There is a difference in Italian and Italian-American cooking. There is a big difference. If you don't know the difference, get a copy of "The Silver Spoon," the bestselling Italian cookbook in Italy for the past 50 years. My guess is that you will be surprised what you will find, and what you will not find. Check it out.   This week I...

By Allen Brewer   After several years of planning, Emily Blount has finally opened her fist restaurant, Saint Leo, in the heart of Oxford. The old fashion wood-fire oven pizza restaurant, located on the east side of the Square, offers a newer, fresher taste for local pizza lovers.   Opening on June 30, Saint Leo offers Oxonians a litt...

To meet the growing demand for pizza in the Jackson, Mississippi, area, Marco's Pizza® franchise is seeking to partner with entrepreneurs who want a slice of the action. How big is the demand for pizza in Jackson? Residents in the state capital, as well as tourists, are passionate for pizza.   With large employers and area universities...

By Corey Charlton   Twins born in Italy and put up for adoption in America have managed to track down their biological family in Europe via Facebook 55 years later. Jana Bennett and her twin sister Lisa Keeler were born in 1960, in Palermo, Italy.   But now more than half a decade later and after numerous failed attempts to find...

Paul V. Canonici was born of Italian immigrant parents in the heart of the Mississippi Delta — Shaw to be exact. After being educated in the public schools of Shaw, Canonici headed to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain to study with the Benedictine monks at St. Joseph Seminary in Covington, La. He also studied at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indian...

by Julian Brunt   Salvetti's Italian Grill is back. Back, that is, to its old and much-loved location on Washington Avenue in Ocean Springs. The building was extensively renovated, so there is fresh paint, in lively colors, and lots of smiling people, glad to have an Italian-American restaurant back in the heart of town.   Ocean Sprin...

by Karen Hinton   At the recent unveiling of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo's portrait in the Governors Hall at the State Capitol, I recalled the first time I heard him speak. The elder Cuomo, after two decades of resisting, finally gave into his family's urging to follow tradition and allow the hanging of his portrait, painted last ye...

By Chaning Green   Marco D'Emidio is a native son of Italy, a dad, a geologist and a chef. He and his wife Stacey live with their 1-year-old son Nico in a home in north Oxford where they have a garden that grows everything from tomatoes to lemons.    D'Emidio grew up in Abruzzo, a region of Italy that lies east of Rome on th...

by Guido Rossi   I am an historian and researcher at the University of Southern Mississippi, and I am conducting a research project aimed at collecting and preserving the historical memory of Italian-American soldiers, sailors, and airmen that were sent to fight in Italy during World War II. The result of these research will result in my Mas...

Luca Vullo, an internationally recognized Italian linguist, is bringing his popular nonverbal communication workshop to Mississippi State. Free and open to all, his Jan. 21 presentation is part of the 2015-16 Distinguished Lecture Series of the classical and modern languages and literatures department. The university's communication department...