Cooking in the Light of the Madonna: Recipes, Stories and Memories of Growing Up in Italian East Harlem

More than just a cookbook of pure and simple Italian recipes, Cooking in the Light of the Madonna is brimming with many funny and touching stories about growing up in the old Italian neighborhood of East Harlem, New York. In Cooking in the Light of the Madonna, the author serves up a taste of life from a time gone by, from the joy of buying fresh every day to his 30-year quest to find the recipe for his mother’s calamari sauce, from going to the railroad yards in the Bronx to buy a Christmas tree directly off the train to his father who insisted on Prince macaroni or he wouldn’t eat his dinner. He also unveils the never-before told story of Pope Paul the VI’s visit to East Harlem in 1965, and how the pope experienced first-hand the lights of the Madonna. Cooking in the Light of the Madonna overflows with memories, tastes and feelings.