Gia's Italian Kitchen's Podcast
Remember how you used to have Sunday dinners with family? Let's talk about Italian food and everything around it. From interviews with experts to my cooking episodes to little recipes to travel tips...my podcast starts to bring us back to those Sunday dinner memories.
What's next? Imagine a unique cooking experience where you could be the hero! We will create memories for friends & family through private dinner parties (virtually or in person) & employer teambuilding events via Italian cooking experiences. You select a custom menu, I provide the instruction!
My full menu can be found on my website:
https://giasitaliankitchen.biz
A private cooking experience, virtually or in-person, is a fun and unique experience that you will all absolutely love!
- Family across the country? Create memories with the kids and grandchildren to laugh while you cook with me with a virtual class.
- Girlfriends in 6 different states? Craving a virtual cooking experience and happy hour, let’s get cooking!
- Friends or family want a private dinner party in-person?
- I can come to your or provide a local kitchen space.
Learn more about us…all of our socials here:
https://linktr.ee/giasitaliankitchen
Let's Get Cooking!
Gia's Italian Kitchen's Podcast
Episode 3.24 - THE FULL INTERVIEW w ADRIANA TRIGIANI IS HERE!
I interviewed the New York Times bestselling author ADRIANA TRIGIANI!!! YEP it’s true! She is so awesome and down to earth! I can't wait for you to meet her! Her book release is July 8, 2025.....preorder your copy at a local bookstore today! If you are in Eastern Iowa, Swamp Fox Bookstore can order you a copy!
Watch the full interview, and short clips, on my YT channel: https://youtu.be/EKvL9WgFgrc
All of my links are here: https://linktr.ee/giasitaliankitchen
Adriana Trigiani is The New York Times bestselling author of twenty books in fiction and nonfiction. She has been published in 38 countries around the world. She wrote the blockbuster The Shoemaker’s Wife, the Big Stone Gap series, the Valentine trilogy and Lucia, Lucia...to name a few.
Adriana’s latest novel, The View from Lake Como, hits shelves July 8th, 2025. Publisher’s Weekly’s “Best Book of Summer 2025”, this is the story of Jess Capodimonte Baratta, a recently divorced, dutiful daughter, living in her parents’ basement. When an unexpected loss sends her to her ancestral home of Carrara, Italy where Jess learns to rebuild her life and the house that goes with it.
Visit her website at www.adrianatrigiani.com
Learn more about us…all of our socials here: https://linktr.ee/giasitaliankitchen
Please follow, like, comment, subscribe....and all those social things, to help me grow!
How about a dinner with friends and family?
Imagine a unique cooking experience where you could be the hero! We will create memories for friends & family through private dinner parties (virtually or in person) & employer teambuilding events via Italian cooking experiences. You select a custom menu, I provide the instruction!
My full menu can be found on my website: https://giasitaliankitchen.biz
BOOK private cooking experience, virtually or in-person, for a fun and unique experience that you will all absolutely love!
- Family across the country? Create memories with the kids and grandchildren to laugh while you cook with me with a virtual class.
- Girlfriends in 6 different states? Craving a virtual cooking experience and happy hour, let’s get cooking!
- Friends or family want a private dinner party in-person?
- I can come to your or provide a local kitchen space.
Learn more about us…all of our socials here: https://linktr.ee/giasitaliankitchen
Visit our YouTube channel to see dozens of our cooking episodes.
Check out our website for delicious recipes, upcoming events, and more!
Hi, this is Kelly with Gia's Italian Kitchen. I am here with the most amazing special guest, Adriana Trajani. Did I say that right?
Speaker 2:Trajani.
Speaker 1:Trajani, who is a New York Times bestselling author, and she has a new book coming out virtually to talk about just everything Italian all of her books and her upcoming book and travels to launch the book. So thank you so much, adriana.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me in in sweltering I Iowa.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's pretty hot outside and humid. We get a lot of humidity, but I'm sure you do out East right? That's okay. Yeah, you could tell I have curly hair. Like I have curly hair nine months of the year because it's humid. We get a lot of humidity, but I'm sure you do too out east, right, that's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could tell I have curly hair. Like, I have curly hair nine months of the year because it's humid, then the other three months I have frizz.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, usually I'm up in a ponytail.
Speaker 2:Your hair is beautiful. I don't know what you use, but it looks gorgeous. You're sweet and you have very classic features. Are you Italian? Maybe yes, and you have very classic features. Are you italian? Maybe yes. My mom's 100.
Speaker 1:Your mom's 100 what's the maiden name? Lenzini? Okay, so you're sicilian? No, no, lenzini is um. Oh, you said lenzini I thought you said lenzzi.
Speaker 2:Say it again, lenzini, well you're. You're probably Tuscany North, I know, yeah, well, you know what to hear, that Eni yeah, the Eni um Lenzini Tanucci Gambini all right.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're near to the North Parma North yeah well, and you know what's funny, the town that and we'll get into the the book a lot. Obviously we'll unpack that. But the town of carrera is literally like two hours from where my grandparents are from isn't that something?
Speaker 2:isn't that crazy.
Speaker 1:I love it like well, and actually I have this map, not that you can see it's.
Speaker 2:It's for people that can't see what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:It's on a I have this on a towel of italy that they're like this house, but like there's the cheeses of yeah, the cheeses of Italy and like, from from like Florence and Rome, you could make a perfect triangle to Carrara, and it's that's right up in the mountains that's right, and they had to get that marble down the mountain so Michelangelo could sculpt it. This was meant to be. I'm so excited.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's read about Adriana, and I'm going to read this so that I get it right. Okay, adriana Togiani is the New York Times bestselling, author of 21 books. You've heard this a hundred times, a thousand times probably.
Speaker 2:No, I like it. I'm just doing my doing my facial exercises, so I don't get the number 11s.
