speaker-0: Welcome back to Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomari. This is the podcast where we talk about the things that often begin quietly before the separation, before the resentment, before the emotional shutdown, before the family system changes, and before the stories are lost, before people realize that something they thought would always be there has started to disappear. I'm Gabriella Pomari. Family lawyer, award-winning author of the Collaborative Co-Parent. I'm a mum and I'm a co-parent. And this is the podcast where we talk about the before. This podcast is not about perfect families. It's about conscious ones. And let me remind you that today's episode is not therapeutic or legal advice. Every family, relationship, and person circumstances are different. Now let's begin. Today's conversation is a little different. But it sits so deeply at the heart of this podcast. It's about food. No, but really, it's about family. It's about memory. It's about the table. It's about culture and identity, grandmothers, rituals, recipes, Sunday dinners, and the stories that are passed from one generation to the next. Often while someone is stirring the sauce or rolling the dough, setting the table or telling you for the tenth time you're doing it wrong. My guest today is Rosella Rago. Rosella is a first-generation Italian American from Brooklyn, the creator and host of Cooking with Nonna, an author, entrepreneur, and culinary storyteller. Through her cookbooks, videos, products, and food experiences, she has built a beautiful platform around preserving Italian recipes, traditions, and the wisdom of grandmothers. But what makes Rosella's work so powerful is that she's not just preserving food, she's Preserving memory, she's preserving voices, she's preserving family history. She's preserving the kind of connection that so many people only realize mattered once it's gone. And that is why I wanted to have this conversation with her. Because before families break, before people drift, before generations become strangers to each other, there are often small things we stop doing. We stop gathering, we stop asking questions, we stop learning the recipes, we stop sitting at the table long enough for the real stories to come out. We assume there will always be another Sunday, another holiday, another chance to ask, how did you make that? Another chance to hear from where we came from. Rosella's work reminds us that family's not only built in big moments, it's built in rituals, in repetition, in food, in memory. In the ordinary traditions that tell children, this is who you are, this is where you belong, and these are your people. Today I want to talk to Rosella about grandmothers, food, family, memory, heritage, grief, identity, and what happens when the rituals that held a family together begin to fade. Rosella, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm very excited about this chat.
speaker-1: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
speaker-0: Absolutely. So I guess for people who are new to your work and who don't know much about you, can you tell me about your story about cooking with Nuna and how everything began?
speaker-1: So everything began in two thousand eight. I was almost done with college. And when I was in college, I lived with my grandmother, with my nonna romana, because nice Italian girls did not dorm back in my day. And if they did, my father veto was not gonna pay for it. So I lived in the basement of the house my family used to all live in. And I slept in the same bedroom as my grandmother for four years. So that was a unique dorming experience, to say the least. And I was studying to be an Italian teacher because I'm first generation Italian American. And when you grow up with Italian as your first language, every girl in my neighborhood became a hairdresser or became an Italian teacher. So I was trying to go to school and do the right things that, you know, my family wanted me to do. And one night my father comes over and we're having dinner. And, you know, we're clearing the table. And he goes, Ma what do you want to do with your life? Because you're gonna be a terrible teacher. We all know. And I'm like, all of you know, really? And he's and I thought about it for a second because I had always been in the entertainment industry, like my mother's an actress. And I was like, I want to have a cooking show one day. That's the greatest job in the world. And he he thought for a minute and he goes, You know what? We should call it cooking with non.
speaker-0: Love it.
speaker-1: And and I was like, yeah, funny. And a week later, he buys a website. Now this is 2008. Now everybody has a website, but in 2008 it was very cool to have a website. And I was like, all right, so funny. What are we gonna do with this? And another week later, he starts building a set for me. So
speaker-0: Ha ha ha.
speaker-1: we started making a show. We had no idea what we were doing. Nobody was doing that at the time. I was actually the first influencer to ever cook with Italian grandmothers. And we just my mother was head of CS thing. She would call up her friend, like, Rosalia, my daughter has a show now. You wanna do the show? And grandmothers would come over every Sunday and we would just start filming their recipes. Grew
speaker-0: And it grew from that. It grew.
speaker-1: from that into a series of books in 2016. I did my first cookbook. We did three books in six years. And then we started with products.
speaker-0: You're a busy lady. And it all stems from really your dad's idea and the Italian background. And I love it. I love it. Who would have thought?
speaker-1: It was like, you know, I I'm really proud that I built a brand over out of my cultural identity because it's such a big part of who I am. Yeah.
speaker-0: It's special. And what was it, I guess, about your Nunna that you thought, you know, what was special about her that made you want to build the entire plat route platform around, you know, cooking with Nonnas?
speaker-1: So my grandmother Romana, she passed this past October at 92. Wow. And if you ever met her, I think anybody that ever met my grandmother, everybody will say their grandmother's a special person. My grandmother was such a special person in the sense that I think everybody who knew her saw someone that they loved in her or someone that they used to love, or the lady across the street, or You know, if they never had that relationship in their lives, watching her gave them a nonna. Yeah. And I I think I always knew that inherently, that she's something because she was always, you know, soap and water. She stopped dyeing her hair when she was 50. She never wore makeup. She was that nonna in the house dress, over the stove, lived for her children, her grandchildren. And, you know, I recognized very early on that. That generation was dying. Yeah. And it was, to me, it was the greatest generation that ever lived.
speaker-0: Absolutely, a real woman, right? And that's where you learn I think the most from. What do you think she taught you about relationships?
speaker-1: I mean, my grandmother was a widow at 29. Wow. And she never remarried.
speaker-0: You kidding me?
speaker-1: Never, not once. She said, that was my husband. And if God wanted me to have a husband, he would have lived. And I don't want a new man around any of my around my children. And she spent 63 years by herself. And I think what it taught me is that first of all, that it that's possible. But that you can have a fulfilling life without romantic love. Because she had a very full life.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: You know, there were moments like at weddings where I I I feel like she wanted to dance with somebody. Yeah. But most of mostly I I think
speaker-0: It sounds like she found fulfillment within the family, you know, within her children, her grandchildren and everything that she was seeing and I suppose creating within that family unit.
speaker-1: Yeah, and I think it it was such a big message to me about loving yourself. You know, that the love that that you that it that love is really inside you.
speaker-0: Yeah, and I think that's such an important thing, particularly for girls to learn from a young age. it is, it's something so important. It it brings out confidence and everything else. So that's special.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean when you talk about a woman who decentered men like she was like Olympic level
speaker-0: Well you weren't bringing men home when you're sleeping in her bedroom for four years.
speaker-1: Yeah, no, there was it was i in my house it was very much, you know, you can have a boyfriend when you get married.
speaker-0: I feel you. I was there. So on before it breaks on my podcast, I'm always interested in what we don't notice until it's gone. what do you think that people fail to appreciate about family traditions whilst they're still living inside the
speaker-1: Well listen, I'm a WAG and you're a WAG. Right? Like WOGs are like the ethnic people and we hold a lot of grudges. And
speaker-0: Yes. yes.
speaker-1: we love a grudge ten years, twenty years, thirty before you know it, everybody's dead.
speaker-0: I'm meeting cousins and aunties and uncles that I didn't know about for thirty years. Right. Because of a grudge.
speaker-1: Right, because you know, my we were estranged from my father's family, my father's entire side of the family, practically my whole life, over something that I I don't know what happened. Somebody stole a goat from somebody else's property. you know, money's usually involved. And my father is one of ten children. Five lived past the age of two. Wow. And I have twenty something first cousins that I've never met.
