Lindsay Marie Morris

Anthony Campanella spent four decades serving in some of America's most vital and sensitive roles, with tenures in the Marine Corps, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security. His work spanned intelligence analysis, crisis management, and international security cooperation, including deployments to active war zones. Yet no matter how far he traveled, he remained deeply rooted in his Sicilian heritage—something he says shaped his identity and perspective throughout his career. That connection has guided him to a quieter, more grounded chapter: an off-the-grid retirement as a self-described povero contadino (poor farmer) in rural Sicily.

He recently shared more about his professional and ancestral background, what inspired his move, his challenges, his favorite places in Sicily, and advice for those wishing to settle down on Italy's largest island.

Tell us more about your professional background.

It goes back 40 years after high school. I joined the Marine Corps and was an intelligence specialist, which is a precursor to coming here, because my last two years in the Marine Corps, I spent on a Navy ship in the middle of the Mediterranean. It was summertime—no wars, no conflicts. It was basically a Liberty Cruise, where we just visited 11 countries in the Mediterranean and enjoyed the heck out of it—great weather, great people, beaches, and food. The cost of living was cheap.

 

After the Marine Corps, I went back to college, finished my degree, and was hired by the Defense Intelligence Agency in their crisis management shop. We dealt with all current operations around the world, whether it was Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, or wherever there was a hotspot. We were the ones who provided national-level intelligence support to the warfighters.

 

I have deployed three times to "active" war zones. The first was for six months in support of Bosnia at the NATO Combined Air Operations Center in Vicenza, Italy. While my colleagues were being sent to places like Tuzla and Sarajevo, I was out of danger and safe and sound in the land of pizza and vino.  

After that, I was given a Cuba assignment, which didn't amount to anything, so we never even made it to Cuba. We made it as far as Norfolk, Virginia.

The third one was in Brazzaville, Congo, because of a coup in Zaire. They thought we might need to evacuate the embassy staff and American citizens. But again, that fizzled out.

While I was in Brazzaville, I was selected to be the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) representative to the White House. So, I spent two years as a staff member of President Clinton's National Security Council in the White House Situation Room.

It was a 24-hour operation center monitoring worldwide events. You think you'll live the glory when you brief the president on a major event, but when something does happen, obviously, it's in the moment, and you don't have any answers and get yelled at.

Really, a great job. It was very exciting. The best two years of my life, I think, professionally.

 

After that, I left government service and went into consulting, working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 11 in the Pentagon. When the plane came in, I was the luckiest man in America. I was on the opposite side of the building and didn't see, hear, feel, smell anything. So I was never, ever in danger. Just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or the right place at the wrong time because I was on the opposite side of the building and had nothing there.

 

After that, the Department of Homeland Security was formed in response to the terrorist attacks. I went to work in the intelligence section for General Hughes, who used to be the director of DIA. He became the first assistant secretary for intelligence at DHS.

 

I helped them form what became the DHS intelligence apparatus. I did that for a few years, and then I left and went to do foreign military sales and security cooperation with foreign governments on behalf of the U.S. government. I traveled extensively in Europe and Asia to support the U.S. government in providing material solutions to foreign governments.

 

It was interesting for a kid from Everett, Massachusetts. I always have to reiterate: Never, at one point in my life, have I ever seen a shot fired in anger. Nor have I ever been in any kind of danger zone. I've been extremely lucky to have spent that long of a career in and around international crises, but never once has it touched me.

 

 Anthony took his mother and aunt to Pietraperzia for the first time in 1997.

What is your connection to Sicily?

All four of my grandparents were born and raised in Sicily. My father's parents were from Messina, and they immigrated in 1906. My mother's parents are from Pietraperzia, which is in the dead geographic center of the island. I always say it has more sheep than people. My maternal grandfather came over in 1911, and my grandmother came over in 1913.

 

What inspired you to move to Sicily?

My grandparents romanticized the island: fig trees on every corner, apricots whenever you want them, and prickly pears by the dozens. This is true, but I also knew there was a reason they left, so I took it with a grain of salt.