Speaker 1:Of fiction and nonfiction, including the Good Left Undone, the Shoemaker's Wife and Lucia Lucia. Her work has been published in 38 languages around the world. An award-winning playwright, television writer, producer and filmmaker, which is also amazing. So you wrote and directed Big Stone Gap.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Fairy Valentine, I think was on Lifetime.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:A book series and now you have this new book coming out, the View from Lake Como. New book coming out, the View from Lake Como, which is so exciting. I love this book. It is just it's so Italian, it's so American Italian but there's recipes in there. There's just these nostalgic memories and you have. I love the storyline. So the book is coming out July 8th and we will be pushing out interviews just maybe a couple of days before there. I'll check so I don't get in trouble, but fabulous.
Speaker 2:No, you can do them whenever you want, whenever you want, kelly. I love the book, so before we dive in, tell me it's hard for me to call you Kelly when you look so Italian. I know you know what. So the book. So before we dive in, tell me, it's hard for me to call you Kelly when you look so Italian.
Speaker 3:I know, you know what you look like. A Chiara to me. Yeah, my daughter is.
Speaker 2:Giovanna, so we call her Gia which is oh, so that's her kid, the kitchen's named for her.
Speaker 1:Gia's Italian kitchen. Well, because Kelly's my dad's Irish, so that's not not Kelly's Italian kitchen. You could have called it Kelly's heroes after the movie and then burned your meatballs. Yeah, so Gia, I call her Gia, I love it. I love it. Um, okay, so tell us how this book came about. Like, how did you come up with this, this uh story? How is it different from your other books?
Speaker 2:well, this book is an interesting cat because, uh, I took, I took a while to really think about this book, but you know then, then, if I think back on the other novels and sometimes I'm thinking about something for 30 years and I'm not exaggerating, these things live in you for a long time. Yeah, but this book was triggered by my great grandmother's story and I did not want to set it in 1915. So I did a modern retelling of her life in this book and her name was Giuseppina. Like Giuseppina Cappadamonte, like josepina, uh uh, capa de monte, barada bilancia, uh-huh, jess barada, that's a mouthful, let's say. So is every italian name. You, you're gonna do, you know, josepina.
Speaker 2:Josepina capa de monte, her maiden name yep barada and barada capaamonte is her middle name, which is the marble company Mother named her for her aunt, giuseppina Capitamonte. Barada is her father's name, of course, and then Belancia is Bobby Belancia's surname, and she divorced him and she's living in her parents' basement.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And nobody understands why. Because he's cute, right? Because that's how shallow we are sometimes. We just think he's cute, deal with it, you know. But of course that would not make a good novel, right? So there has to be some problems have to ensue
Speaker 1:yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:The conflict ensues yeah.
Speaker 1:So what I loved about it also, in addition to just the being Italian, um is it was also Jess's journey of becoming a strong woman, and becoming a strong woman in an Italian family, which is not easy, not easy, not easy not easy was that? Was that your grandma like is? Is this really her personality, her journey?
Speaker 2:Well, everything I write, kelly, is tapped from my family, everything. So I know that that's kind of a bold statement to make, because obviously there's wars in my books, there's things my family didn't have any control over, there's love affairs, there's things that go on. But the energy center, the nuclear center of everything that's ticking is my family. So this is my great grandmother who probably, if I wrote her story back in time, I think you would enjoy it. But I wanted to take those sensibilities because I feel that while some things have changed, the essential nature of a man and a woman kind of has not.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the way I see it in writing. Jess, as this put upon character, who is on her way, once she divorces, to being the maiden aunt in the family, taking care of the aging period.
Speaker 2:I mean, they put you in a role yeah so I wanted to write the novel that tells the story of the woman that says you know what I? I, I want to do it differently. I, I want to do it differently. So, while her life is in rubble, then she reinvents it right, and and that's, I think, where women are really great One of the ways is that we're handed something and we make the best out of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she has such a the mental struggle with her therapist, with her priest. It's like there's so much going on. But it's very relatable because, like, we all have crap like that right that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right, and her mother says go talk to a priest because they're free, but she doesn't go to the priest. She goes. She does online therapy, which I had a ball researching, by the way. That was fun, that was really like that's.
Speaker 1:That was one of my other questions. How did you come up with the marble, or was that part of your grandparents' family business, and how did you research all that? There's a lot of technical stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, you had to go to Italy first of all. Well, I do Listen. Everybody does it differently, some people just, I once had a friend who wrote a book about a ship and he had never been on water. So I mean, you can do it because you're channeling your imagination. You can write anything you want, but I always find, throughout the, the, the arc of my books is craftsmanship. So, about shoemaking, you learn about, um, in this instance, the marble business, the fabric business, the you know all kinds of things, culinary arts, like you're right in your kitchen. You learn these things because they're part of the waft and weave, the seamstresses, the waft and weave of the creative life. And you know, I had to really come to terms with this, kelly, because I come from a family that's highly creative. We have some writers on my mother's side.
Speaker 2:My great uncle was a very famous writer, writer, but in Italy okay but I wasn't a woman writer that I could find, but I saw them create businesses. My grandmothers both had businesses, I mean, so I come from kind of a long line but of course in the 1950s and women were ordered back into the kitchen after World War II yeah we lost some ground there.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, and this isn't to disparage in any way, I think what people love about my work is that you find a family in it, but you find a woman fully formed, or at least on her way to getting there, who has is entitled to her creativity, uh, ambition and happiness as much as the next guy so yeah, oh, it's kind of heavy, I'm sorry no, down that rabbit hole perfect. I kind of got me depressed, kelly, to be honest sorry, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about something that's not depressing. Let's talk about food, okay. So here's the book. It's right behind her. You can clearly see that. Okay, my first question. We're in chapter four. Sunday dinner and my mom, I was telling my mom about this and she was like no way. So I know it's East Coast to put spare ribs in the sauce and you call it gravy, Chicago calls it sauce.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:We were raised in Chicago.
Speaker 2:That's right. Good Italians in Chicago.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's a lot of good Italians in.
Speaker 2:Chicago. Oh my gosh yeah.
Speaker 1:But I went. You put butter in your sauce.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do.
Speaker 1:Like did your grandma do that or did you make that?
Speaker 2:That takes the, that takes the, the, the sting out of the tomato. A lot of people. Some people put a carrot in there to pull that bitterness out. Yeah Right, you end up eating the carrot, thinking it's a spare rib. Yeah, it's okay, but I do butter. It's one of my secrets. It gives us smoothness.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Especially when it cooks over time.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And like if somebody comes over and I have to make it shway, shway, which means quick.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:I throw that butter in there and it smooths it out, otherwise your guests are going to get agit, unless it's been cooking all day.
