Q&A with Lisa Caponigri, author of This is Sunday Dinner

Lisa Caponigri has built a career as an author, a television personality—with appearances on networks such as QVC, HSN and WGN—and the founder of Lisa’s Italian Sunday Sauces. She has three children and divides her time between South Bend and Italy.

“Since early childhood I spent a great deal of time in Italy with my parents,” she says. “I have wonderful memories of incredible Italian food and bonding with family and friends in Italy at the dinner table. I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, as my father was a professor at the University of Notre Dame for 40 years.

“We grew up bi-culturally before it was fashionable—it was just the way we lived, always incorporating our Italian culture, heritage and food into our Italian lifestyle in South Bend and sharing that with friends and colleagues. After I completed my degrees at the University of Notre Dame I moved with my children to Italy, where I worked and raised them bi-culturally as well, always with a great emphasis on being aware of cultural differences and their positive impact.”

We asked Caponigri to share some of her ideas and inspiration with us. A lightly edited transcript follows.

What inspired you to write this book?

I wrote my first book, Whatever Happened to Sunday Dinner?, and the success of that book assured me that what I always felt was true: People want to eat together and get back to the wonderful tradition of Sunday dinner.

However, with the second book, I also wanted to emphasize the regionality and seasonality of Italian food. This is why I divided This is Sunday Dinner into four sections: winter in Piemonte, spring in Campania, summer in Sicily and fall in Tuscany.

I knew readers would appreciate having menus for each season of the year because in the last 10 years there has been a real growth and appreciation here in the States for farmers markets, eating what is in season, shopping locally and eating fresh food. We have become much more European in our shopping and eating.

What are some of your favorite recipes in it and why?

My favorite recipes in this book represent my favorite aspect of Sunday dinner: building memories with your family.

The theme of both my cookbooks is cooking with your family, setting Sunday aside as the day to enjoy each other’s company and disconnect from the world. This is what I have done with my children since they were very young. So my favorite recipes in this book are the three that my children contributed.

My daughter, Felicia, makes a fresh tomato sauce from the island of Sicily that can be found in my Summer in Sicily section. My son Bobby has loved a rosé sauce since the time he was young and we were living in Tuscany. In Tuscany, they have perfected the art of combining a red sauce with cream to form the perfect rosé. The recipe for Bobby’s rosé sauce can be found in Fall in Tuscany. My youngest son, Guido, makes the most decadent chocolate mousse with Grand Marnier, which is a staple on our Sunday table and our holiday table. 

I also love my classic recipes such as, from Tuscany, my Pork Loin with Fig and Chianti reduction. It’s heavenly!

(Try one of the recipes from the book: Stufato di Manzo Piemontese.)

What was one of your favorite memories to share with your readers through this book?

There are so many wonderful memories, but perhaps the most poignant was that of my Sicilian grandmother. While writing this book, I returned to the town where she was born and raised, and where I have visited many times, to share with my readers the freshness and uniqueness of the Sicilian seafood and vegetables, and the region’s creative dishes. Sicilian food is still very mysterious and unknown to many Americans, so I love to share the history of the island and its unique, delicious food. In Summer in Sicily, the readers will find many of my grandmother’s recipes, such as agrodolce sauces (savory/sweet) as well as the no-cook pasta sauces for which the island is known.

Where are your favorite places to shop and/or dine in Michiana?

I love Bamber’s Superette and Oh Mamma’s Cheese Shop for many reasons. They are both small, family-run businesses, and they share a passion for good, quality food. Gene and Gini Bamber have a real gift for selecting outstanding products from Italy, and the artisanal food they make from scratch is excellent. I also love the memories of having shopped there since I was a child.

Oh Mamma’s, on the other hand, is a perfect example of the unique combination we have of farm-fresh, organic food from the beautiful Indiana countryside brought in to our city. Oh Mamma’s produces their own goat cheese and they also have a wonderful selection of many other cheeses and Italian meats.

One of my favorite places is our [South Bend] Farmers Market, which is a true treasure for our community. We are one of the few indoor, year-round farmers markets in the Midwest.

Café Navarre and LaSalle Grille are two of my favorites, as well as Rocky River, where they post the local vendors and farms whose food they are serving that day. I love that! Render is wonderful also, and how fun is it to buy barbecue at Fat Cap? Not to mention the breakfast at the Farmers Market!

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Food is a central theme in all our lives.

As I said in my first cookbook, I view food as more than fuel to send our bodies forward. Food is a cultural, emotional experience that we share with others. It is a bond, and meals together are some of the most prominent memories you will have for the rest of your life. Dinner at my parents’ and grandparents’ homes, dinner with my own children as I raised them, these are the most important memories to me. So take the time, pick a menu, let everyone select it together, give everyone a job to do: chopping, stirring, rolling out dough. Get in the kitchen. One day a week. Cook together. Eat together. And savor those memories forever. You will treasure them.