TRAVERSE CITY — To Andrea Lipuma Brown of Traverse City, life has always been about family and food — and not necessarily in that order.
Her grandparents were Italian immigrants who were born and raised in Sicily, bringing their deep-rooted traditions and culture to Detroit where her grandfather Gandolfo Lipuma founded and built a successful, multi-state produce business.
Her dad, Salvatore, was in the restaurant business, founding and running Lipuma’s Coney Island in downstate Rochester. While the menu there was mainly coneys and tacos, at home it was pure Italian.
Now Lipuma Brown has assembled the recipes she grew up with along with others from well-loved aunts, family back in her grandparents’ native town of Polizzi Generosa and relatives she’d never met before but connected with after word spread of her intent to publish a family cookbook.
“My mom’s love language is feeding people, and she has always made that clear to every single person who entered our home,” says one of her daughters, 23-year-old Sophie Brown of Grand Rapids.
Now complete, “La Nostra Tavola Italiana: Our Italian Table” is actually more than a cookbook. It weaves letters, photos, personal recollections and memorabilia among the recipes — all intertwined, as in life, she says. It’s only for family, though she’s thinking now that with some editing and removing some of the more personal family details it might be repackaged for availability to the public.
In the meantime, she’s created a publication that preserves her family’s food traditions — and history — for generations to come.
“I was calling my Aunt Sally — my dad’s oldest sister, who was living until this year — and the conversation would always go to food,” Lipuma Brown says. “I would do this once a week, and I would write down a recipe. She was 99 years old and I thought, I have to get this, for my kids. I did this for my three daughters. I figured, I’ve got to keep the traditions going, and it just kind of evolved.
“I’m paying homage to all of the people who came from Polizzi Generosa to here.”
Recipes flowed from other relatives including her dad’s cousins: the Zafaranas, Franciscos, and DiMartinos. There was Aunt Sally’s son Tony.
“He would Facetime me and we would talk food constantly,” she says.
There was Aunt Sally’s father’s cousin, also named Sally, 97 — Lipuma Brown’s Aunt Rose, the next oldest among her dad’s four sisters.
“She’s just the sweetest thing,” Lipuma Brown says. “She gave me recipes.”
Lipuma found a collection of her grandmother’s handwritten desserts, which were lovingly translated into English by one of her daughters. Lipuma went to her father’s other sisters and asked them to contribute their favorites.
She also obtained recipes while visiting Italy. The first time was in 2011 when she cashed in a savings bond her late grandmother had left her — and 12 of her cousins — years before, to take her husband and girls to Sicily. “I hadn’t spoken Italian since my grandma died in the ‘90s, and my kids were all of a sudden hearing me talk Italian — not good, but I was able to communicate,” Lipuma Brown says. “They were going, ‘Who are you, mom?’”
While they were in Italy, they spent time with relatives who hosted them for meals. It was the same when she went back again in 2016. “It’s in the Madonie Mountains in central Sicily, 45 minutes east of Palermo, high up in the clouds,” Lipuma Brown says. “It’s beautiful, like stepping back in time.”
Back here in the States, some relatives in New York she’d never met before got wind of her project and sent her family pictures showing their grandfather with hers — the two were brothers. Because of the book, she reconnected with a cousin in Chicago, who also supplied some favorite dishes, as well as others.
Lipuma Brown’s oldest daughter, Meghan Brown, is 30 and living in Minneapolis. When she was in high school, she annually invited about 15 friends for a family spaghetti dinner. Her mom would make her “famous spaghetti with meat sauce” and it became a tradition so beloved that it continued after they scattered to college. “We would return for our Christmas break and everyone would be looking forward to coming to my parents’ house for pasta dinner,” she recalls. Now she has evolved the tradition into hosting her own spaghetti dinners with friends “in medical school, residency and even just recently with several of these same high school friends who have moved all across the country.”
Sophie says she looks forward to one day being able to replicate the meals her mom made for the family for her own children “not just because they tasted good, but because her cooking has always been one of the main things that has brought us all together. I can only hope to one day be as good a cook and mother as she is.”
Meghan describes the book her mom has created as “incredibly special.”
“Food is a way to bring people together and it has been so cool to see her connect with extended family both near and far to collect these recipes,” she says. “My Papa (grandfather) — who also loved to cook — would have been so proud and truly would have loved to see this compilation of his family’s love for cooking. While the future kids I may have someday will never get to meet him personally, I know they will feel his presence in this cookbook and learn his love for cooking as well.”
Their other sister, Lisa Brown, 26 and living in Royal Oak, feels the same.
“These days, my mom and I are often side by side in the kitchen, cooking meals for our family together,” Lisa notes. “She still offers little tips as we go, always teaching and sharing.
“Looking back, I realize I grew up attending the best cooking school I could have imagined — but it wasn’t in a classroom or taught by a professional chef. It was right there in our family kitchen, with my mom as my teacher.”
Meanwhile, Lipuma Brown says there’s been a benefit she hadn’t anticipated to finishing the book and distributing it to family members.
“It really started with me making a cookbook for my kids,” she says. “But when I delivered the book to my aunt, she said, ‘You’re helping bring this family back together. And it really has.”
Andrea Lipuma Brown’s Minestrone Soup
1 large onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
4-5 carrots, chopped
1 small cabbage, chopped
4-5 celery stalks, chopped
1 small zucchini, peeled and chopped
3-4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 can of pinto beans, drained
1 chuck roast
2 handfuls of green beans, halved
Acini de pepe noodles
In a large heavy pot or Dutch oven, saute onions and garlic in olive oil until caramelized.
Place the roast on top of the onions/garlic and cook until it’s ¾ of the way done. Remove the roast. In the same pan, make beef broth from bouillon cubes and water or use canned broth. Place chopped vegetables in broth. Add crushed tomatoes and pinto beans. Add salt and pepper. Cube or shred the roast and add it to the soup. Cook, covered, for one hour. Stir in pasta and remove soup from heat when pasta is al dente. Taste it and add seasoning as needed.
Andrea Lipuma Brown’s Italian Lemon Sugar Cookies
3 C. flour
5 t. baking powder
½ t. salt
¾ C. sugar
1 stick butter, softened
4 large eggs
2 t. lemon extract
Glaze:
2 C. powdered sugar
3-4 T. milk
1 t. lemon extract
Colorful sprinkles
Sift flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and set aside. In a mixer with paddle attachment, cream the softened butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each egg. Add in 2 teaspoons of lemon extract and beat well. Add flour mixture slowly, mixing well until smooth. The dough will be sticky, but should be soft. Cover and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or until firm.
While the dough is chilling, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
With a small cookie scoop, drop dough onto a slightly greased cookie sheet. Space cookies 2 inches apart. Bake 8-12 minutes at 350 or until firm or lightly brown.
To make glaze, combine powdered sugar, milk and lemon extract until smooth.
Cool cookies completely before dipping into the glaze mixture and adding sprinkles.