It’s the holidays! For Italians like me, it’s time to cook like your life depends on it. So grab your family’s favorite stained and torn fifty-year-old cookbook and go wild! I’m a little more modern and rely on my mom and The Sopranos Family Cookbook, of course. This cookbook always makes me nostalgic, as much as Tony Soprano can make a person nostalgic. As I was leafing through it to find the eggplant parm recipe, it made me think of my parents and their relationship to the show The Sopranos. 

My family moved from New York to Texas in the 70’s. After raising their children, my parents left their home of 20+ years, a sports car, a checkbook, and all of their adult children back in Texas to start a new life in oil country, Oklahoma. They left one adult child in the family home with the car and the checkbook, and then called the rest of us once a week.

For awhile, I was diligent about driving to Oklahoma to see them. In fact, I knew the route and the posted speed limits so well that I managed to visit them for years using a car with a broken speedometer with only one speeding ticket. It was in a speed trap and a completely bogus ticket I might add. What an f’n bubba that cop was.

When I couldn’t visit, I would call my parents regularly in the evenings to chat. At some point my parents got HBO. I would call, and the call would end abruptly with “We are watching The Sopranos, and will call you back.” Then later, “We are watching Six Feet Under, and will call you back.”

I didn’t have HBO at the time, so I was puzzled. After months of them telling me they would call me back, I finally asked what the fascination was with The Sopranos. They told me that I should watch it, and that was it. Then I asked them what the fascination was with Six Feet Under, and they told me it was a great show and I should watch it.

Years later, I finally watched every season of both shows. I then saw the immediate draw to The Sopranos. It was like watching my own family without the mafia ties or hidden guns and money in the attic. We had other problems in our attic, like ghosts, according to my mom, and the guns were in the closet. Paulie Walnuts, in real life, spent some time with my cousins as his Aunt lived next door. His Aunt was a very sweet lady who I remember fondly as a small child. Remember, we left New York long before this show came out, but the comparisons of the characters on the show to my own family members did not escape me.

Fast forward to January 10, 2024 (coming soon) and we will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Sopranos. Hard to believe! My dad is the Tony Soprano of my life: fat, can scare the shit out of you with his stare, loves his family, guns, cigars and Italian sausage, and wears a pinky ring. And my mom is the perfect Catholic Italian wife and mother who can cook a mean sausage and peppers and the best tomato sauce. 

If you want a taste of what it is like to grow up Sopranos, get a copy of The Sopranos Family Cookbook and start your first batch of tomato sauce. You will need a big stock pot and a lot of Italian bread. Start simmering your sauce, put a good football game on, and every time you stir the sauce, dip some Italian bread in and take a bite. The aroma of simmering tomato sauce, the sounds of a football game and men snoring, always reminds me of Christmas … and every Sunday growing up.

Merry Christmas y’all and Happy New Year. Carpe Diem!