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About This Book

This cookbook was born during the 2020 Pandemic, with most of the country in some
form of lock down to prevent the spread of the deadly Corona Virus. As I write this, it
has been 73 days since I have set foot inside of a store or a restaurant. We order all

of our groceries online and shortages of everything from toilet paper to baking yeast
has made this task even more difficult. It took me five weeks to collect enough sup‐
plies to bake a simple cake for Easter.

As the pandemic raged all around us, I found myself being drawn more and more to
my ancestry and looking at those who had faced similar situations such as the 1918
Spanish Flu Epidemic and food rationing during the World Wars. I drew strength by
looking at their stories.

Because we are all cooking every single meal, every single day, I thought it would be
fun to start a family conversation about food and to share some recipes. At first, I

didn’t get much response and had pretty much given up on the project but then I
received an envelope in the mail from Cousin Minnie stuffed full of recipes. Pretty
soon other recipes started trickling in and I definitely had a project on my hands.

As I typed recipes every night, I still didn’t have an idea of what direction I was going
with this. Then I found an old transcript of a recorded interview I did with Dad back in
2003. I laughed aloud as I read how often he talked about food. It was almost like he
was sitting here beside me and we were talking about what to put in the cookbook.
And then it hit me, a dash of recipes, a sprinkle of genealogy, and a heaping teacup full

of stories. We are celebrating our roots one recipe and one story at a time.

By Earlene Davison Giglierano on May 17, 2020