about me

My name is Angelina Pagano, and I live in Venice, Italy.

In 1991, destiny desired, that I should cross paths with an aspiring gondolier named Dino De Zorzi.

I was half way into a year long vacation abroad, and had no idea that this fateful meeting in St Mark's Square, would lead me to exchange my previous mundane life as a high school teacher in Sydney, Australia, and return to the land of my parents' birth.

We married. Dino would become the fifth generation in his family, to be a gondolier, and we have been happily paddling together ever since.

Hence, I am the The Gondolier's Wife.

Eating is the Italians' favorite past time... mine also. Gastronomy and family are synonymous, food is central to all social events. Italians live to eat, as opposed to the other way around. Here the true panel of experts is made up by everyday, regular people who've eaten and cooked, traditional dishes all their lives and know exactly what they like, and how they like it. Locals say, that the best meals are eaten in the home, using recipes passed down through the generations. The most influential chefs don't have  stars after their names or their own television shows.

The real food hero's are people just like, the old champion rower who prepares “spaghetti al nero di seppia” (spaghetti with squid in its own black ink) on a Sunday, for the boys at the rowing club, or a grandmother from the island of Burano, who makes “bussolai” biscuits for greedy nephews and nieces. The mamma (a saint, as well as food heroine) of a friend, a 40 something, live at home son, who asks her to use only half a bay leaf in the “bisato in tecia” (eel stew) because he feels it's overpowering with a whole one.

These people are friends of ours, and I shall be cooking their family recipes, plus my own twist on the classics, on The Gondolier's Wife blog, as well as tell stories about what's it like to eat and live with the rhythms of this beautiful watery city, MY VENEZIA!!!!