I had never come as a kid or as a young adult. My first time here was in 1988, but it was only a short visit while I was in the Marine Corps. But I had spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean during the summer, so that was when I first started saying, "This is going to be a great place to retire."

It's a great launch point for any other place in Europe or Northern Africa if you want to travel and explore. But it was always kind of a pipe dream. Alfred Zappala of You, Me, and Sicily! used to own a little food store in Lawrence, Massachusetts, called All Things Sicilian. So, after I had gone home for some vacation, my mother and I took a ride up there to check out the shop.

There was a book, Many Beautiful Things,  written by Vincent Schiavelli, an actor in Ghost, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Night Shift. He had made the transition from the States to retiring in Polizzi Generosa. The book was just so captivating, and he made it sound so seamless.

In hindsight, I probably should have said, "Of course, they all welcomed you, Vincent Schiavelli; you're a multimillionaire actor." But that was when I started to put it into motion.

 

Why not? I mean, I had basically lived away from my family since 1984. So it wasn't like I was living with my family on the street and then taking off and replanting myself. I was used to communicating via texts, phone calls, emails, and whatever it was, and seeing them once or twice a year for holidays and summer vacation. So it wasn't a major transition for me.

 

I said, "Now's the time. You're not getting any younger; enjoy your life—what's left of it."

 

Anthony moved to Sicily with just three bags.

 

What challenges did you face settling in Sicily?

First, I wanted to exercise my right to Italian citizenship, and that's a nightmare. Even when you follow the rules, it's a nightmare. Well, I didn't follow the rules because I had a top-secret security clearance with the government, and I couldn't apply for a foreign citizenship while the government was entrusting me with their precious secrets. They don't take it kindly if you're pledging allegiance to a foreign government when they provide you with this. So I had to wait until I retired.

 

I had two options. I could stay in the States for two years and go through the long process of getting my citizenship, but then I would be living in the U.S. with the U.S. cost of living, which would drain resources. Or I could come here and wing it, which is what I did.

 

It got done. And I'm legal. Everything's legal now. I pay my taxes, I do everything. The Carabinieri are not coming to the door.

 

The strange thing is that when you apply for citizenship, you do so at the city hall here at the Comune, which is unheard of in the States. You wouldn't just go to your city hall to apply for citizenship.

 

When I applied for citizenship, I went to the Stato Civile and they told me, "We can't accept your application because you don't have residency here. You need to go to the Anagrafe and get residency."

 

So I ran over to the Anagrafe and said, "Hey, I bought a house. I live here. I need to get my residency." They said, "OK, well, where's your long-term visa?" I was like, "Oh, I don't have one. I'm here on my tourist passport."

 

They said, "We can't give you residency. If you only have a tourist passport, you need to go to the Questura in Syracuse and apply for a long-term, elective residency visa. They'll give you your one-year elective residency visa, Signora Izzo will accept your application, and everybody goes home happy."

 

So I went up to the Questura and told them the story, and they said, "No, no, no, no, you don't need to do that at all. You go back and tell Signora Izzo to accept your paperwork because she will fill out a form as soon as she accepts it. It comes to us, and we give you your long-term visa because now you're awaiting adjudication."

 

So, basically, A told me to go to B, B told me to go to C, and C told me to go to A, and nobody was budging. We finally broke the logjam because the guys in the Anagrafe Office did me a solid favor, and I was able to obtain residency without the long-term visa.

 

It ended up working out. Two weeks later, I got my citizenship, and everybody went home happy, especially me, and probably Signora Izzo in the Comune, because I think she was sick of seeing my face.

 

I moved to Avola, Provincia di Siracusa. I had visited here three times before, in the 1990s, in 2011, and then again in 2015. My requirements were that I wanted to be 10 minutes from the beach and an hour from the airport.

 

This zone is beautiful. It's close enough to Syracuse, close enough to the airport, and right on the beach. So it met, checked off all the checkpoints, and I'm glad to be here.

