Starting at the age of 4, I’d walk with my grandmother daily, helping to pull her little cart to the corner store owned by a “paesan” from the “old country.” The shelves bursting with olives, sardines and brioschi towered over me as she encouraged me to help her pick out ingredients.

It was an adventure I adored, sorting through all those breads and cheeses and wondering just what those adult shadows in the back room, bathed in cigar smoke and playing cards, were doing. “Vieni qua,” she would respond to my curious wandering back there, my tilted head peeking, thrilled and pensive.