Italian, family, food – cooking Italian food, with Italian family – the best of all worlds!!!!
I played sous chef to Cousin John’s masterful rendition of
Bolognese Sauce
olive oil, pancetta, Italian sausage, ground turkey, balsamic
celery, carrot, onion, garlic
tomatoes, tomato sauce, red wine
sage, salt, pepper
pecorino, heavy cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, crushed red pepper flakes
basil to serve
and more pecorino
incredibly delicious……..and so much fun!!!!
Mille grazie, John!!!
Filed under Family history, Food
our hearts are full of love…dreaming…waiting to meet this new family member……….!!!!!!!!
Filed under Family history, Fashion, Postcards
Gail is just my age, a second cousin once removed, and a beloved friend. She fits my definition of women who have influenced my life:
‘inspired, nurtured, loved, set the bar high, blazed the trail, lived with grace, risen to the task, used their gifts, modeled kindness, exhibited joie de vivre.’
She has the gift of music and has set the bar high for herself,
even decorating with musical instruments,
all the while inspiring others, especially children through her participation as a docent in the Music Van program. The Music Van is a mobile music classroom filled with orchestral instruments which visits local third grade classrooms, allowing the students hands on experience with the instruments.
The accordion is her forte.
She participates in accordion bands, performs solo, and delights family, friends, our community and beyond with her music.
True to our heritage she keeps the Italian culinary tradition alive.
See posts ‘Italian Feasts…Part 1 and Part 2’
From the oven in her yard come amazing pizzas, usually served as a first course, always with other delights to follow.
Her love of travel has taken her to many places. Because she can trace her lineage through a male relative to Italy, to her delight, she was able to obtain an Italian passport!
Wonderful travel adventures together…
life milestones celebrated…
so blessed to share the journey!!!
Filed under Family history, Food, Inspiration, Interiors, Travel
Pietro Cresto’s first wife, Domenica Crestetto Cresto…
Pregnant with their fourth child, and taken ill, she returned to Italy in 1896 with their two daughters, Rose and Domenica, leaving son Emilio in Rockvale with Pietro where Emilio died that same year at the age of twelve after falling from an oil derrick. The baby was born, named Achille for the Greek doctor who delivered him – soon after, his mother died. For the next three years the girls and their baby brother remained in an orphanage in Italy.
Ellis Island records from November 1899 show the three children accompanied by Ellena Cresto, Pietro’s niece, and Marianna Gardetto, thought to be a cousin of the children’s deceased mother, arriving in New York from Italy.
Rose
Domenica
Achille
In a short time Pietro and Marianna were married.
Marianna Gardetto Cresto, my grandmother, born in Bosconero, in northern Italy in 1867.
‘Theirs’…..
Louise
See post: ‘My women of influence…Louise’
Theresa
See post: ‘Mothers Day…my definition’
Peter
Charles
The mystery of shared heritage continues to unfold as life circumstances bring various cousins together. Friendships among us are rich and wonderful, enhanced by our common bond, literally, the very fiber of our beings.
Filed under Family history, Travel
As life races on at lightning speed, reflecting on the past quiets the soul. Blessed to have the opportunity to actively participate in the lives of my grandchildren, I find myself often thinking of my maternal grandparents….grandparents I never met.
My grandfather – Pietro Cresto – born in Castellamonte, in the Piedmont region of what is now northern Italy in 1858.
A man of the ‘terra’, he worked as a potter – terragliere.
His hobby was music, his instrument of choice the cornet. While stationed in Milano during his military service, he was a member of the regiment’s band, and was often asked to fill in at the La Scala Opera House when the orchestra needed extra musicians.
Pietro came to America in the early 1880’s settling briefly in Kansas, and then moving on to Colorado. In Rockvale, he worked in the coal mine – another iteration of a man of the ‘terra’.
After loosing his first wife and a son, he and his second wife raised seven children – ‘his and theirs’,
and participated in the life of the town.
He continued to play his cornet, teaching his son Achille to play,
and entertaining his family from memory with selections from the operas he had played at La Scala.
He and Marianna grew old together,
and died within a year of each other.
Although we never met, I experience his presence today. I see his face reflected in those of cousins who inherited his handsome Roman nose, I hear the echoes of his musicality from gifted cousins, and I feel the pull of the earth and its provision for us in my bones.
Filed under Family history, Inspiration
Susan Wennerstrom | W designs 