 

Good Friday in Pietraperzia

 

Describe your lifestyle.

I call myself a povero contadino, a poor farmer in terms of both money and the quality of my stuff.

 

A British friend of mine here was renting from this woman who owned this farm up in the mountains. She said, "Hey, you know everybody. Can you come look at this place? She's trying to sell it. It's been in her family her whole life. She's 81 years old, and she can't care for it anymore. She has three kids and 10 grandkids, and they don't want it."

 

So I said, "Sure, I'll come up and look at it."

 

I went up to the mountains and saw the place. There is a house there, but the house is not supposed to be there. So they've kind of let it go astray. But it has a beautiful brick oven barbecue area, 120 trees, and about two acres of land where I can plant my fruits and vegetables in the ground.

 

I asked my friend, "Well, what is she asking for?" She said, "10,000." And I bought it right away.

 

The owner is now 86 years old, and whenever I collect anything from the trees —whether it's apricots, pears, peaches, figs, quince, or cherries —I always bring a big cestino, a large basket, to the woman. After all, I figured she's had this her whole life. She didn't want to sell it; she was forced because she couldn't keep up with it.

 

So I give her all that stuff, and she's very, very thankful all the time. But if I plant something in the ground—lettuce, zucchini, eggplant, or tomatoes—and I bring it down to her, she says, "Non voglio," I don't want it. And I'm like, "Why don't you want it?" She says, "Not mine."

 

The trees used to be hers, so she has an affinity for the trees, but if I put something in the ground, she doesn't want it. She'll accept the tree stuff because she knows that she's responsible for those trees being as productive as they are.

 

I was not looking for a farm. I was not looking for some land. I had no real desire, certainly no skill.

 

I keep learning every day, but I don't sell anything. I give everything away. I get about 135 liters of olive oil a year and just hand it out. I use that as tips to my barber, butcher, and folks who won't accept tips. And then I give the rest away to family, friends, and visitors.

 

I do the same with all the fruits and vegetables. I just give what I can't eat to my neighbors here. It's definitely not a money-making scheme!

 

Anthony practices a new farming technique. 

How did you prepare yourself for this lifestyle?

I winged it. For somebody who, at work, is very fastidious in planning everything, I figured it out when I got here, and that's literally what I did.

 

I have one cousin who lives in Pietraperzia and speaks English and Sicilian fluently. He's been a godsend whenever I've needed assistance trying to meander through some kind of bureaucracy or vehicle issue or something like that. So he's been very, very helpful. So I did have a support system here—a support system of one, but that's really all I needed. And I had traveled to probably 60 or so countries before I moved here, so I think I'm very good at assimilating.

 

I wasn't worried about coming in and not having my Starbucks or my McDonald's. So that stuff was never a problem. The bureaucracy is the bureaucracy.

 

Citizenship was really the hardest thing. I had told people that I think the motto for Italian bureaucrats is, "As long as I've done nothing, I've done nothing wrong. So you can't tell me I messed up. I didn't do anything, so I didn't do anything wrong."

 

That was my biggest headache, because I'm a get-stuff-done kind of guy. But I just kept telling myself, "Hey, you're paying a euro a kilo for fruit. Settle down, suck it up, and go with the flow." Other than that, there were no transition problems whatsoever.

 

When I bought this house here, I technically didn't even know I had bought it. I had come here on a Friday night, and we looked at it with a realtor, and I made my offer. They said, "We have to talk to the owners." I said, "Sure, no problem."

 

We were leaving town 15 minutes later, and he called and said, "They accepted the offer. Can you come back on Monday to do the paperwork?" I said, "Sure."

 

I thought the paperwork was writing out the formal offer, but they tossed me the keys after I signed. I didn't even give anybody a penny.

