June 6, 2012
While Rossella Rago ’09C has been hosting the weekly Internet series “Cooking with Nonna” since 2007, she’s actually been cooking with her own nonna (Italian for “grandmother”) all her life.
“My nonna cooked all the time,” said Rossella, “so I learned a lot of her techniques through osmosis.” Her close relationship with her grandmother played a pivotal role in the creation of the series.
As an undergraduate at St. John’s University, Rossella attended classes at both the Staten Island and Queens campuses. She lived with her grandmother in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, because of its central location. “First, I would take a train to the bus just to get to Staten Island,” she said. “When I was done with my classes there, I’d take the University’s shuttle bus up to Queens.”
When she was finished with classes in Queens, Rossella would take the long subway ride back to her grandmother’s home in Brooklyn, where she would be greeted with a home-cooked Italian meal. “The commute was exhausting, but I ate really well during college,” she said with a smile.
A Passion for Italy
Although Rossella started out as an undergraduate in The School of Education, by her sophomore year she decided to follow her true passion and pursue a degree in Italian literature.
In St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, she met Annalisa Saccà , Ph.D., Professor of Italian in the Department of Languages and Literatures. “Dr. Saccà is an amazing Renaissance woman,” said Rossella. “I’d write Italian poetry in her classes and leave wanting to change the world.”
“I was also surrounded by a lot of people from similar backgrounds,” she said, reflecting on the friends she made at the Queens campus and in the Italian Cultural Society. “We were all thrilled to have so much freedom, because just a generation ago, young women like us weren’t always allowed to go to college by our families.”
A Novel Concept
It was at a family gathering where the idea for “Cooking with Nonna” came to light. “In Italian households,” Rossella noted, “cooking is a very unifying thing. The food is a catalyst that brings everyone together.”
“My father was teasing me about what I wanted to do with my life,” said Rossella. “I joked with him that I should have a cooking show. I mean, what could be a better job than that?”
They bounced ideas around until she came up with a concept for a show about cooking with grandmothers. They settled on the name “Cooking with Nonna,” and started laying the groundwork for the show. “A week later, my dad bought the Web domain, cookingwithnnonna.com,” said Rossella.
Soon after, her father had a rollaway cooking island constructed at the Rago home and a simple Website quickly followed. “Then we thought, ‘Hey, we should do a show,’” said Rossella. “So, we hired a production company and woke up one day and started shooting episodes.”
Each installment features Rossella and an Italian grandmother teaching viewers how to cook a traditional Italian meal.
A Popular “Recipe”
Five years and 45 episodes later, Rossella’s simple idea has grown into an online empire. The “Cooking with Nonna” Website receives more than 50,000 visitors each month, while its Facebook counterpart has more than 37,000 fans. A television component is in the works, as well as a cookbook.
Rossella, who was a winner on the Food Network’s “24 Hour Restaurant Battle,” admits to being astonished by her show’s success. She is, after all, still in her early 20s.
“When I was sitting in Spellman Café back on the Staten Island campus, did I think that in a few years I’d have so many fans?” she said. “Absolutely not. We’ve got more Facebook followers than some people on the Food Network!”