Every episode of The Sopranos was uniquely wonderful and horrible, at once forcing me with its patterned silk-clad Italian-American strength to weep with laughter and seek one-to-five more milligrams of Zoloft. No character arc was each of these more so than that of Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri, the endlessly sweet, often dense, food-loving soldier and caretaker of Junior, who throughout the series slowly gains major power in the Organization. Bacala’s arc was one of the most gutting in the series—and one that, perhaps controversially, made up the entirety of my wedding vows this past September.

Brooklyn-born Steve Schirripa, who played Bacala, had never had a real recurring acting role until being cast on The Sopranos. Since then, he’s had a career that feels in part to be a natural extension of his work on the show—he’s written several books, including A Goomba’s Guide to Life, and The Goomba Diet: Large and Loving It, which was blurbed by James Gandolfini, Michael Imperioli, and Tony Sirico among other cast members, and he started a sauce company called Uncle Steve’s Italian Specialties.