 

So, even buying the house was simple. Obviously, no homeowner's inspection, no insurance. Because two days later, I called my cousin. I was like, "Filippo, we forgot to get insurance." He said, "What do you need insurance for?" I said, "I bought a house. What if it catches on fire?" He goes, "What's going to catch on fire?" I said, "Well, if somebody breaks in and steals something?" He goes, "You buy a new TV; what do you care?" I was like, "Well, what if somebody falls down my stairs?" He goes, "They fall down your stairs. Who cares?"

 

I've lived in this house for more than seven years and have never paid a penny in insurance, which is crazy to me, but that's the way it is.

 

 

What are your favorite places in Sicily and why?

I absolutely love Agrigento's Valley of the Temples. That's my favorite tourist spot. Other than that, I just love to go into the center of the country, go to Valguarnera Caropepe, or one of these small towns that have been abandoned by those who have had a mass exodus to the States, because it still has that look, that feel, that flavor of 1947.

Pietraperzia is a grand example. You go into the piazza in the daytime, and there are 200 men out there playing cards, drinking beers, and yelling at each other. They're there every single day.

 

There are no women; I'm not saying that's a good thing, but just that mentality that they're still in 1947. And I'll often ask my cousin's wife, "Why are there no women in town?" She goes, "Why would we want to go down there? That's where all the guys are." That's kind of their mentality.

There's a peace in that where there's no hustle and bustle. Being in D.C. for 30 years, that's a major transition. Obviously, I like Ortygia or Ragusa. I'm not a big fan of Taormina because I always tell people that it's not really Sicily. I'm not much of a fan of the big, big cities on the island. I just prefer a laid-back vibe.

 

A scene from the Pietraperzia Piazza

 

What advice do you have for those considering a move to Sicily?

First and foremost, be patient. Understand that you're a guest in this country. Even once you get your citizenship, you're still a guest here. Understand that, and then just understand the processes and work within those processes.

 

I try never to give advice. I tell people what happened to me. I won't give you advice because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That's the definition of normalcy here. You and I could do the exact same thing and have different results because you got a different clerk on a different day who is in a different mood. And so you can't say, "This is what I did, because you said you need these four documents," because they'll take those four documents and say, "Nope, you need two other documents." Or they'll say, "Why are you bringing me this stuff? I don't need it. I just need this one piece of paper."

 

For me personally, that's it. I would just ride the wave. It sounds weird, but what's going to happen is going to happen to you, and there's nothing that will prepare you for it. So, just have your Aperol spritz in the afternoon. Have a granita in the morning. If you're going to sit at the Questura for six hours, sit at the Questura for six hours.

Other than that, you just have to have the right mindset. You've got to be accepting of people and how they operate and work here. You have to have patience.

 

Just remember how lucky you are to be here. This is a beautiful, beautiful place.  

 

 

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Margie Raimondo arrives at our Zoom interview seated before a hillside of brightly colored houses. It's a virtual background, a photo of Prizzi, home to her father's Sicilian family. Combined with her mother's Neapolitan roots, Margie's Italian heritage has served as an important backdrop to her pursuits since she left a successful career in the tech industry.

 

"Ultimately, at some point, I decided, 'OK, I've done all this—check, check, check the boxes. Now I'm going to do something for me,'" Margie remembers. "And I thought the most natural thing for me to do with all of my great accolades and degrees was to be a politician or a professor."

She looked into a Ph.D. program in public policy and got so far as to request sponsorship when it hit her: She didn't want that life. 

She had recently gone through a divorce and needed to heal. It was time to take care of herself and reflect on what she actually needed. "And there was this little nudge that kept saying, 'Go back to your roots,'" she says.

She remembered being six years old and running around her family's garden, their communal living, and gathering around the table to share good food.

 

"That just brought joy to my heart," says Margie, "So I packed up all my stuff and went to Italy."

She started her journey in Sicily, and from there, she rolled up her sleeves and got her hands dirty, planting the seeds for what would become Urbana Farmstead, a one-acre urban farm in Little Rock, Arkansas. She not only grows food but also hosts garden-based cooking and preservation classes and monthly high teas with her signature farm-grown blends.

