Inside the kitchen of a cozy Staten Island restaurant, 84-year-old Maria Gialanella stuffs a creamy spinach and ricotta mixture into a ravioli mold, which will be cooked and served to dozens of hungry customers. Gialanella has no professional training. In fact, this is her first restaurant gig since her teenage years, but one qualification makes her food absolutely irresistible: She's a grandmother.

At Enoteca Maria, just blocks away from the ferry terminal, grandmas run the kitchen. Gialanella is one of more than 30 grandmas, or nonnas, who cook the cuisines of their ancestors. Nonna Maria, as she's called there, is Italian, but the Enoteca's nonnas represent every corner of the world, from Argentina to Sri Lanka.