Speaker 1:So do you have to skim that off, or does it not boil?
Speaker 2:Kelly, you stir it in. What's the matter with you? You stir it, you stir it. It's called blending. It's called blending the ingredients together Okay, I know I'm making you laugh, but I'm, you know, listen, it's like you're my sister already. You're making me laugh but, no that, but you just try it. Okay, you don't like it, don't do it a second time. But I'm going to tell you right now the smoothness will kill you.
Speaker 1:Okay, I will try it. I will try it. My grandmother might roll over in her grave, but I will try it.
Speaker 2:They don't know. They're on the other side. They're not eating spaghetti over there. I don't know what they're doing. They're singing, they're flying around. They're torturing the people back here on earth that they didn't like. Uh, they're very busy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So do you have memories of your childhood, of like being jess and being the like the helper to the grandma, and like you could tell making the cow.
Speaker 2:Those were real stories in there. Okay, making the cavatelli when you're little, your fingers are small. We'd roll those for hours. Yeah, and my great aunt mary's basement, maryino, and we were rolling for hours and I would be. So I would have anguish when she made them the next day at Sunday dinner and I would just watch men just shovel that cavatelli in, be like slow down. It took me all day, man. You know, that's what I was saying in my little brain.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But again, we were there to serve. You would never say it out loud, you would just think it and scar your soul with that information.
Speaker 1:Okay, the other. Let's see there was another. I think it was. Where is it?
Speaker 2:Are you looking for the Lardo or the Zeppole?
Speaker 1:No, the Zeppole. Is it Zeppole or Zeppole?
Speaker 2:We say Zeppole.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, so I actually I made the dough, you made my recipe I'm so jealous. It's right here.
Speaker 2:Good girl.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to try, try it. It's been sitting. It hasn't risen as much as I thought it would, but I'm gonna give it a try.
Speaker 2:There's swamp like extremes in your, your weather there. Yeah it takes.
Speaker 1:I have powder sugar and granulated sugar I don't like powdered, I like granulated you like the granule I think it.
Speaker 2:I like granulated. You do like the granulated. I think it's prettier.
Speaker 1:The diamond.
Speaker 2:Powdered. It's like you need gloves. You got to wash your hands after Granulated looks like a little diamond dust.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm going to give it a take Of course it's personal choice.
Speaker 2:So if somebody really wants it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, if they want the sweet right, To just enhance the.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So a Zeppole is basically an Italian donut or a donut. It's a donut hole.
Speaker 2:Sure it's every. Every culture has a fried donut. This is ours, yeah.
Speaker 1:So do you? Do you have memories of like making the raviolis? Was that a big thing for you guys?
Speaker 2:We, kelly, we made everything, so anything that appears in my books. We made now the zeppolee. My mother called them donuts, even though she's northern italian. My mother's oh my god, they were so good. That's her recipe. Okay, so you'll see. They get their. Oh my, they get almost like a crust on the other I get even it's soft on. Oh my God, they're so good. But they make them at carnivals and stuff too. Yeah, yeah. And in and in Rosetta, pennsylvania, where my dad's people are from, they would pull the dough almost like in shapes and throw it in the deep fryer and then dunk it in that sugar. You'd walk around the carnival eating this giant thing. Yeah, of dough like the big.
Speaker 1:What's the like? The?
Speaker 2:elephant ear like. But an elephant ear is a french pastry. It's layered. This is just the dough. Oh yeah, it bubbles up in the fryers and the ladies of the sodality flip them and then they put the sugar on them and stuff yeah, they're just like pouring yeah, in there yeah oh my god, I'm gonna do it I've got, I've got my little doing it oh, I'm so excited.
Speaker 2:Will you take pictures and send it to you? Yeah, video yeah, I want to, you know, you know, in this day and age, there's no world anymore without social media, so take a picture of doing whatever you want, cal, and I'll run it and someday we're gonna, I want to cook with you.
Speaker 1:How? How wouldn't that be fun?
Speaker 2:Of course, anytime.
Speaker 1:Someday, someday Okay.
Speaker 3:I'm sure you'll come to New York.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read this summary about the book and then let's get more into the book, so readers will quickly fall in love with Jess Capodamonte Baratta, recently divorced young Italian woman who had to move into the basement of her parents' home in Lake Como, which is also funny that there's actually a Lake Como in New Jersey yes, there is. How convenient when you see the title you're like, oh, Lake Como, but she goes to both, right, yeah that's right.
Speaker 2:She's raised in one and she goes there on a kind of a mission of self-discovery when, uh when, she leaves Carrara yeah, it's oh, I love it okay, so. I really love this book too. I think, if you can't get to Italy this summer, read this book. Yeah, you go nine, ten hours of your life. You're gonna feel like you took a vacation and you'll be eating the food. Look, you're already making the zeppoles and you just read the are, which is the advanced readers edition. So it's got. It's got something for everybody, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So you were saying, kelly, no, I, just I it is. And to your point it. Well, somebody said it's it's the best summer read. Who said that? The publishers weekly this is the best book of the summer, so that makes me very happy, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Publishers Weekly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's. So I have a collaboration with our one of our small local business owners who's got the bookstore and she's got pre-orders lined up because I told her I was doing this.
Speaker 2:So what's the name of her store?
Speaker 1:The Swamp Fox bookstore.
Speaker 2:How fab the Swamp Fox bookstore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in the suburb of Cedar Rapids.
Speaker 2:I'm going to call her in Cedar Rapids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's awesome, I'll tell her.
Speaker 2:I'm going to give her a jingle. What's her name? Terry Terry, over at swamp fox bookstore. Okay, that would be crazy I will do it. I'm so happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad people and it's a little local right, like a little small business owner, like well that's part of my you know.
Speaker 2:My rationale and everything is that because I come from a mom and pop family, which business? Which means we never went on vacation. Well, we did go on vacation to my grandmother's house, that's okay. Hang on, that's a mail being delivered.
