Thursday, April 16, 2015, 6pm
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute
Queens College, CUNY - 25 West 43rd Street, 17th floor - New York, NY 10036

Aniella, Concetta, Giuseppina, and Maddelana are the quartet of immigrant women at the core of author and blogger Fran Claro's book The Macaroni's in the Basement (2014). This collection of stories and recipes focuses on four grandmothers and the lives they created in their Brooklyn neighborhood after World War II. The chapters are divided by the four seasons and recount how the women shaped their families and community through their Catholic beliefs and culinary expertise.

They are the masters of ceremonies for annual holidays, rites of passage, and other family gatherings. Interspersed with photographs, the book offers fifty recipes that conjure Italian-American life from 1947 for the twentieth-first-century cook.

Free, open to the public, and held at the Calandra Institute.

RSVP by calling (212) 642-2094.

John D. Calandra Italian American Institute
Queens College, CUNY
25 West 43rd Street, 17th floor
New York, NY 10036
212-642-2094 - [email protected] - www.qc.edu/calandra