speaker-0: Insane.
speaker-1: And like I think the thing that we don't appreciate enough is that there's really not that much time. Yeah.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1: You know, you wanna spend all this time being mad and for what? And then it's like, you know, I'll fight with my god I'm fighting with my godmother right now. I'm fighting with her right now. But like, you know, it's like a baby thing. So I know the holidays are gonna roll around and she's gonna call me and she's gonna be like, Okay, you bring the focaca? And yeah, I'm gonna bring the focaccia and we'll get over it.
speaker-0: That's it. And I think food sometimes is a way to repair and it can be the way to someone's heart. Always. Do you think food is something that carries family memory and sometimes, you know, it can do something that words maybe can't?
speaker-1: Absolutely. I mean, I think food is so powerful at at eliciting, you know, memories and good feelings because, you know, when I miss my grandmother, you know, I make her pastina or I make her parmijana or I make something that she taught me how to make and I know she's proud of me. And it and it, you know, the smell, smell is so powerful. You know, the the action of of doing is so powerful. She used to say, you know, when you feel sad. You know, get some flour and make some pasta and you'll forget about what you were sad about.
speaker-0: So for everyone listening, when you're feeling sad, get some flour, make some pasta. I agree with that one.
speaker-1: There there's a saying in Italian, devi fare più pane, you have to make more bread, which means like, you know, when you are so in your head about something, make something with your hands. You know, use your hands and your abil and you've made something at the end.
speaker-0: Yeah, what do you think it is about that?
speaker-1: I think it's like interrupting the the loops that we have. Yeah. Yeah. You know, with something productive.
speaker-0: of putting your mind to something as well and that distraction. And I think you realize as well that whatever you're bothered about, whatever you're arguing about is probably so tiny, not important. And when you're actually getting into something, it's that distraction. Talk to me about Sunday dinners growing up, why they were special to you and to your family and what they meant.
speaker-1: Growing up, I mean, Sundays were in my nonna's basement. There was no room, but we made room. Yeah. You know, it just Sunday showed me that anything is possible. You know, there's never like, we don't have I don't have enough of this plate service to invite you. We can't no. Nothing matched. There were tables practically out the door. None of the chairs matched. We always made it work. Everybody was welcome. I would wake up. Sunday mornings, like the smell of hokacha in my nose, because she would get up at like five o'clock in the morning. And, you know, it was a day to just make things together. Yeah. All day. And then everybody comes over and people trickle in. And then who comes over just for the cake and the coffee? And then you play cards after. And those were the golden years. And I think like we don't know we're living the golden years until they're over.
speaker-0: I think you're entirely right. I often I talk to my partner about it and he's also Italian Australian, but no sense of that kind of tradition. And when I grew up, it was every Sunday we would go to my grandmother, my nunna's house, and we would have lunch together with all my cousins and everyone would gather. And so for it was lasagna and we like snitz Cotiletti. And I remember that so fondly. And I remember everyone sitting together and laughing and catching up. And I felt such a special maybe bond or a closeness. And then as we got older and, you know, kids started finishing school and got married and had their own kids, all of it went away. And no one could make time for each other anymore. And the Sunday lunch or the Sunday dinner was gone and there was no more coming together as a family. Now I'm lucky if my family gets together, even my immediate family, maybe once a fortnight, once a month, and it's sad. Yeah. What do you think that families lose when they stop gathering together?
speaker-1: I mean, what do they not lose? They lose everything. They it's like we're just people. We're not even family anymore. You know, it's part of our culture is that we're we're in each other's business. We know everything about each other. And now it's like, you know, we have a group chat. Yeah. It's so imper
speaker-0: Perfect.
speaker-1: We if we stop gathering, if we stop meeting in person, you know, we're just like these strangers.
speaker-0: Yeah, we lose that human connection. I mean I find myself these days I learn things about my first cousins online on Instagram or someone had a baby or someone's, you graduated and you think, How is it that we don't know these things? We've lost that real just that human connection or that desire to have conversations and I think that's sad for the younger generation and for children.
speaker-1: It's absolutely sad. I mean, I see I have three female cousins that are about ten years younger than me. And I see the difference in in the respect. If if you're watching, I'm sorry, but you guys are not respectful. Like in the respect, in the the appreciation, in the communication. It's like I'm your older cousin. You have to tell me. You have to tell me first.
speaker-0: That's exactly right. You know. I think the problem now is everyone's too busy. Everyone's got lives. They're juggling too much. But I don't think anyone truly is too busy. how do you think that people can use, you know, food and ritual to create that sense of belonging and how can we bring those memories and, you know, that f sense of intimacy back on a Sunday or whenever it might be? Well that
speaker-1: That's why I wrote cooking with Nona Sunday dinners because I wanted people to have like a Bible for if they wanted to start their own Sunday dinner tradition. I mean, you don't have to be Italian to grow a Sunday dinner. I mean, I just gave you the tools to make really good food for it. But I think it's a great idea to have a once-a-week, you know, and I know once a week is hard, you know, bi-weekly. catch up with people that are important to you. I think it's it's more important than we and don't go to a restaurant. I mean you could go to a restaurant but like it's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah.
speaker-0: The love is in the cooking. Yeah.
speaker-1: Everybody bring something and and just talk.
speaker-0: Mm. And then it's effort, I think. It's having people put that effort in that makes it more special. Yeah. tell me more about the books. I mean, I think recipes are never just recipes, they tell stories. what about your ones?
speaker-1: I mean, my books were something I never expected to do with myself because like I was never I was not a good student. My brother's a genius. My brother's like a mensa genius. He scored like a sixteen hundred on his SATs and I was cute. So when I was going to apply for college, I actually walked in on my guidance counselor having a conversation with another guidance counselor and he said, I have Lenny Rago's sister next. And he's like, I don't know how I'm gonna tell her she's not gonna get into any school. And he was like, Yeah, but you know, she's pretty cute, so maybe she'll marry somebody.
speaker-0: Yep, that's the way.
speaker-1: And that made me so sad, you know, at at imagine you're 17 and you hear your teachers talking about you like this. But I did get into college and and I was on the dean's list every semester. And when the t the time came to write a book, I called my brother and I was like, I can't do this. I don't know, I don't know. I'm not gonna come on. And he's like, you can do it. Like, why? So I said yes and I figured it out later. Which is how I recommend everybody do everything. I agree. And I knew I wanted the books to not just be about recipes. So I found about for the first one, I think we had over 30 different nonna contribute. And I knew I wanted to tell their stories because you know. recipe books or just recipe books, but I their stories were so important to me, like their why. Because no one had ever asked them. So I visited every single lady. We did a day of recipe testing. And then I sat down with them with my little voice recorder. And I said, Tell me about your life. And they're like, my life. And I'm like, Yeah, tell me about your life. The whole the whole thing. My you wanna know. So you wanna I was like, Yeah, I want to know about how you came to this country, about how you met your husband, about why you Make the things that you make. Yeah. And it occurred to me that no one had ever asked them these questions. And they were these like ordinary people living such extraordinary lives to me. And I thought that other people would want to read about them.
speaker-0: I love that. I just I really do. what do you think that people can learn from or about cooking from grandmothers or nonas themselves, either how you did it with your norna and lots of other grandmothers, that they can't learn just from following a recipe? It's that
speaker-1: But you have to when you cook like a grandmother, it's about a feeling. You i you can't you can just read a recipe, but it's not the same as like you have to know you have to touch the stuff. You know, you know when the dough's ready by touching it because it's a humid day or it's a dry day. You can't just read something and put the ingredients in and just say, Okay, I did it. You have to develop a relationship with the food. Like one of the ladies she used to say, You gotta touch the food like you touch your boyfriend. You gotta love the food like you love your boyfriend. You have to really you have to care. Yeah.