Speaker 1:Could you take him upstairs, damn it If that's like my dog.
Speaker 2:this doesn't listen to my instructions at all.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh Okay okay if it wasn't 90 out, I would throw them outside you can't but I can't they'll molt, they'll molt, and I'll have the worst problem yes, anyway what was I saying? Um the bookstore local business mom oh so the layered into my tour is I want the local bookstore to benefit so they provide the books to our, to our. You know we're we're doing a show with a band, my brothers. It's a family act and going through and comedy, as you can tell, and the local bookstore benefits from that. We pre-sell the tickets. It's exciting, lots of sellouts.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, you've got big tours coming up and a lot of them on your website are sold out.
Speaker 2:but that's right.
Speaker 1:You pick your cities. Where, where all are you going?
Speaker 2:Well, we, we studied this for two years where I'd been before, where I needed to go again, maybe where I fell off the wagon somewhere and I don't mean that I drank I just, you know I needed to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we kind of put it together that way and then, kelly to be completely, I am everywhere year round. I work. You know I'm gonna be in phoenix in november. You know you get the picture. I. I try not to tour year round, but sometimes things will come up and then I I'm, I'm off to a place. You know so do you. So we chose them. We chose them based on how we could move the band where I would be in conversation, like that okay.
Speaker 1:So do you target the small bookstores usually or do you do a little of both, like the big?
Speaker 2:we, really we. We do barnes and noble, uh, we do Amazon. We do that local bookstore. You know, when I sell out a theater with 350 seats twice, that's a lot for them, that's a good gets, a good month for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's how we try to do it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Now do you have I mean, this is not your first radio, so you're probably getting a lot of this done on your own but for people. So I'm writing a cookbook memoir and there's probably a million people out there that are trying to write and get recognized. Like how did you kind of break into that in your earlier years?
Speaker 2:This is my 25th anniversary as a published author.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Prior to that I wrote for film and television, and I still do. I just incorporated it into the book, writing that I do. Um, how did I do it? I mean, everybody has to do it kind of the same way. Got to get an agent who represents you to the major publishers.
Speaker 2:You do that and then you pick who you'd like to work with. Hopefully, they pick you and you pick them. But I would like to point out in the 25 years that I've been doing this, the big difference is is last year in the United States of America, 3.8 million books were self-published. So you can now always publish your book. You don't have to wait for a major publisher to do it. I, of course, went that route because at the time, that was the way to do it. Okay, and I love working with experts. That makes me better.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I've had good editors and great publishers and great editors, great publishers and um, and it's helpful. But what you do is you have to submit to an agent and you have to write a proposal for your book and explain what it is you're doing. Yeah, because if you could write a proposal, you can probably write a book, in my humble opinion, because proposals are hard to do because you have to tell what you're going to do, um, um, but I wrote a cookbook with my sisters, which was fun. Yeah, and my mom called Cooking With my Sisters.
Speaker 2:So, I understand what you're going through.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It ain't easy.
Speaker 1:Oh, I got to find that I didn't. It's called.
Speaker 2:Cooking With my Sisters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1:Fun. Okay, so let me read some more about the view from Lake Como. So Jess is also a talented draftswoman working in the marble business run by her dapper uncle. Louie who believes she can do anything once she's in a better wardrobe, which is funny.
Speaker 2:That's funny.
Speaker 1:When the Capodomonte and Barada families endure an unexpected loss, Jess gathers the courage to take a solo trip to her ancestral home of Carrera, Italy. From the shadows of the majestic marble capped mountains of Tuscany to the glittering streets of Milan and the shores of the enchanting Lake Como, Jess begins to carve her own place in the old new world. I love it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you, uncle Louie.
Speaker 1:I feel like everyone probably has an uncle Louie right, but everybody he was the like. I picture him as my great grandfather, who was Louis versus Louie, but Lewis Martino. He always wore a three-piece suit everywhere, all the time, no matter what he was doing. It was always. I loved that. It was always like you're so descriptive in, like getting an image in the reader's head. How do you do that?
Speaker 2:The characters are real to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's part of the craft of it. Is that you really have to see it? Yeah, I read a book and it's nothing's described. I kind of I lose interest pretty quickly because to me one of the pleasures of reading is to take me into a world I might not know.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I also get pleasure out of places I have been and I read about them because I see a different perspective. So how is that done? Well, that's the craft, that's the for me to bring you into a scene. When you're writing a book, it's through the description to bring it alive on the page, and if you're making a movie, it has to be in the script. Everything begins on the page, the written word, every art form. You got to do it, I mean that's.
Speaker 2:You know, of course, of a literary bent and it takes a tremendous amount of planning and detail, in my opinion, and that is also fun, it's fun yeah yeah, you know, but to bring something alive for people on the page is you have to be able to tell a story on the page, and I think it's very similar to To what we're doing right now when I'm talking to you, if I can explain something to you or you can tell me a story and I take it in. That's the first step Is the telling of the story, and then it's the writing of the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I loved when she first arrived To or. She was on her way, way from the Milan airport to Carrera and she stops for the chestnuts and I was like oh, I love that scene that I've never thought of doing that. So we go next week, um, but we're going to Sicily because we none of us have ever been there because we're all okay, that you're, you're gonna love it we're all north, but I was like I've never thought to to make gnocchi out of chestnuts.
Speaker 1:I've never done that either. So you guys actually did that yeah okay, what's the sauce?
Speaker 2:well, you could do whatever you want, but when something's that dense, a chestnutnut is sweet.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Slightly sweet, but it's very dense, yeah, so the sauce you want to use should be very light.
Speaker 1:Again, I would do?
Speaker 2:I would do a butter and sage.
Speaker 1:Garlic and butter and sage.
Speaker 2:Well I, yeah, you don't even need to garlic If you did butter and sage and the sweetness of that chestnut, that and it's got a kind of a should melt in your mouth.
Speaker 2:gnocchi should be light yeah these things that are like hockey pucks. I can't eat it. My grandmother made it like it was like a feather, but that takes manipulation time and you know that. You're in a kitchen. You know how to do. Yeah, gnocchi and, and I and I don't like gnocchi any time of year, but the winter. Why? Because it's heavy. Even when it's light, it's heavy. Yeah, that's true. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true, okay.