 

With cookbooks to complement the offerings, it's clear this former VP of marketing has fashioned her own lifestyle brand. She shared more about her inspiration (and how her family played a part), sustainable farming practices, community outreach, challenges, and rewards.

 

 

Share your background and how that influenced you.

My father's family left Sicily and first went to Pueblo, Colorado. Eventually, they made their way to California, where my father was born. We were in the southeastern part of Los Angeles. We grew up completely poor, as you can imagine. But what happened was that my grandparents and all of the other Italians had their traditional way of living, which is what they came with. They came with the knowledge of growing your own food and preserving your own food, even though we didn't live on a farm.

 

What happened is they ripped out the yard and then had their chickens running around there so they could have the eggs. We had rabbits, which was good protein, and we raised all of our vegetables and fruits. 

My grandmother had a basement, so we preserved everything, and my grandfather made wine. Everything Old Country basically came with them in the suitcase of their heads, and I grew up that way.

 

I was in my late twenties or early thirties and started raising my own family when I discovered I had been poor. But I didn't even know I was poor because I always had food everywhere. There was an abundance of food. And if you didn't have your own refrigerator full of food, you just went next door to an aunt and uncle or an adopted aunt and uncle. There was an abundance of food and people around who loved each other.

 

You couldn't wait until you were tall enough to get up on the chair to make pasta with Nonna and cookies during the holidays, with all the laughter in the kitchen and all the stuff that happened when anything related to food happened. 

 

You landed in Sicily after a career in Silicon Valley. Share your journey.

I went to my cousins and said, "I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I know it has to do with food and wine." 

 

Europe had this program called Farm Away—now called Workaway. You basically sign up to work on people's farms. They give you room and board based on the work you do.

 

I spent multiple months—three weeks here, a week here, two weeks there—going around to different places: Sicily, Sardinia, Basilicata, Calabria, Tuscany—and even southern Spain. I lived on farms and worked in the garden, in the farming area, and in the kitchen. I did preservation. I did all this stuff. And then I came home from that experience and thought, "I'm healed. This is exactly what I needed. I don't know my path, but I have a vision for which direction to walk in." And so I did.

 

I came to Little Rock, Arkansas, and started this fun urban farm. I have this one-acre farm, and I have a little market. It's a little more sophisticated than my grandparents', of course. It's a different time than it was then. I'm not immigrating with two suitcases, but I have a beautiful farmhouse kitchen, a little market, and a small little farm area. And so I am so happy because I get to grow my own food. I get to preserve food the same way I did before. I get to teach people. 

I figured out what the next thing is in my life. I am so blessed that I got to be an Italian little girl growing up in an Italian family. And it's only right for me to share that with people because my purpose now is to teach people to grow their own food, how much food nurtures them, and how much food brings us together. And it's all that connection. It's like my story extended through this beautiful lineage that goes all the way back to Sicily and Campania.

Urbana Farmstead in Little Rock, Arkansas

 

What sustainable farming practices do you use at Urbana Farmstead, and why are they important to you?

I do everything naturally here. We don't use bug sprays, and we don't use any fertilizer. My land is planted with things like mustard, which helps us control all of the bugs, and then radishes and beets so that they can break up the soil during the winter. I've used permaculture, the natural process of farming. I brought that practice back from all my time going back and forth to Sicily and those 18 months of living on those farms.

 

One thing I learned while living on farms is that whatever you do in the field will go into your body. If you're going to take your time, expense, and investment to grow your own food, then you need the healthiest source of your food. Even if you don't personally grow your food, you should be aware of that because you're basically putting that in your body.

 

How do you cultivate community through garden-based learning opportunities?

The pandemic was hard on all of us, but it gave me this really bright opportunity because, during that period of time, most people couldn't go to normal grocery stores. They also couldn't really get out and do a lot of socialization. 

 

I had just moved to this community, didn't really know my own community, and had just built a small market. So, it became a meeting place where people would come, and of course, they came for produce or different food. But it also became a time when we could just hang outside and talk. It made me realize that my community is not dissimilar to the population I lived in as a child; it's a very underserved area.