speaker-0: It sounds like you've had a lot of conversations with a lot of grandmothers. What do you think or what have they taught you about what old generations wish that younger generations understood earlier in life?
speaker-1: Ooh, I think they wish That we all, you know, were more present, especially today, where we're all on our phones and we don't know how to have com well, like, you know, younger generations don't have social skills the same way millennials do. You know, they don't know how to have a conversation. You can post a thirst trap, but you're like shy in real life, like that kind of thing. And we're we're just not as we're not present, you know. Like I I always say I was born 30 years too late because I I would love to live still live in a world where no one can find you, nobody knows where you are, you know, like the guy's gonna call, he's gonna call your landline, he gets the machine or he doesn't, like you cannot be reached sometimes. I think it was better for us because we're so like hyper vigilant now.
speaker-0: We are. It's all about social media social media, the curated life, what's online, keeping up, perfectionism and that doesn't stop. It's just that constant need to keep up.
speaker-1: And you gotta answer your DMs and you're waiting for this email and like we never stop and just sit and talk to
speaker-0: to each other. I don't think any grandmother would truly understand that. which kind of makes sense 'cause I think their lives were almost stress free or maybe a different kind of stress, you know, they had different problems in life, different things they were going through. What have you learned from all the grandmothers that you've had these conversations with, that you've worked with, that you wrote your book with about love and relationships, life?
speaker-1: I think that that's a really hard question. I I think that they were all married so young they were children, essentially. You know, your brain's not developed. And you know, you my grandmother met her husband and three months later was married to him.
speaker-0: I think my grandmother was fifteen when she got married, and my mum at seventeen.
speaker-1: But there was there was such a quiet respect in all of those marriages. Like I don't like you, but I love you. by the by the time I saw them. You know, and I really I really appreciated the the beauty in that love was in such small things, like making somebody their coffee and making, you know, making sure they ate and all that care. And I think You know, what I learned about my own through my own divorce was that nothing breaks all at once. Right?
speaker-0: I feel you.
speaker-1: You know, falling in love happens quickly, but falling out of love happens in I think a hundred thousand micro disconnections. They stop making you your coffee. Yeah. They stop buying you like your favorite cr cereal.
speaker-0: I think it's lots and lots of small moments that get built up and then you end up having one big argument and it's over and the mistake people make is it's not the one big argument. It's the years of little things happening. And look, I think you're right, because when I think back to it, you know, when I was visiting my grandmother, for example, growing up, I'd see her. She'd wake up, she'd have the coffee re ready, you know, for my grandfather, even for my dad, you know, for a son. It was just that routine. And look, I'm not saying that we should go back to the way people did things back then. I mean, I don't think I've ever woken up and made my partner coffee, as terrible as that is. but I think there's still a lot to learn about respect and about you know, maybe perseverance, about why we stay in relationships. Do you think maybe today i there's just too much choice or do you think it's social media?
speaker-1: No, too much choice, the first thing he said. absolute the illusion of too much choice. Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: And the illusion maybe that the grass is always greener.
speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, we're taught especially today where we have we have Instagram reels, right, to teach us how to live and and for and for therapy. All these people who are not therapists are giving us therapy and we have all these terms now that we didn't even have ten years ago. Yeah, I agree. You know, we didn't know what gaslighting was. Like that that's like a two thousand twenty two thing. Yeah. And We just run at the first red flag. Nobody makes anything work anymore. Nobody tries to fix something that's broken, which you can, you know, it's possible. I've seen a lot of marriages that were sixty, seventy years old and you think they never had a problem, you think they never broke.
speaker-0: Yeah. I think the thing is they put the effort in and a part of this podcast and the reason I decided to start it was y you know, I'm a family lawyer. So I work with so many families after the divorce and obviously I went through one myself and I thought there's gotta be a way to have conversations before that starts happening. And don't get me wrong, not every relationship, you know, deserves to stay on and we can't always be together if there are certain issues, but There's gotta be more effort. There's gotta be people sitting down and and putting the hard work in and you know the effort and saying we can do better if we actually slow down, we communicate better, we have certain rituals and tools and things like that. And I think food can be one of those rituals that's a an example of how we make effort.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean it it's it it's not even that you have to sit like sit with your partner and make a five course meal. Like sometimes in the in the smallest ways, it's like I got you the chicken soup when you're sick. I Uber Eats it for you. Don't please don't do the Uber Eats thing. But you know, like I I care about you. I made you your favorite thing on your birthday. You know, I want you to be happy.
speaker-0: That's it. It's effort. It's always effort. How do you think that food and language and these kinds of rituals help children understand where they come from and in relationships, you know, build up that sense of uniqueness in terms of your little family?
speaker-1: I think it's it from from when I was little, I mean, all these food memories that I have just flood me sometimes. You know, when the first time I went to Italy when I was seven years old and I realized that like, you know, there were no cereal bowls there. You had to put cereal in a in a in a coffee mug, in like a mug that they had. I thought that was so crazy. And like, you I know the taste of like Italian frosted flakes. I know the taste of my nonna's sauce and my aunt's sauce who's two years younger than her. It it it fills you with so much nuance when you grow up around food and cooking and people that had so much respect for food.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely, I think so. And I guess I want to tie it back as well. We've spoken a little bit about relationships and family and divorce. For families who are going through separation, divorce, I think rituals are very much disrupted and there's a breakdown there. What do you think that parents can do to keep children connected to their family culture and to those rituals?
speaker-1: I think it's just to keep an open mind, you know, and and not think of a divorce as like an end to any it doesn't have to be an end, you know. when I got divorced, I was really concerned that like, Christmases are gonna be so different and holidays are gonna be so different and you get used to this other family. And remembering that you still have that in your own family, you you don't have to lose anything. Mm. You know, and just because something's gonna look different doesn't mean you shouldn't do the right thing for yourself.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I think it really is about, you know, having that choice. And I always say new family, new rules, you get to make the decisions about how you move forward. I mean, I know with my son he's half Greek and half Italian. So two different colo you'd think they're similar, but there are some differences in culture. And, you know, as difficult as it often is for me, I have to ongoingly embrace that Greek culture. So, you know, we'll go to the shop, we'll buy the Greek, I don't know, whatever bread they have at Easter and make the red eggs and I just feel this sense of need or a I guess an obligation to keep that part of him alive too. And although that's no longer part of my life and I don't celebrate the Greek things, I do what I know is important for him.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think it I think you're doing the right thing though, because it it is his culture too. And you wanna have an open mind to that. I mean, I know that when my grandmother passed away, you know, our first holidays were really difficult. And it it made me wanna stop and like not bake the cookies and not, you know, and and take a a year off from it. But then I just said like she would really have wanted this. She would have wanted us to keep going. Yeah. You know.
speaker-0: Absolutely. I think that she's clearly been quite a pillar within all of your work and your journey and everything that, you know, you've achieved. What do you say that she's taught you about strength?
speaker-1: That we never run out of strength, you know, because we always go through really difficult seasons in our lives and we think that like we've used up all our strength. Like something bad'll happen and then you it's like, no, I don't have any more strength for this. I can't deal with I used it all up on the last thing. I can't we always have more. You know? We really we are so much stronger than we know.