Speaker 1:So one of the other things I wanted to ask you about you what did you do? Oh, you wrote scripts for the Cosby show.
Speaker 2:Well, let's be very definitive. I was a television writer, producer Okay, I started out on a show called a different world. Yeah, I also wrote for the Cosby show. I wrote for good sports with Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neill. I worked for Bill Persky. I was a show runner on city kids.
Speaker 2:I really worked hard in television, wow. And when you you don't. Well, I guess you could write a script for a show but we would do 24 in a year, in a season, ok, and we would get several assignments in that season to write scripts. So I really earned my stripes as a young writer doing that and doing it on a deadline. And then I saw the world change quite a bit in the 90s, and still a young writer. But after I did City Kids, I struggled a little bit to like find my voice, like how am I going to do this? And I was longing to write this Italian-American experience and you couldn't sell it. You still kind of can't, truth be told. I mean, I try, and I've done it a few times, but to make a very Valentine, to make a big stone gap, you know it takes all the forces of heaven and earth to do it. You know it takes all the forces of heaven and earth to to do it, but I love to direct and I love to write screenplays but they're different skills, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:so the um, um, the your title, the queen of italian american literature, knighted by the president of Italy, tell me how that very honored, and you know what I'm just going to be honest.
Speaker 2:Let's tell you the truth, kelly. It's like this would have been great if my parents were alive and my grandparents were alive. For me, for my brothers and sisters. We were very honored, but I didn't achieve what they achieved the guts to come here. You know, immigrant is a word of honor in my home and it was since the day I was born. I mean, we were taught this.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Those are the bravest people, most courageous, gutsy visionaries, why we have such a great country. You know, the immigrant to me is everything.
Speaker 1:So do you speak Italian.
Speaker 2:I can read it. I studied it for three years. I can barely speak English. To be honest with you, I mean, when I get there two weeks in, I start to really get it Okay To be in a culture. Yeah, I mean, can I speak it? I speak it with this kind of feeling, yeah, and my husband said that's not the really Italian that you speak. Yeah, that's me, I. I'm your auditory learner is your husband Italian no no, okay nobody travels with me to Italy, so that can.
Speaker 1:So that can't be in it.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, I recommend not marrying an Italian when you're an Italian girl.
Speaker 1:I didn't.
Speaker 2:Did you marry an Italian?
Speaker 1:My husband's German.
Speaker 2:Well, so it's over the border. What do you want?
Speaker 1:I know we're, we're, we're too hardheaded.
Speaker 2:Well, you know I'm sorry that this is devolving into a therapy session that your husband's driving you crazy and he's dramatic, but what did you expect? He's driving, okay yeah, no, it's.
Speaker 1:Uh, we're just. You know both type a personalities, we can do right, I want to know.
Speaker 2:I understand, yeah, yeah, okay, what does he do? He's an engineer that's a good job. That's a good career that's actually he's analytical.
Speaker 1:He's analytical oh, yeah, very analytical, very black and white very.
Speaker 2:Did he design the kitchen or did you?
Speaker 1:no, you know what? This kitchen is phenomenal and it was here when we moved in here.
Speaker 2:So okay, that's the best news I could ever hear yeah, it's right I would love to.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't even need to redesign it. I love this kitchen.
Speaker 2:It's awesome no, I do too.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm gonna tell you I think it's a beauty yeah um okay, so when you go to italy, yeah do you still have living relatives that you go?
Speaker 2:yes, I have relatives, which is on my mother's side, which makes it so delicious to see them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great so is she the one kind of by Venice or down by Bari, who's north, who's south?
Speaker 2:my cousins are in. My cousins are in Bergamo, scopario and Vilmanore.
Speaker 1:Where are those?
Speaker 2:Bergamo is north of Milan, in the Lombardi region, in the Italian Alps. Okay, I wrote a novel called the Shoemaker's Wife that starts there. However, in this novel I wove it in again because I can't get enough of it.
Speaker 3:That's where I'm going to end up.
Speaker 2:So I kind of I love where my grandmother's from and my grandfather Bonicelli and Spada and Bonicelli, so I go up there a lot.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:But Venice, fantastic. The Veneto, don't nothing. Fancy pants, I didn't come from glass blowers. Farmers in the Veneto go to good. The Santerbano and then. And then Rosetta Valfatore near Focia, okay. Bari, puglia, that thing Okay. And then there's an argument Every time I talk to a different Italian, I can't take it. No, it's closer to Bari, no, it's a Puglia, no, it's this. Whatever it is, you can find it, I was there. It exists. It's fabulous, you can find it, I was there, it exists it's fabulous and I used that in kiss carlo.
Speaker 2:Okay, now kiss carlo the whole town of risetto alfattori in america and in italy. See, I kind of yeah, you get it. You get what I'm doing here. It's a deep dive into my family history. It's just a deep dive into my family history. It's just a deep dive into my family history and I love it. So it's like it never gets old.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't even matter to me anyway. Like, what city we go to, it's always amazing.
Speaker 2:Always.
Speaker 1:They're always amazing, they're different. But they're always great yeah.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. I have a story that took place in Roman Capri. I have a story that took place in Roman Capri. I have a story. I mean really almost every region. Okay, yeah, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1:Do you have a favorite? Or is it just up near Milan, because that's your roots?
Speaker 2:One of my favorite places. I have cousins in Sestri Levante on the Ligurian coast. I love that Ligurian area, okay. And when I had Matthew McConaughey on my podcast, he wrecked his motorbike there his motorcycle. So we had a moment about Sestri Levante. I said I love that town. You're never going to eat better fish, it is so, kelly, I'm not kidding you, you need to go right now. Don't even finish this podcast, just run and get on a plane and go there. But no, what's my favorite All of it? I mean, how can you not love Capri?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That is like some people here say Capri, but it's Capri and it's magical Positano.
Speaker 1:That's where we're going. We're doing Positano in Sicily.
Speaker 2:Are you doing Sorrento?
Speaker 1:No, because we're staying in Salerno and we just don't have enough time.
