the way of life her beloved Nonna Romana instilled in her for future generations, Rossella began Cooking with Nonna. Since its inception, Cooking with Nonna has morphed from a source of stories and recipes to an all-encompassing Italian-American retail, cultural and culinary force. After authoring her first two books, The Cooking with Nonna Cookbook and Cooking with Nonna: A Year of Italian Holidays, Rossella identified a glaring hole in her body of work: an homage to Sunday supper.
Thus began the creative and exploratory journey to deviate from her original pattern of cooking with Italian-American grandmothers from all over the country, to focusing solely on her Nonna Romana’s origin story. Over the course of a year, Rossella immersed herself in research, recipe testing, and uncovering anything unknown about her family’s history that remained to write Cooking with Nonna: Sunday Dinners with La Famiglia. She traveled down memory lane to draw inspiration and insight from her beloved Nonna.
Ever since Rossella was a little girl, she and Nonna Romana have been inseparable on Sundays. The smell of her freshly baked focaccia always served as an aromatic alarm clock signaling it was time to wake up, have a quick caffe latte with her (yes, even when Rossella was 7) and get dressed to accompany her to 9 a.m. Italian mass at St. A’s. They’d walk the few blocks from their home on West 6th Street in Bensonhurst to 61st and Bay Parkway together. As Nonna aged, she started using her push cart to make the journey, albeit a bit slower. Today, she watches the Italian mass on zoom before she starts her job as the official Sunday dinner prep chef. She doesn’t stand as well as she used to, but as long as she’s sitting she enjoys keeping busy by making homemade pasta, chopping up fresh herbs and slicing garlic with such precision that it’s reminiscent of Paulie in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.
Even though Nonna is less mobile having undergone recent surgeries, she’s still as sharp as a whip and makes sure Rossella doesn’t cut corners. It can be said that authoring Sunday Dinners was a profound opportunity for Rossella and Nonna Romana to reconnect in a way that both honored the sanctity of Sunday as well as their incomparable bond. A bond that has led Rossella through the very highest of highs and the hardest of transitions, a bond that is healing, transformative, and thankfully eternal. A bond that gave life to perhaps Rossella’s favorite work in Sunday Dinners.
When not creating content for her blossoming social media presence, Rossella is also a member of the Italian-American Power Hour podcast. She designs and curates apparel, cookware, and retail products — all available at bottegadellanonna.com — and has led and will resume annual culinary tours to Italy.
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