speaker-0: And we're always learning too, I think. Absolutely. When you went through your divorce, was she someone that you felt you could turn to or because of perhaps the way that, you know, grandmothers are in in terms of their tradition and and their views, were you scared to tell her?
speaker-1: I was terrified. Yeah. my God. I was never so scared in my entire life because I, you know, she wanted my marriage for me so badly. My whole family did. It was a it was a fairy tale. Yeah. And I broke that fairy tale for everyone. And I felt enormous guilt for my parents, for my grandmother. She was getting older. She had just started showing signs of dementia. And I was just devastated. And I and I It took me weeks to tell her because I had moved out of my home with my ex-husband and I moved back in with my parents and we live we have this three family home. So my parents lived on the top, my nonna lived in the basement still. And I was dodging her for weeks. I was hiding. I would, you know, we had separate entrances, so I could hide. And one day she caught me outside and she looked at me and I just started crying. Yeah. And I was like, I didn't know what to say. Yeah. You know, what I did I didn't have a good enough reason. I mean I did, but but I felt like I didn't have a good enough reason to tell her why I left my marriage. And she took my hands and she shocked me. And she said, It's okay. She said, one day God is gonna send you a man who's worthy of you.
speaker-0: Probably the best piece of wisdom she's given you.
speaker-1: And I I didn't I didn't know what to I was I was speechless. I never in a million years expected her to say that she loved my ex-husband. She loved like everybody did. And like I really thought that she was gonna be really upset with me. And I was so surprised that she was supportive. And it was such a huge weight off my shoulders because when you get divorced Italian style, and I do get a lot of messages from women about this, you wouldn't think. You would not think, but in our culture it's a very difficult thing still.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. It's the idea of what is you know, am I a failure? how do I look now to the outside world? We had this family unit that we're trying to preserve and I think what a lot of people don't realise is you're not a failure. you know, there's no such thing as a broken family. And if you could be there, you would be, but there's a reason that you're not. And I remember the exact same thing. having to tell my grandmother was the most impossible thing. But she was a bit different. For her it was you are a failure. What did you do wrong? What did you do wrong? But you But what did he do wrong? Yeah, I had a son at the time.
speaker-1: children. So you know, it's it's different. I think it's different when there are children and and I couldn't speak for that because I wasn't in that position. And I don't know what I would have done if I had kids, honestly.
speaker-0: Yeah, look I it is. It's it can be different. But look, I think the same thing applies in that it's that difficulty and when you come from a different generation. not different culture, it's the same culture, but sometimes it can be very difficult to understand why someone will make a you know, a choice to leave.
speaker-1: Because we have this you know, for those of you at home who are not Italian, we have bella figura. Absolutely and we
speaker-0: You can explain that.
speaker-1: Is the beautiful image. So that's that's the literal transition. And this is what Italians live for. It is the the projection of perfection that we sh we very much strive for in our culture. And sometimes it runs our lives. Yeah. But you can't stay married for bella figura.
speaker-0: No, that's exactly right. I think that's gotta be the standout line from this one. What does La Familia mean to you today as compared to when you were younger?
speaker-1: So family is so different today than when I was younger. I mean, I have one brother, he lives in Canada and like far away Canada. Like there's no more Canada left. He had to get very far away from us and he has a son, so I have a nephew that we see twice a year, maybe, when we're lucky. And so much of my family is gone, you know, it's my grandmother two years ago, my great uncle, my aunt is ninety two almost. But it's so different now because of life and we don't gather as much. And even me, you know, so everybody, if you want to compare yourself to to anyone on the internet, don't because I wish I could still tell you that I was having Sunday dinner religiously every Sunday. Yeah. But we're not. And I and I don't like it. And it's some that's a big part of like my my inner work that I do is accepting the changes and trying to hold like the uncertainty without collapsing because what what's gonna happen in ten years? I have no idea.
speaker-0: That's right. And that can be really hard to process and to come to terms with and to teach our children about. and I guess many families, they have conflict and they have estrangement and they have distance as well. Do you think food and meals and celebrations together can be a way back?
speaker-1: think anything is possible. I think absolutely it can be a way back because you know, if somebody's mad at you, make them something. That's what I that's what I that's how I live my life. You know? Like if if food can't fix it, I don't know what can, but you should try with food. It's
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: my number one thing.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Is there a is there a particular meal or a recipe that you say is the repair food?
speaker-1: this is good. what would I like how mad is somebody?
speaker-0: Let's do the two scales. We've got a friend who's mad and then we've got the husband who, you know, you haven't cooked for in a week and you've done something pretty bad.
speaker-1: Right, okay. So if my friend's mad at me, I would make like my Nutella brownies. Like I make Nutella olive oil brownies of fantastic. And nobody can stay mad at you after they have those. It's just it's not possible. And then I feel like if my boyfriend was mad at me, my husband was mad at me, I would make like a really sexy short rib rago.
speaker-0: Okay.
speaker-1: 'Cause it's so like filling and hearty and the house smells good when you make it. So it's something that like they you remember smell is very important. So they walk in the house and they're like, What's that smell? And then they they forgot.
speaker-0: She's put the effort in, she's been cooking all day.
speaker-1: It takes hours. That one takes takes three, four hours, but you know, you want to be you want to be
speaker-0: That's it, that's the aroma. What do you think one of the biggest lessons that you've learned out of this journey has been between, you know, starting the business and the cookbooks and, you know, your life with Norna, divorce, all of it. Is there something that stands out as I've learnt this as part of my journey?
speaker-1: that you're never really ready. You know, readiness is bullshit. I'm sorry. But it no one's ready. Nobody's perfect. Nobody's better at it than you are. You know, just start doing what you want to do. I wasn't ready. I had no idea how to make a show in two thousand that you know, you couldn't you couldn't film a show on your phone back then. I had to hire people. Yeah. It was it was very expensive. I I mean but I did it. I didn't let that stop me and say, who the hell am I? To start cooking on the internet when it was like not a big thing to do. It was a very like unique thing at the time. And I learned as I went, and you know, and that's okay. I feel like today you if you don't have this perfect aesthetic kitchen or you feel like you're not a writer, you you feel like you're not prepared, you don't have the the newest phone to shoot on. And we let so many things hold us back from being who we wanna be in the world.
speaker-0: I think you're entirely right. And I think the problem is people stop themselves from moving forward or from reaching those goals because they are so worried about those things. And I think we've moved away from, you know, that period where you did have to have the perfect kitchen and everything had to be so heavily curated. And today no one cares about that. They want, you know, the message, the person, the voice. And they really want to resonate with who they're listening to. And I think that's what probably people feel from you and what we're learning from a lot of people these days. perfectionism is gone. Yeah. And there is no such thing as failure, is what I'm very much learning from you.
speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, even the the things we believe to be failures, it it feels that way in the moment and you know, one day you'll see why it had to be this way.
speaker-0: Yeah. Bigger things are coming. Yeah. I believe that.
speaker-1: This is something better.
speaker-0: Always. Now the final question that I always like to ask my guests on before it breaks is what do you wish that people noticed earlier before it breaks?
speaker-1: That life is so short. You know? It you blink and ten years go by. And and don't waste that time. trying to stay in something that isn't right for you, or trying to make something work, or trying so hard to make something fit that doesn't fit. You know, you've s so little time in in a sense to be at your best and do what you want to do.
speaker-0: Yeah, I really feel that. And I think that is a beautiful last thing to end on. And I think so many people will take a lot away from this conversation. And thank you for being so open, 'cause sometimes it can be really hard to open up about your life and your personal experiences, but that's how you help people.
