Reminiscence and Ravioli

Note: This edition of Reminiscence and Ravioli has been updated to include Metric equivalents.


In Sor Mario’s house, the largest in Monte Porzio, life centered around the vast, marble-floored kitchen and his wife Giulia’s incomparable cooking. Along with several dozen classic Italian recipes, Nika Standen tells of family life of another day in Italy—anecdotes so infectious and completely delightful that even if you don’t like cooking, she will make you laugh and give you an appetite simultaneously.


Nika Standen’s Uncle Mario was fond of eating. He conducted a good part of his business as Mayor of Porzio in his wife’s kitchen where he was best able to put his nose in every pot. He even contrived one Sunday while she was at Church to have his huge roll-top desk moved into the kitchen so that when she returned his office would be installed there—a fait accompli—along with the imposing wood and charcoal burning stove and the pot that held ten pounds of spaghetti.

Giulia’s counteraction was swift. “Come children,” she said, “we are all going to Rome. We do not want to disturb Sor Mario in his new study.” She departed with her entire household forming a little procession, and Sor Mario had to run all the way to the trolley station to assure her his desk was upstairs again—for good.

Uncle Mario was wont to say, “Of course, I am a rational creature, and unlike Tiberius, I do not insist on roasted swans and mouraines fatted on slaves’ flesh for my dinner. But nevertheless, Giulia does well, very well, and I am not sorry I married her.”

“Italian cooking” so-called is not what you’ll find here. Your whole concept of spaghetti or tomato sauce for example will change. Farina becomes the delectable gnocchi (and with such astonishing ease one wonders why we too were not brought up on such dishes!).

Cooking isn’t a life work to Nika Standen as it was to her aunt but “something taken along with love, laughter, music—” and she has selected the kind of recipes you can make any day of the week.

Seldom has anyone combined the arts of cooking and writing so spontaneously and with such artistic results. Mrs. Standen has dipped her pen in ambrosia.