'A Legacy': Cookbook from LI Mom Of 5 Displays Italian-American Roots

NORTHPORT, NY — A Northport mother of five published a cookbook with recipes she inherited from her grandparents that she now dishes out for her family. And now you can try some of Fenza's grandparents' cooking in your own kitchen.

Dena Fenza recently authored "My Italian-American Table," which offers breakfasts, dinners, sides, desserts, and drinks. The book offers a glimpse into the culinary life of Fenza, a family woman, food influencer and former restaurant worker. Her Instagram page, MiciaMammas, has more than 127K followers.

The book offers a guide to 65 easy-to-replicate recipes with tips with QR codes to corresponding videos. Fenza wrote the book to foster deeper connections to family and friends through food. She also hopes people will put their own spin on her recipes.

"It’s not only reading it and making sure you have all the ingredients, but maybe to make the recipe your own," Fenza told Patch. "Maybe there’s something you don’t like or you want to add. You have to make the recipe your own, and I certainly do that with recipes I make and see other people make."

People can purchase "My Italian-American Table" by Fenza here.

Fenza is part of a blended family; she has three children and her husband has two. She used to own a restaurant in Huntington but closed it to stay home with her children when she realized how difficult it was trying to cook for the kids and go to her business seven days a week.

"We would eat out of the back of my car sometimes," Fenza said. "I always managed to get a meal out that I made."

Fenza told her kids she doesn't accommodate different tastes and would make a big dinner with a meat, sides and a pasta.

"You eat what you like. The kids are not gonna starve. That was my old school mentality that my parents had. All of my kids, even my step-kids, had great palettes, so it works for the five of them."

Fenza, too, grew up in a very large family that cooked a lot of food.

"For me, it’s more challenging to cook for less people, because I make too much, than it is cooking for a big crowd."

Fenza stressed organization and keeping shopping lists.

The interactive part of her cookbook is what makes it stand out, she said. Each recipe has a photo, as well as a QR code that will take the reader to one of Fenza's recipe videos.

"If you’re having problems with a recipe and you’re reading it in your kitchen, and you’re like, 'That doesn’t make sense,' you can scan the QR code and it immediately takes you to that video. I think that’s what makes it a little different."

Fenza posthumously dedicated her book to her four grandparents. She recalls her grandparents teaching her how to cook. Both of her grandfathers, at different points, owned restaurants.

Fenza, the eldest grandchild, remembers one of her grandfathers working in his restaurant until late and then coming home in the middle of the night to cook meals. She recalls being in her grandmother's two-family house in Brooklyn and smelling the food her grandpa would make.

"I would come down as a little kid in the middle of the night and he’d be like, 'OK, peel the garlic. Do this.' I was like his helper," Fenza said.

Growing up, she and her family had meals together every Sunday. Cousins and all.

"It really kind of influenced me and really fostered strong connections to not only my grandparents, but the rest of my family," she said.

Fenza was sad when she moved to Long Island but realized that it was close enough to Brooklyn.

All of her grandparents are deceased now and never wrote their recipes out.

"After they passed, writing these recipes, really kind of for me, gave them a legacy and honored them," Fenza said. "There were times in the kitchen where I would be like, 'Oh, Grandpa, what did you add to this sauce?' or 'What did he do?' and somehow it came through to me, and it would turn out like how he made it or how [my grandmother] made it. It was really nice to have all these recipes, and my family is so happy about it that now, I have these recipes that are written down that are my grandparents’ that all of us have enjoyed for so many years."

Fenza's favorite meal in her cookbook is one of her grandfather's signature dishes: the spaghetti in crab sauce. And it has a story behind it. It brings her back to being a little kid at her grandparents' home.

"My grandpa would make spaghetti and crabs, and it was always a big event. 'Grandpa’s making the crab sauce!' One particular memory with that sauce is, my aunt was really good friends with "The Sopranos" star, Joseph Gannascoli."

Gannascoli played Vito Spatafore in the hit show.

"He claimed he had the best crab sauce," Fenza said. "My grandpa claimed he had the best crab sauce. One year, they had a cook off, and my grandpa was so proud, because his crab sauce won."

Food, Fenza said, creates a lot of memories for people.

"I think that memory of that day and even just rolling up when grandpa would get fresh crabs and we would all go to his house and eat it. It brings me back to those memories. That’s why it’s one of my favorites."

More than half of the recipes in the book go back years in Fenza's family. The rest are her own. But she also tinkered with her family's recipes over the years and encourages her readers to do the same.

"My mom’s meatballs, I took that recipe, but I stuffed them inside with mozzarella cheese," she said.

Fenza also included a few cocktail recipes in her book, including homemade limoncello, Nutella liquor and Italian hot chocolate, which is considerably thicker than its American counterpart. She crafted the limoncello recipe after a trip to Italy. She tried a bunch of different recipes two years ago before landing on the "best one," which she used in the book.

"We’ve always certainly enjoyed our cocktails in our family, so I wanted to include the really typical ones we enjoyed together," she said.

Fenza has two book signings planned.

The first is scheduled for 2 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Towne Boutique, at 255 Main St., Huntington. The signing will coincide with a shopping event benefitting Toys for Tots.

The second signing is slated for Salpino Italian Market, at 1540 Newbridge Road, North Bellmore, on Jan. 20. A time is to be determined.