Mr Lagakos, Pam, cousin Maria, and cousin Kanellos

Every once in a while, something happens during a book talk that knocks my socks off.  Recently, it happened again.

After one of my presentations, Pam Chaconas came up to me and said, “I felt as though I could finish your sentences.” She, too, had gone back to her ancestral village and found family she never knew she had.

Her family was Greek, her village was Kaminia, and the similarities in our stories were uncanny.

In 2002, Pam and her husband traveled to Greece looking for Kaminia, the village in the Peloponnese her grandmother Evangeline had left some eighty years earlier.

When they arrived, they stopped at a taverna where several men were drinking coffee. Pam’s husband explained in Greek that his wife’s Yia Yia had come from Kaminia and that they were looking for the Politis family.

Pam was holding a photograph of her grandmother.

One of the men, Mr. Lagakos, took one look at the photo and immediately called out the name, “Evangeline Politis.” Then he motioned for them to follow him.

He led them to a stone house surrounded by olive trees and called out to the people inside. A man and woman, Kanellos and Maria, appeared. After a flurry of conversation in Greek that Pam couldn’t understand, it became clear that these were the relatives she had come so far to find.

Kanellos walked toward her with his arms outstretched.

There were hugs. Laughter. Tears.

Then Kanellos went into the house and returned holding an old photograph. It was a photograph of Pam and her sister as children!

Evangeline had left this tiny Greek village eighty years earlier. Pam had never met these people. Yet they had kept a photograph of her and her sister.

They hadn’t forgotten.

As I listened to Pam, I realized that the desire to find our roots is more universal than I had imagined. It’s far bigger than genealogy. It’s about standing where your grandmother once stood, walking the roads she walked, seeing the mountains she saw, and meeting people who still remember the family name generations later.

Maybe we don’t go back simply to discover where they came from.

Maybe we go back because we are trying to understand where we came from.

Note: If you’ve read LIFETIME or Stay Close, please consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads. I’d love for LIFETIME to be translated into Italian as was done with STAY CLOSE, and reviews make a difference. Thanks for considering. 

My older brother with my sons, 2007

Throughout my book talks about It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live, one thing seems to resonate with people more than almost anything else: when someone dies, their memories die with them.

I hear it again and again. I wish I had asked my mother. I wish I had listened more closely to my grandfather. I wish I knew that story.

We always think there will be more time.

When we’re young, we don’t always care about the stories. We’re busy living our own lives. But then we get older. We have children and grandchildren of our own, and suddenly we want to know. Not just the names and dates we can find through genealogy, but the stories. Who were these people? What did they love? Why did they leave? What did they bring with them? We begin to wonder where we came from and who came before us.

And sometimes, by the time we think to ask, there is no one left who knows the answers.

I am one of those people who wants to know the stories. I didn’t set out to become the keeper of our family’s memories, but somewhere along the way, that is partly what happened. And since writing Lifetime, nieces, nephews, and cousins have thanked me for preserving pieces of our family’s history they never knew.

I hope this entry encourages you to safeguard some of your family’s memories. It has never been easier. Record yourself, write down the story behind an old photograph, buy one of those memory books and fill it in, or use technology to turn your recorded memories into something written.

Because somewhere in every family, there is someone who is the last person who remembers.

Maybe that person is you.

When I asked readers and friends to share their recipes with a history, I wasn’t sure if anyone would respond. Well, I was mistaken!

I’ve received so many wonderful recipes, each with a family story of its own, that I’ve decided to make Recipes with a History a monthly feature. Once a month, I’ll share one recipe and the family history that comes with it.

Thank you to everyone who has already sent in a recipe….and please keep them coming! If you have a treasured family recipe with a story behind it, I’d love to hear from you.

For this month, I couldn’t have imagined a better recipe with which to begin.

This one comes from my longtime friend Judy MacWilliams. It began with her grandmother, Ida Gibson, who passed it to Judy’s mother, Lil Morgan, and then down through the women of the family. By Judy’s estimate, the recipe is about a hundred years old.

A hundred years!

Think of all the hands that have pulled beets from the earth, peeled and sliced them, filled hot jars for winter, and placed them on family tables at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That’s exactly what I hoped Recipes with a History would be about. Not simply the food we make, but the people we remember when we make it.

Recipe: Sweet Beets

Judy’s Family Story: We were a family of farmers and watermen. We lived off the land and the sea. Every year, we planted a huge garden. Growing vegetables and preserving them for winter was a necessity because we did not live near a grocery store. Grown from seeds, beets are ready when they practically burst through the dirt. Similar to carrots, they are a root vegetable with green tops that can be eaten in salads.

Why It Matters to Her: We would dig the beets or pull them out of the dirt. Mom would wash them and then boil them until they were tender enough to pierce with a fork. After peeling and cooling them, Mom would make the pickling sauce. She canned most of the beets for the winter. Because of their vibrant red color, beets were always served at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and on special occasions.

As I make the recipe, I remember being in our family home, with no air conditioning back then, preparing the hot jars for canning and peeling and slicing all those beets. We worked all day preparing the jars for winter. My hands would be red by the end of the day. Maybe that’s where the expression “red as a beet” came from!

Passed Down Through: Ida Gibson, Bushwood, Maryland → Lil Morgan, Bushwood, Maryland → Judy MacWilliams and Debbie Morgan Nisson, Southern Maryland → Amy MacWilliams Schisler, St. Michaels, Maryland

My big brother died this past Sunday.

We’re never ready to lose the people we love.

My heart is especially with his wife, Darlene; his children, Rebecca and Bob; my younger brother, Ted; and everyone whose life was woven together with his. The feeling of loss is profound, and his passing leaves an empty place that can never quite be filled.