Speaker 2:That's okay, you're going to do it. It's going to be fabulous no matter what. But Sicily is beautiful. My sister just went for a week and loved it, yeah.
Speaker 1:And, of course, like, like, what was it two or three weeks ago? Mount etna erupts and I'm like yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:I think it erupted when they were on the airplane.
Speaker 1:I think they're on their way back but I think that's kind of just par for the course there, and it was yeah yeah, so I mean, you read about it, yeah look, I mean many people are writing our demise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a lot of faith in people.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of faith in people, the natural world. We are the servant of the natural world, so it doesn't matter when those storms come through. When you're on that coastline, you're going to get hit, you know. Or when you're in Italy, you know, you know. Boom, boom, I hear something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, start running, start running you just run for your life. You know when, when the waves get so high on the Hudson River that they they go three blocks over across the west side highway, you know, and so so we solve these things as we go. But I think in that, inherent in the italian way is this love of the land and the appreciation of the garden and the environment. And you know there's no additives in their food. I mean, you know, like in America it's like they created hog slop for people.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sad.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because we could do better than that. Ok, and we could do better, we know better, we should do better, it's like. But that's that's what we, that's what we put our dukes up about and try to fight for, to make it better for our children and the grandchildren that will come, and the great grandchildren, because we'll be dead well, that's a whole another conversation.
Speaker 1:When you think about the food industry and the pharmaceuticals and the government influence on the health, you know all of that is like this huge, huge can of worms that is. It feels unsolvable for the food, for the health of the food.
Speaker 2:It is solvable. It is solvable. We elect people to represent our points of view Right. And when I'm talking about pharmaceuticals, well, let's just say, yeah, there's abuses in that system that are heinous, but we also need medication when we're sick.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's always like a practical center to these problems that everybody agrees on.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then when you fan out from them, that's when it gets crazy. You know, as I get older, greed is something I notice in people that I didn't notice when I was young, this rampant, crazy greed, you know, and as I, as I always say, a yacht smells of seawater and wee, wee. Ok, it just does. So let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Ok, this idea that this thing is better than that thing, which makes you those aren't, those are not the things that shore up your soul, right, Right.
Speaker 3:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm not. I'm not pointing fingers. We're all human beings. We all have foibles and problems and sins, and whatever you want to say, but my God, there's. There's common sense, and that's one of the things I love about the culinary arts is common sense in the kitchen. It's common sense. What works.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That takes practice, though, to to have the intuition.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:But it's fun. It's fun experimenting, Of course it's true, I agree.
Speaker 2:I like the experimenting part.
Speaker 1:OK, so you mentioned your podcast. Yeah, tell us more, cause you've had big guests on there. I'm talking about that. Are usually other authors right, or are they talking about books?
Speaker 2:Well, our artists, luminaries, and our and authors usually authors- Okay, so tell them I have on people I love, like, if I don't want to have mine, I don't have to, it's my podcast. It started during the pandemic when I had friends that you know everybody was struggling, yeah, to talk about books, and I just kind of fell into it. Okay, a very natural way. I was doing a thing facebook live and then I just started to think what if I coordinate this? Like, tomorrow you're going to want to listen because it's keith mcnally who founded the odian, balthazar, pastis, these great new york institution restaurants. Okay, the odian did. I say that, yeah, and you're gonna want to. Okay, and he's a restaurateur okay, nice english.
Speaker 3:Immigrant irish english english irish scottish english immigrant.
Speaker 2:It's hard to say English immigrant. Irish English English. Irish Scottish English immigrant. It's hard to say.
Speaker 1:You pick people that have crossed your path.
Speaker 2:that or that I'm really curious about now. Yeah, here's an interesting one. I had Bob Gaudio of the Four Seasons and I met his daughter Danielle on Long Island. Okay, at Adelphi University. Invited the great novelist.
Speaker 3:Alice Hoffman.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I was there to moderate my friend Sarah Jessica Parker, with her mother, Barbara Forstay.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, and through that, danielle came up to me, said my dad's Bob Gaudio, oh my God, okay, great, and I had him on and he talked about being a creative artist and in music and it was fascinating, yeah, so sometimes that happens where it's something magical, but usually it comes through a book or a shared interest in a particular book. Matthew McConaughey is one of our most popular guests. He wrote this incredible book Greenlights. If you haven't read it, grab it. It unleashes your curiosity and your creativity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's been speaking more and more over the past few years, I think probably since that book came out. I did read that.
Speaker 2:Well, he, you know, listen, to be a movie star and I can tell you this because I direct them. Okay, to be a movie star is such an existence it's to pick the right script, to work with the best directors, to then have it click in person as the director compels the actor to dramatize those words, the visual aspect of spectacle of it. I have a lot of respect for matthew mcconaughey. Know people might think, oh, he does romantic comedies, but if you saw Mud or you know, the Dallas Buyers Club is a tour de force. He won the Oscar for that. But I got to know what makes him tick, which is what makes these things so interesting, these deep dives that you're doing. That I try to do, which is to tell me how you do it. How did you get there, what, what goes into it, why you, how did this happen? Yeah, I think that that's the interesting part of life. And in the, in the world of books, kelly, you know, some of the great ones don't get found till their 60s, 70s and 80s. Yeah, yeah, the great.
Speaker 2:Frank McCourt with Angela's Ashes. Bonnie Garmis recently she's in her 60s. She wrote Lessons in Chemistry. I adore her and I love the book. I don't know. So what I love about my industry, which I call show business, is this absolute openness to the creative ideal, to finding your voice and having it be heard, no matter how hard it is and no matter how long it takes. None of this is easy, yeah, but all those jobs I did coming into it, they really helped me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, none of it's easy. But it's fun. I wouldn't want to do anything else. I wouldn't want to be busting rocket San Quentin, for example. I like what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:So when you were like 10 years old, what did you want to be when? You grew up, or what did you think you wanted to be?