speaker-1: Yeah, I'm emotionally slutty. You know. I've always been. I've always been that way. You were wonderful to talk to.
speaker-0: Keep doing it. Thanks. Thank you for coming on.
speaker-1: Thank you for having me.
speaker-0: So what I loved about Rosella's work is that it reminds us that food is never just food. It's memory. It's identity. It's comfort. It's culture. It's grief. It's love in a form that you can taste. It's a grandmother saying, Eat, when what she really means is, I love you. I see you. You belong here. And I think this conversation is such an important reminder that family connection does not only break through conflict. Sometimes it breaks through distance or through busyness, through silence, through assuming there will always be more time, through not asking the questions while the people who hold all the answers are still here. And so for anyone listening, I hope that this episode makes you think about the rituals in your own family, the recipe that you haven't. learned yet, the story that you haven't asked about, the person that you haven't called, the table that you haven't sat at for long enough. Because before families break and before traditions disappear, before memories fade, there's often still time to gather, still time to ask, still time to listen, still time to preserve something precious before it breaks. I'm Gabriella Pomari and thank you for being with us today.
speaker-1: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
speaker-0: Absolutely. So I guess for people who are new to your work and who don't know much about you, can you tell me about your story about cooking with Nuna and how everything began?
speaker-1: So everything began in two thousand eight. I was almost done with college. And when I was in college, I lived with my grandmother, with my nonna romana, because nice Italian girls did not dorm back in my day. And if they did, my father veto was not gonna pay for it. So I lived in the basement of the house my family used to all live in. And I slept in the same bedroom as my grandmother for four years. So that was a unique dorming experience, to say the least. And I was studying to be an Italian teacher because I'm first generation Italian American. And when you grow up with Italian as your first language, every girl in my neighborhood became a hairdresser or became an Italian teacher. So I was trying to go to school and do the right things that, you know, my family wanted me to do. And one night my father comes over and we're having dinner. And, you know, we're clearing the table. And he goes, Ma what do you want to do with your life? Because you're gonna be a terrible teacher. We all know. And I'm like, all of you know, really? And he's and I thought about it for a second because I had always been in the entertainment industry, like my mother's an actress. And I was like, I want to have a cooking show one day. That's the greatest job in the world. And he he thought for a minute and he goes, You know what? We should call it cooking with non.
speaker-0: Love it.
speaker-1: And and I was like, yeah, funny. And a week later, he buys a website. Now this is 2008. Now everybody has a website, but in 2008 it was very cool to have a website. And I was like, all right, so funny. What are we gonna do with this? And another week later, he starts building a set for me. So
speaker-0: Ha ha ha.
speaker-1: we started making a show. We had no idea what we were doing. Nobody was doing that at the time. I was actually the first influencer to ever cook with Italian grandmothers. And we just my mother was head of CS thing. She would call up her friend, like, Rosalia, my daughter has a show now. You wanna do the show? And grandmothers would come over every Sunday and we would just start filming their recipes. Grew
speaker-0: And it grew from that. It grew.
speaker-1: from that into a series of books in 2016. I did my first cookbook. We did three books in six years. And then we started with products.
speaker-0: You're a busy lady. And it all stems from really your dad's idea and the Italian background. And I love it. I love it. Who would have thought?
speaker-1: It was like, you know, I I'm really proud that I built a brand over out of my cultural identity because it's such a big part of who I am. Yeah.
speaker-0: It's special. And what was it, I guess, about your Nunna that you thought, you know, what was special about her that made you want to build the entire plat route platform around, you know, cooking with Nonnas?
speaker-1: So my grandmother Romana, she passed this past October at 92. Wow. And if you ever met her, I think anybody that ever met my grandmother, everybody will say their grandmother's a special person. My grandmother was such a special person in the sense that I think everybody who knew her saw someone that they loved in her or someone that they used to love, or the lady across the street, or You know, if they never had that relationship in their lives, watching her gave them a nonna. Yeah. And I I think I always knew that inherently, that she's something because she was always, you know, soap and water. She stopped dyeing her hair when she was 50. She never wore makeup. She was that nonna in the house dress, over the stove, lived for her children, her grandchildren. And, you know, I recognized very early on that. That generation was dying. Yeah. And it was, to me, it was the greatest generation that ever lived.
speaker-0: Absolutely, a real woman, right? And that's where you learn I think the most from. What do you think she taught you about relationships?
speaker-1: I mean, my grandmother was a widow at 29. Wow. And she never remarried.
speaker-0: You kidding me?
speaker-1: Never, not once. She said, that was my husband. And if God wanted me to have a husband, he would have lived. And I don't want a new man around any of my around my children. And she spent 63 years by herself. And I think what it taught me is that first of all, that it that's possible. But that you can have a fulfilling life without romantic love. Because she had a very full life.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: You know, there were moments like at weddings where I I I feel like she wanted to dance with somebody. Yeah. But most of mostly I I think
speaker-0: It sounds like she found fulfillment within the family, you know, within her children, her grandchildren and everything that she was seeing and I suppose creating within that family unit.
speaker-1: Yeah, and I think it it was such a big message to me about loving yourself. You know, that the love that that you that it that love is really inside you.
speaker-0: Yeah, and I think that's such an important thing, particularly for girls to learn from a young age. it is, it's something so important. It it brings out confidence and everything else. So that's special.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean when you talk about a woman who decentered men like she was like Olympic level
speaker-0: Well you weren't bringing men home when you're sleeping in her bedroom for four years.
speaker-1: Yeah, no, there was it was i in my house it was very much, you know, you can have a boyfriend when you get married.
speaker-0: I feel you. I was there. So on before it breaks on my podcast, I'm always interested in what we don't notice until it's gone. what do you think that people fail to appreciate about family traditions whilst they're still living inside the
speaker-1: Well listen, I'm a WAG and you're a WAG. Right? Like WOGs are like the ethnic people and we hold a lot of grudges. And
speaker-0: Yes. yes.
speaker-1: we love a grudge ten years, twenty years, thirty before you know it, everybody's dead.
speaker-0: I'm meeting cousins and aunties and uncles that I didn't know about for thirty years. Right. Because of a grudge.
speaker-1: Right, because you know, my we were estranged from my father's family, my father's entire side of the family, practically my whole life, over something that I I don't know what happened. Somebody stole a goat from somebody else's property. you know, money's usually involved. And my father is one of ten children. Five lived past the age of two. Wow. And I have twenty something first cousins that I've never met.
speaker-0: Insane.
speaker-1: And like I think the thing that we don't appreciate enough is that there's really not that much time. Yeah.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1: You know, you wanna spend all this time being mad and for what? And then it's like, you know, I'll fight with my god I'm fighting with my godmother right now. I'm fighting with her right now. But like, you know, it's like a baby thing. So I know the holidays are gonna roll around and she's gonna call me and she's gonna be like, Okay, you bring the focaca? And yeah, I'm gonna bring the focaccia and we'll get over it.
speaker-0: That's it. And I think food sometimes is a way to repair and it can be the way to someone's heart. Always. Do you think food is something that carries family memory and sometimes, you know, it can do something that words maybe can't?
speaker-1: Absolutely. I mean, I think food is so powerful at at eliciting, you know, memories and good feelings because, you know, when I miss my grandmother, you know, I make her pastina or I make her parmijana or I make something that she taught me how to make and I know she's proud of me. And it and it, you know, the smell, smell is so powerful. You know, the the action of of doing is so powerful. She used to say, you know, when you feel sad. You know, get some flour and make some pasta and you'll forget about what you were sad about.