But I knew him in my own way.

He was my big brother.

My first friend.

I’ve never known life without him in it.

He had nicknames for me – Lugel, Pain, and, best of all, Sister.
When we were little, he taught me Pig Latin so we could talk without our parents knowing what we were saying. He tried to protect me when the neighborhood boys didn’t want me playing pickup ball with them. When boys asked me out in high school, my father asked JF what he thought before giving me permission to go.

And he never really stopped being my big brother. Even after I grew up and had a life of my own, he still looked out for me. He never hesitated to offer advice, even when I didn’t want to hear it. I understand now that this was the way he loved me best.

As children, we rarely imagine a day when one of us will have to say goodbye to the other.

Going forward, there will be many moments when I’ll want to ask, “Do you remember…?” Then I’ll remember that I can’t.

The little boy in the picture with his arm around his sister never really let go.

A Conversation with Libby Cataldi

Of all the stops on my September book tour, Pittsburgh holds a special place for me. It’s where my grandparents built their American life after leaving Rotondella, where my mother was born, lived, and died, and where I grew up. In many ways, Pittsburgh is where the story of It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live began.

DATE AND TIME
Wednesday, September 9, 2026
6:30–8:30 PM
Doors open at 6:00 PM

LOCATION
Heinz History Center
1212 Smallman Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

TICKETING
Free with advance registration.  The program will take place in the museum’s sixth floor Detre Library and Archives.

REGISTER

Join the Italian American Program for a conversation with author Libby Cataldi about her new memoir, It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live: An Italian American Story of Coming Home.

Rooted in the legacies of immigration, family, and identity, Cataldi’s intimate memoir traces her family’s journey from the southern Italian village of Rotondella to Pittsburgh.

Raised in an Italian American household shaped by a past that was rarely discussed, Cataldi embarks on a deeply personal journey back to her ancestral home in search of truth, belonging, and a deeper understanding of the generations that came before her.

In Italy, she uncovers the lasting influence of tradition, silence, sacrifice, and resilience, exploring how forces such as poverty, rigid Catholicism, patriarchy, the Mafia, malocchio, and omertà shaped the lives of her grandmother, mother, and ultimately herself.

Through her family’s story, Cataldi will reflect on the enduring legacy of immigration, the strength of Italian American women, and what it means to reconcile the past while finding a sense of home.

Following the presentation, enjoy a Q&A with the author and a book signing.

(Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested in attending.)

Original recipe card handwritten by my mother Laura.

Please Join the Fun!

Many families have a recipe that carries a story. Some are written on stained recipe cards, while others live only in memory. Either way, they’re part of our family’s history.

I’d love for us to preserve those stories together. If you have a family recipe with a history, share it using this simple format:

1. Recipe
2. Our Family’s Story
3. Why It Matters
4. Passed Down Through

I’ll collect the recipes and stories over the coming months and begin sharing them during the holiday season. It might be fun to try a recipe from another family, learn the history behind it, and celebrate the memories that good food brings to the table.

I’ll go first.

1. Recipe: Italian Wedding Soup

2. Our Family’s Story:
For years, I thought it was called Italian Wedding Soup because it was served at weddings. In fact, my dad insisted it be served at my wedding for exactly that reason!

But the recipe actually began in southern Italy as minestra maritata, or “married soup.” The marriage wasn’t between a bride and groom, but between meat and greens simmered together in a rich broth. When Italian immigrants came to America, the recipe evolved into the Italian Wedding Soup many of us grew up with.

3. Why It Matters to Me:
Whether someone was sick or we were celebrating, Nonna or Mom made a pot of this soup. Homemade chicken stock, escarole, tiny meatballs, and eggs whisked with freshly grated Parmesan and drizzled into the bubbling broth still take me back to their kitchens and to their love.

4. Passed Down Through:
Carmela Perciante, Rotondella, Italy → Laura Cataldi, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania → Libby Cataldi, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania & Florence, Italy

Now It’s Your Turn
Do you have a family recipe with a history? Don’t worry if your recipe isn’t fancy. Some of the best family stories come from the simplest meals: Grandma’s soup, Dad’s pancakes, Aunt Mary’s meatloaf.

You can post your recipe and story in the comments below or send them through my website (libbycataldi dot com) on the LIFETIME or CONTACT page. If possible, include a photograph of the handwritten recipe card, the finished dish, or the person who first made it.

Most importantly, tell us the recipe’s story. Who first made it? Who passed it down to you? If you know, tell us where the recipe originated. Then include your name and hometown so we can honor the journey it has taken from one kitchen, one family, and one generation to the next.

Together, let’s preserve the recipes, the people who passed them down, and the memories that might otherwise be lost. One family, one kitchen, one generation at a time.

After all, every recipe tells a story.

Photo Credit: George Burroughs

Twenty years.

Ten years ago, I called your sobriety “a huge feat.” It was. After fourteen years of addiction, every sober day was a miracle. We knew how close we had come to losing you, and we never took your recovery for granted.

Twenty years is not one decision. It is thousands of quiet decisions. Over the past two decades you’ve built a life of integrity, compassion, and truth. You pray, meditate, and carry a quiet peace that radiates to everyone around you. You’ve built two successful businesses that you lead with vision. You keep your word, and people trust you. Spirituality isn’t simply part of your life – it is the foundation upon which you’ve built everything else.

Years ago, a young man struggling with constant relapse told me, “If Jeff can do it, so can I.” You give others hope. You give back. You quietly make the world a better place.

Your family, your friends, and all who love you celebrate this remarkable achievement.

We’ll continue to stay close.

Thank you for coming home – to yourself and to us.