The Beginning

I am soon to introduce my blog “Drizzle with Oil” and want to thank my eldest daughter Andrea for noodling the name my youngest daughter Melissa for her encouragement and my friend Erinn Berkelhammer for creating my logo and graphic ideas.

Offering quality meals for family and friends has been a passion of mine for decades. The detail of meal preparation and presentation was imbued in me by by maternal grandmother. Anna arrived in America in 1936. My grandfather Carmine waited nearly six years to save sufficient money to afford passage for his wife, his daughter, Leda, my mother, and his youngest son Mario. They were all born in a remote, Italian village,  Castel D’ieri, in the Apenine region of Abruzzi. It is a common story of Italian American ancestry as was the knowledge of the cuisine that accompanied them.

I grew up in North Tarrytown, New York. It is now known as Sleepy Hollow. There was a large enclave of Italian immigrants in both North Tarrytown and its sister village of Tarrytown. Being only eighteen miles from New York City and it’s large Italian immigrant centers in both Manhattan and The Bronx I was eventually exposed to an ever widening circle of Italian based cultural and culinary inspirations. 

But in the beginning these influences were family based with each household bringing a different twist to the common foods prepared and eaten on a daily basis. 

My objective is to share with you how this heritage offers those of us who love good food a fascinating glimpse of Italian and Italian American cuisine. A cuisine that is as rich in its variety of ingredients as it is in the love that poured from its creators from one household kitchen to the next.

Castel D’ieri in winter