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Ciao from Rome, welcome to the #103 magazine of We the Italians! I'd like to start this editorial by celebrating all the Italian American soldiers who lost their lives, in all the American wars: Monday May 28 is Memorial Day. To pay my respect, this year I've interviewed somebody who not only beautifully represents the Italians who have fought or s...

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Sometimes traveling can inspire you to live a little differently back home. And sometimes, a visitor can help you see your own home in a new way. That was the case when a mentor and old master came to town recently. “I realized that through my life, I carried in my heart and on my palate the food I grew up eating,” said Dario Cecchini, the famous b...

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Patio Gardens & Landscaping has been a fixture on the corner of the Westbank Expressway and Avenue G in Marrero for almost half a century. Just at its 44th birthday, owner Wayne Nocito announced that it is closing its doors on June 9. "I'm turning the page and moving on, but it sure is hard to shut the doors," Nocito said with tears in his eyes. Th...

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The sign over the door at Nephew’s Ristorante is small, but it says it all. This new Creole Italian restaurant recently opened in Metairie and promptly filled with people who practically grew up eating this particular nephew’s food. That would be chef Frank Catalanotto, who for decades ran the kitchen of his uncle’s Lakeview restaurant. His uncle w...

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A young traveler returns eager to share experiences and determined to work some lessons from abroad into daily life at home. It’s a common enough tale. It happened to Richard Brennan III too, though he’s found a unique way to follow through. Brennan, the son of restaurateur Dickie Brennan, recently finished an internship in Italy with Dario Cecchin...

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L’Ambasciatore d’Italia negli USA, Armando Varricchio, ha concluso oggi una visita nella città di New Orleans in Louisiana in occasione delle celebrazioni per il trecentesimo anniversario della fondazione della città su invito del Sindaco Mitch Landrieu. Sono stati ricordati i profondi legami storici, economici, culturali e sociali di New Orleans c...

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On the 300th anniversary of New Orleans's founding, and as the United States and the world celebrate the city's rich and diverse history, I am reminded of the many links that join the Big Easy to Italy. New Orleans has a unique and impressive Italian tradition that has blended into the city's broad cultural tableau and has become a key feature of t...

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Two Renaissance masterpieces are coming to the New Orleans Museum of Art — only the third museum ever to display them together, and the second outside Italy. Paolo Veronese (POW-loh veh-roh-NAY-zuh) painted "St. Jerome in the Wilderness" and "St. Agatha Visited in Prison by St. Peter" during 1566 and 1567 for a church on Murano, an island in the la...

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Leonard Giarraputo opened his Sicilian restaurant in September in a suburban strip mall in Mandeville, never imagining so many paisans(OK, we know the Italian word is actually compaesano, but play along) would walk through the door. The restaurateur was born in Santa Margherita di Belice, Sicily, where he grew up in the restaurant business, learnin...

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St. Joseph was honored by the American Society of Italian Heritage at "La Festa di San Giuseppe" held at Benedict's Plantation on March 11. In the Middle Ages, a famine devastated Sicily, and prayers to St. Joseph are credited for the gentle rains that brought forth crops. The saint is celebrated on or near his feast day of March 19. After the Pled...

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