Speaker 2:10. We have to understand when we moved to big stone gap. I thought I was in a, on a set which, when I finally got to make the movie 40 years later maybe not 40 years, I don't know how many years ago, I can't do math, so just but as a grown-up, yeah, got, got to make the. Oh, no, it was 40 years Got to make it in my town. I, I, I was able to take some of those ideas that I had when I was 10 years old and dramatize them.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:So you see, nothing's ever lost, you know it just comes around. It comes around and you hold it, because everything that you are, everything that you are, everything that you write, everything that you do is from this source. You know the seed of your soul, the imagination.
Speaker 1:I think every book's the journey of a soul. Really, yeah, yeah. That's a good way to put it. Okay, so this is a question that I think Cherry cherry bomb asks sometimes on their interviews, but I think it's the funniest question who's cherry bomb? Um they're I think they're in new york city um cherry bomb cherry, cherry bomb. It's a magazine and a oh fun, okay, okay.
Speaker 3:Oh fun, okay, Okay yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she knows it, angela knows it Okay.
Speaker 1:So she? She usually asks at the end if you were on a deserted Island and it could be an artist or a chef or someone living or deceased um, who would you be stranded with and why?
Speaker 2:Well, if I was stranded on a desert island, I would hopefully be having good sex. So I would have to, because why? You would be bored? You would be bored. What? Are you going to? Go fish with a spear, build a fire? Who cares about that? You're funny. But great sex, I feel. So I'd have to bring my husband, because I guess I'm married to him, so I would have to bring him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that great sex is like great food food. I marvel at the fact that people sometimes think sex is not important or it's expendable. I think it's essential. So, as a good meal is. And keep in mind, I was raised Catholic, so I'm really going out on a limb here. But it did fall under a married husband, right, so that's probably fine. But no, whenever I think about that desert island thing, I think what do you do there? I mean, if you don't have paper and pencil or you think you'd figure it out, but it but a deserted island, it's just a huge concept to me. Yeah, I know you know, but it's a good, but it's a great question.
Speaker 2:It's a funny question it tests you.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what do you want your readers to know, either about the view from Lake Como or about you, that we haven't talked about yet?
Speaker 2:Here's what I want the reader to know. If you've never read me, please read them. Please read them Because you will find in them the great and important concepts of being a happy human being. And in this book I tackle, through Jess Barada the character, what's my purpose and what makes me happy? Through Jess Barada the character, what's my purpose and what makes me happy? After years of making everybody else happy, at age 34, she goes, but she's so broken, kelly, she's so broken. When we meet her she doesn't know anything and I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say she's got to go back to the start to figure this thing out.
Speaker 2:Women tend to look at their lives like, oh, I make him happy, I take care of the children, that's all good. I'm a mother, I'm a wife. I know the drill, yeah, but you can't give yourself if you don't know yourself and you're not and you're not whole, you just can't. I say to my interns, our interns, our group, I try to impart this Look, you got one gig. One gig is to figure out why you're here. If you figure that out and you earn your living by the labor of your own hands, serving that, you're going to be happy. I'm pretty happy most days, wouldn't you say, girls, things annoy me, but that's different. You know, got to earn a living, you got to make money, you got to. But how much do you need? I mean at a stage in life now where I go.
Speaker 2:When's it finished? I'm circling the drain now. How long is it going to take?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the people in my life live to be very old. But I just lost two cousins who are older than me. But that scared me to death, yeah, and it made me knuckle down and go hey, what am I doing here? What am I doing? And I'm about to do a big tour. The last line of the show is hey, one one thing before I go do something that scares you I just did. That's good. Yeah, because the show is scaring me.
Speaker 3:I'm scared why are you scared? Because I haven't done this you know I'm scared.
Speaker 2:Why are you scared? Because I haven't done this. You know I'm calling my friends that act on Broadway. How do you do this? Eight times a week I got to do 10 of these. Oh, 24 stops. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it has to be the same thing, because every night that's not my jam. I kind of come into a room and go, ooh, I read it.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then I'll, I'll, vibe it, but you can't do that with a show like this. You gotta give them what you know. You gotta be the same thing with a new twist, of course. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But you won't be up there alone, right?
Speaker 2:My brother will be up there, but you know, I think he's. He's got the attitude every man for himself. I do the comedy part, but it's got a wonderful theme to it and the characters in it are really juicy and it it reflects this. Okay about. It's about I'm born into this family. Is that who I am, or I'm born into this family? I'm gonna you the story Now. You tell me who they are and in so doing, you tell me who you are.
Speaker 1:That's really deep.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, what do you think? I'm not in the fudgesicle business here, I'm in show business. It has to have. It has to have meat rabitas, meat density. You know it's like, you know you're making fun of my butter in the sauce, but it smooths the sauce and that meat in there falls off the bone. My grandmother used to eat the bones.
Speaker 1:Oh, and that woman read that, but I thought you meant the meat she actually ate, the bone?
Speaker 2:well, you eat the marrow of the bones. Have you ever eaten the, the?
Speaker 1:marrow of the bones?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we chew up the bones too. I think that's why we have good teeth and bones in my family. We ate the bones. The bones were very soft at that point. Yeah yeah, yeah, do you remember what that tastes like? Of course you can. You chewed on that bone. Yeah, yeah, I mean, maybe people who aren't Italian are not going to understand. Yeah, I think in France they eat the marrow of the bones.
Speaker 3:Right, Don't they?
Speaker 2:have a marrow. Yeah, telling you, I have an intern here, I have Angela. She like knows everything about everything. I can't believe I didn't know anything when I was your age. I learned that like when I was 42. I don't know how you know that, but anyway. But she had all her teeth when she died. Is there a connection? I think so. She ate stuff people didn't eat. She'd sent us out in a field to pick dandelion every summer, and I still try to do this eat dandelion. It's a left, it's a liver cleanse you know, they sell like dandelion supplements.
Speaker 2:Well, what is that, you know? Can I tell you please? But we should just go pick up, but there's no, there is no. You've got to be careful, there is no, nothing's governing supplements.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, I know, I know yeah.
Speaker 2:There's one guy I use and I'll give you his name after this, because of my doctor checked it out or I wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you go out. How many you eat? The whole head of the dandelion, and how many do you eat?