speaker-0: So for everyone listening, when you're feeling sad, get some flour, make some pasta. I agree with that one.
speaker-1: There there's a saying in Italian, devi fare più pane, you have to make more bread, which means like, you know, when you are so in your head about something, make something with your hands. You know, use your hands and your abil and you've made something at the end.
speaker-0: Yeah, what do you think it is about that?
speaker-1: I think it's like interrupting the the loops that we have. Yeah. Yeah. You know, with something productive.
speaker-0: of putting your mind to something as well and that distraction. And I think you realize as well that whatever you're bothered about, whatever you're arguing about is probably so tiny, not important. And when you're actually getting into something, it's that distraction. Talk to me about Sunday dinners growing up, why they were special to you and to your family and what they meant.
speaker-1: Growing up, I mean, Sundays were in my nonna's basement. There was no room, but we made room. Yeah. You know, it just Sunday showed me that anything is possible. You know, there's never like, we don't have I don't have enough of this plate service to invite you. We can't no. Nothing matched. There were tables practically out the door. None of the chairs matched. We always made it work. Everybody was welcome. I would wake up. Sunday mornings, like the smell of hokacha in my nose, because she would get up at like five o'clock in the morning. And, you know, it was a day to just make things together. Yeah. All day. And then everybody comes over and people trickle in. And then who comes over just for the cake and the coffee? And then you play cards after. And those were the golden years. And I think like we don't know we're living the golden years until they're over.
speaker-0: I think you're entirely right. I often I talk to my partner about it and he's also Italian Australian, but no sense of that kind of tradition. And when I grew up, it was every Sunday we would go to my grandmother, my nunna's house, and we would have lunch together with all my cousins and everyone would gather. And so for it was lasagna and we like snitz Cotiletti. And I remember that so fondly. And I remember everyone sitting together and laughing and catching up. And I felt such a special maybe bond or a closeness. And then as we got older and, you know, kids started finishing school and got married and had their own kids, all of it went away. And no one could make time for each other anymore. And the Sunday lunch or the Sunday dinner was gone and there was no more coming together as a family. Now I'm lucky if my family gets together, even my immediate family, maybe once a fortnight, once a month, and it's sad. Yeah. What do you think that families lose when they stop gathering together?
speaker-1: I mean, what do they not lose? They lose everything. They it's like we're just people. We're not even family anymore. You know, it's part of our culture is that we're we're in each other's business. We know everything about each other. And now it's like, you know, we have a group chat. Yeah. It's so imper
speaker-0: Perfect.
speaker-1: We if we stop gathering, if we stop meeting in person, you know, we're just like these strangers.
speaker-0: Yeah, we lose that human connection. I mean I find myself these days I learn things about my first cousins online on Instagram or someone had a baby or someone's, you graduated and you think, How is it that we don't know these things? We've lost that real just that human connection or that desire to have conversations and I think that's sad for the younger generation and for children.
speaker-1: It's absolutely sad. I mean, I see I have three female cousins that are about ten years younger than me. And I see the difference in in the respect. If if you're watching, I'm sorry, but you guys are not respectful. Like in the respect, in the the appreciation, in the communication. It's like I'm your older cousin. You have to tell me. You have to tell me first.
speaker-0: That's exactly right. You know. I think the problem now is everyone's too busy. Everyone's got lives. They're juggling too much. But I don't think anyone truly is too busy. how do you think that people can use, you know, food and ritual to create that sense of belonging and how can we bring those memories and, you know, that f sense of intimacy back on a Sunday or whenever it might be? Well that
speaker-1: That's why I wrote cooking with Nona Sunday dinners because I wanted people to have like a Bible for if they wanted to start their own Sunday dinner tradition. I mean, you don't have to be Italian to grow a Sunday dinner. I mean, I just gave you the tools to make really good food for it. But I think it's a great idea to have a once-a-week, you know, and I know once a week is hard, you know, bi-weekly. catch up with people that are important to you. I think it's it's more important than we and don't go to a restaurant. I mean you could go to a restaurant but like it's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah.
speaker-0: The love is in the cooking. Yeah.
speaker-1: Everybody bring something and and just talk.
speaker-0: Mm. And then it's effort, I think. It's having people put that effort in that makes it more special. Yeah. tell me more about the books. I mean, I think recipes are never just recipes, they tell stories. what about your ones?
speaker-1: I mean, my books were something I never expected to do with myself because like I was never I was not a good student. My brother's a genius. My brother's like a mensa genius. He scored like a sixteen hundred on his SATs and I was cute. So when I was going to apply for college, I actually walked in on my guidance counselor having a conversation with another guidance counselor and he said, I have Lenny Rago's sister next. And he's like, I don't know how I'm gonna tell her she's not gonna get into any school. And he was like, Yeah, but you know, she's pretty cute, so maybe she'll marry somebody.
speaker-0: Yep, that's the way.
speaker-1: And that made me so sad, you know, at at imagine you're 17 and you hear your teachers talking about you like this. But I did get into college and and I was on the dean's list every semester. And when the t the time came to write a book, I called my brother and I was like, I can't do this. I don't know, I don't know. I'm not gonna come on. And he's like, you can do it. Like, why? So I said yes and I figured it out later. Which is how I recommend everybody do everything. I agree. And I knew I wanted the books to not just be about recipes. So I found about for the first one, I think we had over 30 different nonna contribute. And I knew I wanted to tell their stories because you know. recipe books or just recipe books, but I their stories were so important to me, like their why. Because no one had ever asked them. So I visited every single lady. We did a day of recipe testing. And then I sat down with them with my little voice recorder. And I said, Tell me about your life. And they're like, my life. And I'm like, Yeah, tell me about your life. The whole the whole thing. My you wanna know. So you wanna I was like, Yeah, I want to know about how you came to this country, about how you met your husband, about why you Make the things that you make. Yeah. And it occurred to me that no one had ever asked them these questions. And they were these like ordinary people living such extraordinary lives to me. And I thought that other people would want to read about them.
speaker-0: I love that. I just I really do. what do you think that people can learn from or about cooking from grandmothers or nonas themselves, either how you did it with your norna and lots of other grandmothers, that they can't learn just from following a recipe? It's that
speaker-1: But you have to when you cook like a grandmother, it's about a feeling. You i you can't you can just read a recipe, but it's not the same as like you have to know you have to touch the stuff. You know, you know when the dough's ready by touching it because it's a humid day or it's a dry day. You can't just read something and put the ingredients in and just say, Okay, I did it. You have to develop a relationship with the food. Like one of the ladies she used to say, You gotta touch the food like you touch your boyfriend. You gotta love the food like you love your boyfriend. You have to really you have to care. Yeah.
speaker-0: It sounds like you've had a lot of conversations with a lot of grandmothers. What do you think or what have they taught you about what old generations wish that younger generations understood earlier in life?
speaker-1: Ooh, I think they wish That we all, you know, were more present, especially today, where we're all on our phones and we don't know how to have com well, like, you know, younger generations don't have social skills the same way millennials do. You know, they don't know how to have a conversation. You can post a thirst trap, but you're like shy in real life, like that kind of thing. And we're we're just not as we're not present, you know. Like I I always say I was born 30 years too late because I I would love to live still live in a world where no one can find you, nobody knows where you are, you know, like the guy's gonna call, he's gonna call your landline, he gets the machine or he doesn't, like you cannot be reached sometimes. I think it was better for us because we're so like hyper vigilant now.
speaker-0: We are. It's all about social media social media, the curated life, what's online, keeping up, perfectionism and that doesn't stop. It's just that constant need to keep up.
