Dec 22, 2020

Be my Guest - Ellen of An Italian Dish

Welcome back to a series that is dear to my heart. Be My Guest showcases like-minded guest bloggers who share intimate moments with the food of the heart, here on Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino. 
Be My Guest
Today I hand over the baton to Ellen. Her Italian food and travel themed blog, An Italian Dish, is a labor of love. In it she shares her love of naturally vegetarian Italian dishes, recipes, travel tales as well as some stories from her genealogy research.

Ellen - Be My Guest

Take it away, Ellen!

The season of gift giving is upon us, and I think back to one of the kindest, most thoughtful life-altering gifts I have ever received. It happened many decades ago, when I was a horribly adolescent 15 year old girl. You know that age, when we spend our junior high years trying to find an identity, flailing about in a sea of confusion. The gift given to me by my Nana altered me on a cellular level and still reverberates in my heart to this day.

Ellen and Nana

Nana was raised in the North End, Boston's Little Italy, where her parents had immigrated from southern Italy during the migration at the turn of the century. Life was full of hardships, so in her mid-twenties, Nana moved out to California. She left her Italian side behind except for her yearly trips back to Boston to see her paesani, her siblings, cousins, and friends.

Nana’s gift--when I was 15, she brought me to the North End where I met dozens of cousins, aunts and uncles I never knew existed. For the first time, I was wrapped in a blanket of Italian love and my Italian identity was born. We attended the Feast of Saint Anthony where I ate zeppole and walked down the streets of my ancestors. 

Now, all these years later, I put this love into my blog, An Italian Dish. It’s a place to share travel stories, recipes and to pay tribute to my family. 

ebook cover

This year, I created an Italian Christmas Cookie ebook called Traditional Italian Holiday Cookies & Tasty Treats. The ebook features classics like biscotti, pasta frolla, Sicilian Fig Cookies, Krumiri, and Mostaccioli that are near and dear to my southern Italian relatives.

To learn more, to receive my ebook or to subscribe, visit here

You can follow Ellen and An Italian Dish on Instagram, or Facebook. vg

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