Speaker 2:You make a salad out of it, you clean it, you shred it, you put it in a bowl and just put it in the salad. You squeeze the juice of a lemon, a little bit of salt. Yeah, it's all you need. Yeah, now what my grandmother did that'll make your mouth water is on top of that, she would poach eggs hard in tomato sauce. They call them eggs in purgatory yeah, is that what they call them, yeah yeah but that's not what she called it.
Speaker 2:She called them venetian eggs okay now you have that tomato and you have that delicious egg. A little salt on that egg, yeah, and then you ladle that over that, over those dandelions, and you're eating probably the best food you'll ever eat and farm to table yeah, yeah yeah, when I'm hungry, that's what I make, because you always have a little gravy or sauce in your house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and an egg. Well, until they were $42 a piece. Now you have an egg, and I don't put cheese or anything on it. I like the simplest of flavors when I cook, so you don't need anything more than a squeeze of lemon and some salt on that salad. Now do I like to make the little vinegar? Of course I love vinegar. Yeah, a little bit of olive oil, sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know the way the Americans eat it. You're going to kill yourself. It's just they lop that stuff. It's all greasy. No, I don't like that.
Speaker 1:That's one of probably the simplest things that I do in a lot of my cooking classes. That people think is so difficult and I'm like. This is how easy it is to make a homemade vinaigrette. It's healthy, there's no sugar in it, there's no mayonnaise in it and it's so delicious and it's so easy.
Speaker 2:It amazes me that people fear simplicity.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When they're married to men. Just look at your husband that you're never going to get more simple than that and apply it to your cooking.
Speaker 1:Get more simple than that and apply it to your cooking. You are so funny. Okay, parting words.
Speaker 2:Give us some, uh, some, parting words, adriana. This has been so amazing. I, I, I. First of all, I adore you. I think you're onto something big. I think you're a star, okay. So you heard it from me. I'm pretty good at picking, okay.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:So my parting words to anyone within the sound of our voices right now, because we're going to have a lot of people from Iowa listening right.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:My God, they're beautiful people. I'm going to say this take a day this summer to just be whatever you are, whether you're 22, 18, if you're 47, if you're 92, if you're 62, wherever you are in the spectrum of your life. Take a day to think about your destiny, and I don't care where you are. At the end of that day, you're going to rejigger what you're doing, Because we don't have time anymore to think about who we are and what we are. And I'm going to say this this is really true Read.
Speaker 2:I hope you read the View from Lake Como. You're going to get something deep out of it and I don't take you for granted for the nine or ten hours you're going to spend with me reading. Support your local library. Read something you might not normally read. The podcast has taught me that when I go towards something that I think I'll never read, that and then I read it and I'm it's Illuminata, you will have. You will have light in your life that you didn't know was there your destiny, and then the tools to make it happen. And then you have us to listen to. They listen to Kelly. You can listen to my podcast. Just keep you. Never stop learning.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So commit to to it. Commit to it and watch what happens. It'll be transformative in your life, and a lot of women are listening to this. The average age of the american widow is 57 that's so young the average age.
Speaker 2:so you know, enjoy him, the simpleton that he is, enjoy him. And then you know, for the whatever 30 years you got with him, or whatever it is, but but understand that even that relationship will have its limitations. The relationship that doesn't has no limitations is the one you have with yourself and the journey of your soul. That is my summating comment, and I don't know, summating is a word, the summation, my commentary, because I'm just a little drunk. This is Jim, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, adriana, this has been so fun. I want to keep talking to you, but I know, I know, but you got to make those Zeppelis, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you got to take pictures, make a video and send it to me, because nobody's made Aunt Lil Zeppelis yet and I want to see how yours turn out.
Speaker 3:Sweet.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've made them, but you need it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay I'm doing it Well.
Speaker 1:I appreciate your time. This has been so awesome. I'm learning just more about you and your background and your book. I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it and I hope we can keep in touch. And there's a trip. There's a trip to Iowa in my future. I'll meet you in person. I'll come and cook with you.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, even if you go to Chicago, I'll meet you there, Like okay, I go to Chicago yeah. But come to South Bend.
Speaker 2:It's all good. It's all good.
Speaker 1:Thank you again so happy to meet you. You too, adriana Trajani and Kelly with Gia's Italian Kitchen. Thank you so much for joining us. Go, I'll put all of our socials in the notes. Go, find all of both of us. Like, comment, subscribe, follow us. You're going to get this on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Follow us. Like comment. Follow us. You're going to get this on a daily basis Follow us Do all those. We're all working here, like you know, stevedores with social media. Listen, enjoy it. It's free. That's the best part of all this Hurry Before they start charging people. Who's doing your Audible? Are you ready? Who's doing it? Oscar winner Okay, mira Sorvino.
Speaker 1:No way, that's awesome. Why her?
Speaker 2:Because back in the day she read Lucia, Lucia.
Speaker 3:Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:And she was spectacular. And then she went and had four kids and I had my daughter and we're married and we did our thing. But here we are just the other day having breakfast oh, she is incredible and I'm cooking up stuff with her. You know, I got a lot of books, okay, you know, but she, she, she did an incredible job. It was it was for penguin, random house audio, uh uh, nithya rajarjan was the producer and my director was may wetherich, and I have to say that because I think that they're stars that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm excited. I'm gonna listen to it on audio, even though I've read it, because I love listening to audios and I want to read it again, but it'll be fun to do it while.
Speaker 2:I'm home and she'll be with you. You can listen while you cook. That's what I do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Or clean, which is more rare, more important to eat than it is to clean, but, yeah, cleaning closet out. I love to listen to audios, yeah, and all these things you can get at your library, yeah, but we at your library, yeah, but we want you to support the smart box bookstore. Yeah, and I'm going to say this too a book, is the biggest bargain on the planet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for under 30 bucks. Sometimes you get them for 19. The more you buy them, the cheaper it gets. That's why I push sales, because I want to get it down to 18 19.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a, that's not a lunch but this is actually a resource too, cause it has recipes in it.
Speaker 3:What else can I do for?
Speaker 2:you. What else can I do for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can do everything I can for you. Yeah, yeah, it's all good.
Speaker 1:Okay, adriana, thank you again, thank you, we'll see you soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you, bye, bye.