Growing Up Italian.

Growing Up Italian. Preserving the memories, traditions and chaos of growing up Italian-American.

08/27/2026

There was always one extra plate at the Sunday table, and nobody was coming that we knew of. 🍝 Nonna set it anyway, every single week, and if you asked why she would say you never know who God sends to your door. And somehow, someone always came. A neighbor, a cousin's friend, the widower with nowhere else to be. That empty plate meant our house always had room for one more. It was never really about the food. It was about never letting a single soul eat alone. Every family has a ritual like that. What is the one custom at YOUR table that an outsider would never understand? Drop it in the comments, because every heritage has its own version of the extra plate.

08/26/2026

Sunday dinner in an Italian house started on Saturday. 🍝 The sauce hit the stove before church, and by mid-morning the whole block knew what you were having. Nobody stirred the pot without Nonna's blessing, nobody skipped the meatballs, and nobody dared show up late once she called the table. That table was where the whole family sorted out the week, the arguments, the news, and the love, all over one long meal. Every culture has a version of that meal. What was the unspoken rule at YOUR family table growing up? Doesn't have to be Italian, drop it in the comments, because every heritage has one worth remembering.

08/25/2026

Every Italian family has a trunk somewhere — the one that crossed the ocean. A rosary, some photographs, a handful of soil from the old village. Our grandparents left everything behind and built new lives brick by brick. What did YOUR family carry with them across the water? Share their story below. 🇮🇹

08/24/2026

If you grew up Italian, you knew someone could give you the malocchio — the evil eye — just by being a little too jealous of you. And when your head started pounding for no reason, it was time to see the one aunt who knew the ritual: olive oil dropped into a bowl of water, prayers whispered that were only ever passed down on Christmas Eve. The cornicello in the car, the hat never on the bed, never toasting with water. Every family had its own rules. What superstitions do you still catch yourself following? Share them below.

08/24/2026

Why did nonna always set one extra plate at Sunday dinner?

It wasn't a mistake. In Italian American homes, turning away a hungry stranger was treated like a sin, so the table always had room for one more. 🍝

A knock at the door mid meal never meant trouble, it meant another chair pulled up, no questions asked. That was heritage. That was family.

Did your family ever have someone unexpected show up right at dinner time?

08/23/2026

The house had rules nobody ever wrote down. 🤌

A little red cornicello by the door, a saint on the windowsill, and Nonna's secret prayer for the malocchio when your head hurt for no reason. Never a hat on the bed, never an umbrella open inside, never a toast with water. And underneath all of it, more love than one house could hold.

What superstition did YOUR family swear by? Drop it below — I know you remember. ❤️

08/22/2026

She could take the headache right out of your head with a bowl of water and a drop of oil. 🫒

In every Italian house there was someone who knew the malocchio — the evil eye. When you came home with a headache nobody could explain, Nonna sat you at the kitchen table, dripped oil into water, and watched the drops scatter. Then came the whispered prayer she'd only pass down on Christmas Eve, her lips moving without a sound. And somehow, by the time the coffee was ready, you really did feel better.

Who was the one in your family who could take away the evil eye? 👇

08/20/2026

The biggest Little Italy in America wasn't downtown. 🇮🇹

It was uptown. Italian Harlem was once the largest Italian American neighborhood in the country, over 100,000 strong by the 1930s, three times the size of the Little Italy everyone remembers.

Every block was its own village. Bari on one street, Calabria on the next, each family carrying the traditions of home up five flights of stairs. 🍝

Then the housing projects went up and the families scattered to the Bronx. But that's not the whole story. One restaurant from 1896 still stands on Pleasant Avenue, and every August the giglio still dances down that same street.

Did your family come out of a neighborhood like that? Tell me the street name. 👇

08/19/2026

Every Italian grandfather had a fig tree — and every fall he'd bury it. 🌿

He'd bend the whole tree to the ground, wrap it in tar paper and old carpet, and tuck it in for winter so a little frost couldn't kill a piece of the old country. Come August you were barefoot in the grass, warm figs breaking open in your hands, sweeter than any candy.

Did your nonno have a fig tree too? What did he grow back there? 👇

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