speaker-1: And you gotta answer your DMs and you're waiting for this email and like we never stop and just sit and talk to
speaker-0: to each other. I don't think any grandmother would truly understand that. which kind of makes sense 'cause I think their lives were almost stress free or maybe a different kind of stress, you know, they had different problems in life, different things they were going through. What have you learned from all the grandmothers that you've had these conversations with, that you've worked with, that you wrote your book with about love and relationships, life?
speaker-1: I think that that's a really hard question. I I think that they were all married so young they were children, essentially. You know, your brain's not developed. And you know, you my grandmother met her husband and three months later was married to him.
speaker-0: I think my grandmother was fifteen when she got married, and my mum at seventeen.
speaker-1: But there was there was such a quiet respect in all of those marriages. Like I don't like you, but I love you. by the by the time I saw them. You know, and I really I really appreciated the the beauty in that love was in such small things, like making somebody their coffee and making, you know, making sure they ate and all that care. And I think You know, what I learned about my own through my own divorce was that nothing breaks all at once. Right?
speaker-0: I feel you.
speaker-1: You know, falling in love happens quickly, but falling out of love happens in I think a hundred thousand micro disconnections. They stop making you your coffee. Yeah. They stop buying you like your favorite cr cereal.
speaker-0: I think it's lots and lots of small moments that get built up and then you end up having one big argument and it's over and the mistake people make is it's not the one big argument. It's the years of little things happening. And look, I think you're right, because when I think back to it, you know, when I was visiting my grandmother, for example, growing up, I'd see her. She'd wake up, she'd have the coffee re ready, you know, for my grandfather, even for my dad, you know, for a son. It was just that routine. And look, I'm not saying that we should go back to the way people did things back then. I mean, I don't think I've ever woken up and made my partner coffee, as terrible as that is. but I think there's still a lot to learn about respect and about you know, maybe perseverance, about why we stay in relationships. Do you think maybe today i there's just too much choice or do you think it's social media?
speaker-1: No, too much choice, the first thing he said. absolute the illusion of too much choice. Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: And the illusion maybe that the grass is always greener.
speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, we're taught especially today where we have we have Instagram reels, right, to teach us how to live and and for and for therapy. All these people who are not therapists are giving us therapy and we have all these terms now that we didn't even have ten years ago. Yeah, I agree. You know, we didn't know what gaslighting was. Like that that's like a two thousand twenty two thing. Yeah. And We just run at the first red flag. Nobody makes anything work anymore. Nobody tries to fix something that's broken, which you can, you know, it's possible. I've seen a lot of marriages that were sixty, seventy years old and you think they never had a problem, you think they never broke.
speaker-0: Yeah. I think the thing is they put the effort in and a part of this podcast and the reason I decided to start it was y you know, I'm a family lawyer. So I work with so many families after the divorce and obviously I went through one myself and I thought there's gotta be a way to have conversations before that starts happening. And don't get me wrong, not every relationship, you know, deserves to stay on and we can't always be together if there are certain issues, but There's gotta be more effort. There's gotta be people sitting down and and putting the hard work in and you know the effort and saying we can do better if we actually slow down, we communicate better, we have certain rituals and tools and things like that. And I think food can be one of those rituals that's a an example of how we make effort.
speaker-1: Yeah, I mean it it's it it's not even that you have to sit like sit with your partner and make a five course meal. Like sometimes in the in the smallest ways, it's like I got you the chicken soup when you're sick. I Uber Eats it for you. Don't please don't do the Uber Eats thing. But you know, like I I care about you. I made you your favorite thing on your birthday. You know, I want you to be happy.
speaker-0: That's it. It's effort. It's always effort. How do you think that food and language and these kinds of rituals help children understand where they come from and in relationships, you know, build up that sense of uniqueness in terms of your little family?
speaker-1: I think it's it from from when I was little, I mean, all these food memories that I have just flood me sometimes. You know, when the first time I went to Italy when I was seven years old and I realized that like, you know, there were no cereal bowls there. You had to put cereal in a in a in a coffee mug, in like a mug that they had. I thought that was so crazy. And like, you I know the taste of like Italian frosted flakes. I know the taste of my nonna's sauce and my aunt's sauce who's two years younger than her. It it it fills you with so much nuance when you grow up around food and cooking and people that had so much respect for food.
speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely, I think so. And I guess I want to tie it back as well. We've spoken a little bit about relationships and family and divorce. For families who are going through separation, divorce, I think rituals are very much disrupted and there's a breakdown there. What do you think that parents can do to keep children connected to their family culture and to those rituals?
speaker-1: I think it's just to keep an open mind, you know, and and not think of a divorce as like an end to any it doesn't have to be an end, you know. when I got divorced, I was really concerned that like, Christmases are gonna be so different and holidays are gonna be so different and you get used to this other family. And remembering that you still have that in your own family, you you don't have to lose anything. Mm. You know, and just because something's gonna look different doesn't mean you shouldn't do the right thing for yourself.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I think it really is about, you know, having that choice. And I always say new family, new rules, you get to make the decisions about how you move forward. I mean, I know with my son he's half Greek and half Italian. So two different colo you'd think they're similar, but there are some differences in culture. And, you know, as difficult as it often is for me, I have to ongoingly embrace that Greek culture. So, you know, we'll go to the shop, we'll buy the Greek, I don't know, whatever bread they have at Easter and make the red eggs and I just feel this sense of need or a I guess an obligation to keep that part of him alive too. And although that's no longer part of my life and I don't celebrate the Greek things, I do what I know is important for him.
speaker-1: Yeah, I think it I think you're doing the right thing though, because it it is his culture too. And you wanna have an open mind to that. I mean, I know that when my grandmother passed away, you know, our first holidays were really difficult. And it it made me wanna stop and like not bake the cookies and not, you know, and and take a a year off from it. But then I just said like she would really have wanted this. She would have wanted us to keep going. Yeah. You know.
speaker-0: Absolutely. I think that she's clearly been quite a pillar within all of your work and your journey and everything that, you know, you've achieved. What do you say that she's taught you about strength?
speaker-1: That we never run out of strength, you know, because we always go through really difficult seasons in our lives and we think that like we've used up all our strength. Like something bad'll happen and then you it's like, no, I don't have any more strength for this. I can't deal with I used it all up on the last thing. I can't we always have more. You know? We really we are so much stronger than we know.
speaker-0: And we're always learning too, I think. Absolutely. When you went through your divorce, was she someone that you felt you could turn to or because of perhaps the way that, you know, grandmothers are in in terms of their tradition and and their views, were you scared to tell her?
speaker-1: I was terrified. Yeah. my God. I was never so scared in my entire life because I, you know, she wanted my marriage for me so badly. My whole family did. It was a it was a fairy tale. Yeah. And I broke that fairy tale for everyone. And I felt enormous guilt for my parents, for my grandmother. She was getting older. She had just started showing signs of dementia. And I was just devastated. And I and I It took me weeks to tell her because I had moved out of my home with my ex-husband and I moved back in with my parents and we live we have this three family home. So my parents lived on the top, my nonna lived in the basement still. And I was dodging her for weeks. I was hiding. I would, you know, we had separate entrances, so I could hide. And one day she caught me outside and she looked at me and I just started crying. Yeah. And I was like, I didn't know what to say. Yeah. You know, what I did I didn't have a good enough reason. I mean I did, but but I felt like I didn't have a good enough reason to tell her why I left my marriage. And she took my hands and she shocked me. And she said, It's okay. She said, one day God is gonna send you a man who's worthy of you.
