Attention pasta rizzlers: pull up to @mofad with @smittenkitchen and me on Thursday 5/14 and tap into the Italian motherbook
Spritzes from @viacarota , salumi from @eatframani , and a damn good time. Make a night of it! $25 in person, $5 online.
Tickets at MOFAD.org
🍅 Tonight at MOFAD! 🍅
The Talisman of Happiness: Ada Boni and Cooking the Italian Way with Michael Szczerban and Deb Perelman
Tuesday, May 14
7 - 9 PM
Book talk, tasting, and refreshments
Join us for a special evening celebrating one of Italy’s most influential culinary texts, The Talisman of Happiness by Ada Boni.
Bestselling cookbook author, podcast host, and @smittenkitchen founder @debperelman and @voraciousbooks publisher @foreverbeard —who spent a decade bringing this landmark work to English—will explore Boni’s legacy and relevance to cooks today.
First published a century ago, The Talisman of Happiness is the cornerstone of Italian home cooking, the mother of all Italian cookbooks to come. Famously, the book taught Marcella Hazan how to cook, shaping generations of Italian cooks in America. Yet Boni’s emphasis on seasonality, thrift, and respect for ingredients is strikingly modern. Amid weeknight time crunches, tight budgets, and endless recipes online, The Talisman of Happiness is a reminder that cooking should be less about perfection and more about pleasure.
Perelman and Szczerban will discuss the journey of bringing this classic to the US, the world Boni captured, and how her lessons resonate today. This event offers a rich look at a pioneering woman in food, and how culinary history is preserved, translated, and brought to life for new audiences.
With salumi courtesy of @eatframani .
Copies of The Talisman of Happiness: The Most Iconic Italian Cookbook Ever Written available for pre-purchase via @kalnyc !
As always, ticket holders have access to our newest exhibition, Street Food City ahead of the program from 6-7pm.
See y’all soon!
Link to tickets in bio! Click: MOFAD Programs
🍅 🍅 🍅
Another year for the books at @voraciousbooks and @littlebrownspark . It is such a thrill and privilege to get to be part of the lives of these books and their authors with my amazing teammates at @littlebrown . What a gift to work with books! Just look at this wide range of subjects—smart, beautiful, definitive works connected by passion and the desire to make life even better. Thank you all!
The Talisman of Happiness by Ada Boni with forewords by Lidia Batianich @lidiabastianich & Katie Parla @katieparla arrived as a gift from @voraciousbooks and tucked into the book was another gift, letter from Michael Szczerban @foreverbeard VP, Publisher at Voracious and his story of his “white whale book”. This cookbook, that has taken 12+ years to publish, was his “white whale”, the one book/author that an editor pursues, “with such intensity that the quest takes on a life of its own.” This cookbook was written two years before The Joy of Cooking was published and it has been the culinary bible for Italians ever since and has never been out of print in Italy. A very abbreviated version was published in the 1950’s in the United States but this is the first time an English version of this book in its entirety has become available. With 1680 recipes, its going to take me some time to pour through it but I find myself first, just savoring the words of deep respect and honor for Ada Boni and her contributions and preservations of traditional Italian cooking.
Thank you @voraciousbooks for the gift of not only this cookbook but also the story behind it from @foreverbeard .
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It was sometime in 2013 when @ciaosamin introduced me to Ada Boni’s masterwork, Il Talismano Della Felicità, in a conversation about pesto. Since then I’ve been trying to bring the book into print in a full English translation. Obsession? Maybe. But it’s been a heck of a ride and now it’s worth it to have The Talisman of Happiness publishing in a few weeks. Thank you to everyone at @littlebrown@voraciousbooks , @raquelpelzel for being my partner in crime, @katieparla and @lidiabastianich for your forewords, @kimseverson for shining this light on Ada in the @nytimes , and everyone else who brought this brick of a book into being. I can’t wait for you all to get to know Ada and her Italy better. It’s delicious. And she is right. All you need to eat well and be happy is inside this book.
WALTER SZCZERBAN
August 22, 1948 – August 31, 2025
Here are a few things my dad liked to say:
* If you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
* ….but remember, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter.
* There are two kinds of people I can’t stand: people who lie, and people who don’t try.
* The only sure way to fail is to stop trying.
* Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.
* Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.
* Everything begins with a sale.
* Turn the other cheek… but if you are forced to fight, make damn sure the other guy doesn’t get up.
* FOCUS!!!
We didn’t grow up in a democracy. Dad called it a “benevolent dictatorship.” When we fought, the punishment he issued was to kneel on the hardwood and hug each other till we got over it. It worked pretty fast. But while life in the Walt Szczerban autocracy was “my way or the highway,” none of us ever got left by the side of the road… even me, the mouthy middle child who had a retort for everything.
We were so similar, and so different. I would have loved to have a couple more decades to hash all of that out.
I did eventually realize that he came into this country with less than nothing, and understand how hard he worked to create a place in the world for himself and our family. How he challenged us to be our best, and then more than our best, because he had himself learned that the power of belief and determination could take you almost anywhere. That, and turning on a little charm.
And I know he loved us so much. He was so proud of his family, and who we all became. He gave up so much to provide opportunities for us. And in his later years, he endured so much pain just to be able to get into his chair to spend some time with us.
But did he, as he often claimed, coin the phrase “I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts” sometime in the Eighties? On that, for once in my life, I’ll let him have the last word.
I love you, Dad. Let’s go fishing.
