How to Have a Real Strega Nona Fall

Gather up your empty margarine tubs. Put some minestrone in them. Freeze them for two Strega Nona Falls from now. Plus: some Staten Island recommendations

The Strega Nona “Aesthetic”

It’s Halloween, so let’s talk about our favorite witch, even though she would not bother with Halloween herself. She’s busy.

I love the concept: on TikTok, Strega Nona fall was first described as being about making pasta, embracing nature, magic, and being an independent woman who doesn’t care what anybody thinks. That is what is at the heart of Tomie DePaola’s 1975 children’s book. Which I love, and is very important to me, and this is not the last time I will write about it.

But then I saw other posts about creating a Strega Nona “aesthetic,” and if there is one thing Strega Nona doesn’t have, it’s an aesthetic.

House Beautiful, for example, recommends a kitchen “design with a Tuscan palette.”

First of all, Strega Nona takes place in Calabria, not Tuscany. That’s thing number one. Enough said.

Secondly, a real SN is too busy for a palette or an aesthetic, or anything French like that.

And C! As busy as she is, contrary to ELLE DECOR recommendations, she would in fact have matching plates when you come to dinner at her house. What are we, animali?

Here are a few photos from my dear late Aunt Craig’s kitchen. That is not her name, but the autocorrect in Substack won’t let me type her real name, but my husband’s. METAPHOR

A tableau

Some wedding favors from the seventies; a cafettiere always to hand; plastic containers of all kinds. No artsy ceramic bowls. No classy glass. Reuse any and all food containers. Margarine tubs, obviously. The plastic clamshell that you bought strawberries in at the Biggest Banana food market can hold figs from your garden, a sandwich, anything.

Anyone remember this place in Oceanside? That is what a “farmers market” used to be on Long Island

And my aunt’s basement, the Mission Control of her household, deserves its own post, which it shall have.

Come back this Saturday, All Souls’ Day, when we will take another trip to this fabled kitchen. I am teasing a lot about my aunt and her kitchen, but both were so important to me in my life, and in my writing.

In other Nonna News…

I just found this out! At a restaurant in Staten Island, called Enoteca Maria, each week, a real-life grandmother comes in to cook recipes that were handed down to them, that they cook for their family and friends. And it’s not just Italian grandmothers: they come from any and all of the cultures of NYC. Last week, for example, Nonna Hakima cooked food from her hometown of Casablanca, Morocco! She made couscous, chicken, and rice. And Nonna Yumi from Japan made Yakitori. Plus they have a great wine list to pair with every variety of food. Why am I not there right now?

I love this expansive use of this cherished word, Nonna, that includes loving and talented grandmothers from everywhere. Better emulate them than curate a made-up aesthetic.

I will take the ferry to far-off Staten Island to visit Enoteca Maria and report back. If you crave Staten Island content before then, consider…

Halloween TV Recommendation: What We Do in the Shadows

This is off-topic for an Italian-American Substack, but it is Halloween and I love this show so much. What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary, that takes off from a 2014 New Zealand film by the same name by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, about a group of vampires living on Staten Island. Its final season just began on FX/Hulu, and I don’t make recommendations lightly, so I mean it when I say it is hilarious. The only Italian connection is the vampires’ neighbors, the Rinaldis, who are as you might expect Italian-Americans from Staten Island to be, but they are really funny. As is every person/vampire/zombie/ghost living in a doll etc in the show.

Happy Halloween for those who celebrate! I won’t, because my dog is refusing to wear her NY Giants costume. Which I understand.