“All self-respecting Sicilians disdained red gravy.”

When I was very young, living in New Orleans, Sunday dinner at Big Nana’s was chicken cacciatore or pasta e fagioli or veal Bolognese. There was always an array of olive salad, stuffed artichokes, caponata, fava beans, and seasonal treats. My Nana and her eight sisters and brothers and many of their children, including my mother, chattered in Sicilian as we cooked and ate and cleaned up. Big Nana died when I was about four or five, and Sunday dinner, on a reduced basis, moved to Nana’s house.