speaker-0: Probably the best piece of wisdom she's given you.
speaker-1: And I I didn't I didn't know what to I was I was speechless. I never in a million years expected her to say that she loved my ex-husband. She loved like everybody did. And like I really thought that she was gonna be really upset with me. And I was so surprised that she was supportive. And it was such a huge weight off my shoulders because when you get divorced Italian style, and I do get a lot of messages from women about this, you wouldn't think. You would not think, but in our culture it's a very difficult thing still.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. It's the idea of what is you know, am I a failure? how do I look now to the outside world? We had this family unit that we're trying to preserve and I think what a lot of people don't realise is you're not a failure. you know, there's no such thing as a broken family. And if you could be there, you would be, but there's a reason that you're not. And I remember the exact same thing. having to tell my grandmother was the most impossible thing. But she was a bit different. For her it was you are a failure. What did you do wrong? What did you do wrong? But you But what did he do wrong? Yeah, I had a son at the time.
speaker-1: children. So you know, it's it's different. I think it's different when there are children and and I couldn't speak for that because I wasn't in that position. And I don't know what I would have done if I had kids, honestly.
speaker-0: Yeah, look I it is. It's it can be different. But look, I think the same thing applies in that it's that difficulty and when you come from a different generation. not different culture, it's the same culture, but sometimes it can be very difficult to understand why someone will make a you know, a choice to leave.
speaker-1: Because we have this you know, for those of you at home who are not Italian, we have bella figura. Absolutely and we
speaker-0: You can explain that.
speaker-1: Is the beautiful image. So that's that's the literal transition. And this is what Italians live for. It is the the projection of perfection that we sh we very much strive for in our culture. And sometimes it runs our lives. Yeah. But you can't stay married for bella figura.
speaker-0: No, that's exactly right. I think that's gotta be the standout line from this one. What does La Familia mean to you today as compared to when you were younger?
speaker-1: So family is so different today than when I was younger. I mean, I have one brother, he lives in Canada and like far away Canada. Like there's no more Canada left. He had to get very far away from us and he has a son, so I have a nephew that we see twice a year, maybe, when we're lucky. And so much of my family is gone, you know, it's my grandmother two years ago, my great uncle, my aunt is ninety two almost. But it's so different now because of life and we don't gather as much. And even me, you know, so everybody, if you want to compare yourself to to anyone on the internet, don't because I wish I could still tell you that I was having Sunday dinner religiously every Sunday. Yeah. But we're not. And I and I don't like it. And it's some that's a big part of like my my inner work that I do is accepting the changes and trying to hold like the uncertainty without collapsing because what what's gonna happen in ten years? I have no idea.
speaker-0: That's right. And that can be really hard to process and to come to terms with and to teach our children about. and I guess many families, they have conflict and they have estrangement and they have distance as well. Do you think food and meals and celebrations together can be a way back?
speaker-1: think anything is possible. I think absolutely it can be a way back because you know, if somebody's mad at you, make them something. That's what I that's what I that's how I live my life. You know? Like if if food can't fix it, I don't know what can, but you should try with food. It's
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: my number one thing.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Is there a is there a particular meal or a recipe that you say is the repair food?
speaker-1: this is good. what would I like how mad is somebody?
speaker-0: Let's do the two scales. We've got a friend who's mad and then we've got the husband who, you know, you haven't cooked for in a week and you've done something pretty bad.
speaker-1: Right, okay. So if my friend's mad at me, I would make like my Nutella brownies. Like I make Nutella olive oil brownies of fantastic. And nobody can stay mad at you after they have those. It's just it's not possible. And then I feel like if my boyfriend was mad at me, my husband was mad at me, I would make like a really sexy short rib rago.
speaker-0: Okay.
speaker-1: 'Cause it's so like filling and hearty and the house smells good when you make it. So it's something that like they you remember smell is very important. So they walk in the house and they're like, What's that smell? And then they they forgot.
speaker-0: She's put the effort in, she's been cooking all day.
speaker-1: It takes hours. That one takes takes three, four hours, but you know, you want to be you want to be
speaker-0: That's it, that's the aroma. What do you think one of the biggest lessons that you've learned out of this journey has been between, you know, starting the business and the cookbooks and, you know, your life with Norna, divorce, all of it. Is there something that stands out as I've learnt this as part of my journey?
speaker-1: that you're never really ready. You know, readiness is bullshit. I'm sorry. But it no one's ready. Nobody's perfect. Nobody's better at it than you are. You know, just start doing what you want to do. I wasn't ready. I had no idea how to make a show in two thousand that you know, you couldn't you couldn't film a show on your phone back then. I had to hire people. Yeah. It was it was very expensive. I I mean but I did it. I didn't let that stop me and say, who the hell am I? To start cooking on the internet when it was like not a big thing to do. It was a very like unique thing at the time. And I learned as I went, and you know, and that's okay. I feel like today you if you don't have this perfect aesthetic kitchen or you feel like you're not a writer, you you feel like you're not prepared, you don't have the the newest phone to shoot on. And we let so many things hold us back from being who we wanna be in the world.
speaker-0: I think you're entirely right. And I think the problem is people stop themselves from moving forward or from reaching those goals because they are so worried about those things. And I think we've moved away from, you know, that period where you did have to have the perfect kitchen and everything had to be so heavily curated. And today no one cares about that. They want, you know, the message, the person, the voice. And they really want to resonate with who they're listening to. And I think that's what probably people feel from you and what we're learning from a lot of people these days. perfectionism is gone. Yeah. And there is no such thing as failure, is what I'm very much learning from you.
speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, even the the things we believe to be failures, it it feels that way in the moment and you know, one day you'll see why it had to be this way.
speaker-0: Yeah. Bigger things are coming. Yeah. I believe that.
speaker-1: This is something better.
speaker-0: Always. Now the final question that I always like to ask my guests on before it breaks is what do you wish that people noticed earlier before it breaks?
speaker-1: That life is so short. You know? It you blink and ten years go by. And and don't waste that time. trying to stay in something that isn't right for you, or trying to make something work, or trying so hard to make something fit that doesn't fit. You know, you've s so little time in in a sense to be at your best and do what you want to do.
speaker-0: Yeah, I really feel that. And I think that is a beautiful last thing to end on. And I think so many people will take a lot away from this conversation. And thank you for being so open, 'cause sometimes it can be really hard to open up about your life and your personal experiences, but that's how you help people.
speaker-1: Yeah, I'm emotionally slutty. You know. I've always been. I've always been that way. You were wonderful to talk to.
speaker-0: Keep doing it. Thanks. Thank you for coming on.
speaker-1: Thank you for having me.
speaker-0: So what I loved about Rosella's work is that it reminds us that food is never just food. It's memory. It's identity. It's comfort. It's culture. It's grief. It's love in a form that you can taste. It's a grandmother saying, Eat, when what she really means is, I love you. I see you. You belong here. And I think this conversation is such an important reminder that family connection does not only break through conflict. Sometimes it breaks through distance or through busyness, through silence, through assuming there will always be more time, through not asking the questions while the people who hold all the answers are still here. And so for anyone listening, I hope that this episode makes you think about the rituals in your own family, the recipe that you haven't. learned yet, the story that you haven't asked about, the person that you haven't called, the table that you haven't sat at for long enough. Because before families break and before traditions disappear, before memories fade, there's often still time to gather, still time to ask, still time to listen, still time to preserve something precious before it breaks. I'm Gabriella Pomari and thank you for being with us today.