 

The more I would talk to everybody about what I was doing and my background, the more I got to know them. And I knew during that year and a half that I was getting to know the community that I wanted to be their community garden. 

If you look at where I live, the closest grocery store is eight miles one way and 11 miles the other way. And then there are two or three Dollar Generals in between that. There's no farm; I'm literally in an industrial area.

 

I have faith and believe that God puts us all on those paths where we should be. It was pretty obvious to me during the pandemic that it was part of my responsibility to provide this community garden. 

 

 
Urbana Farmstead's Simply Sicilian Cooking Club students

Tell us about your classes and how they started.

I taught youth before I did classes for adults. That happened because, during that period, the kids were homeschooling. I had this amazing kitchen with this fiber Wi-Fi network, and almost everybody in my area had no internet. So, as I got to know the families, I asked some of them, "Why aren't your kids in school?" And they said, "Oh, we don't have the internet." So I said, "Well, come over. I have this dining room sitting here where they can plug in."

 

During the day, for almost a full year, I'd have anywhere from six to 18 kids, who were basically strangers to me at the beginning. So they would come and do their four hours of classes in the mornings. And then, of course, I'd feed them lunch and get to know them. In the meantime, I'm farming out there.

 

So I'd say, "Come on, come and pick some cucumbers for lunch." They'd say, "Oh, I don't eat cucumbers." And I said, "Really? Do you like pickles?" They'd say, "Well, yeah, I love pickles." So, I'd say, "Well, then you eat a cucumber."

 

I realized during that process I could do a garden-based learning class, which could be an afterschool program, and I could start teaching these kids about growing their own food. Just simple stuff, like using celery and making little cars, and fun things they could learn how to do. So that's how I started with my program, The Root of Change.

After that, I realized you can't just teach the kids because then they go home, and they try to get their mom to do it, and their mom's like, "What? I don't know much about fresh anything." Because they're buying their food from Dollar General.

 

I started extending my classes to adults, and now I do cooking classes: Simply Sicilian Cooking Club. I have adults and children, and I teach all kinds of different classes. So that's really how it all evolved.  

 

Describe your cookbooks: Mangiamo and Finding Your Path.

Mangiamo was published in 2023. It is a combination of my family's recipes—Napolitano and Sicilian—and weaved in are some of the recipes from the families I lived with while living in Italy and Spain. So I call it my family recipe book because a lot of those people that I lived with are definitely now part of my family. It was great because it showed how regionally different pizzas, pasta dishes, and breads are.  And people really liked that.

 

After I started releasing my book, a lot of people said, "Well, I love your book, but I'm gluten-free."

 

I have gluten sensitivity myself, as do my two daughters and one of my grandchildren. So I said, "You can adapt many of my recipes from Mangiamo." But in the meantime, I decided that I was going to go ahead and do a book focused on gluten-free.

 

I have a cousin in Sicily (Giuci Marsala) who's a full-on celiac. So I partnered with her and said, "Hey, Giuci, let me tell your story, and then let's publish this together."

 

So, Finding Your Path is still family recipes. It's not only gluten-free but also targeted toward people with celiac disease. Plus, I wrote a resource guide for what kind of products and brands to use.  

 

Urbana Farmstead's high teas feature a four-course meal.

Can you share more about your monthly high tea events?

It's high tea on the farm, which means it's basically farm-to-table. It's four courses. The Queen wouldn't approve of it, I'm sure of that because it's not your traditional English type of dainty thing. It's what you would consider Mediterranean-style cuisine.

 

I start out at the beginning, usually with some kind of homemade Italian pastry. And then we go from that. That's the first course.

 

For the second course, I always do a farmhouse soup with focaccia. And it's always seasonal, so it's like, "Go out in the garden and pick whatever you have, and that becomes a soup."

 

The third course is little sandwiches, but it's not those little dainty, sweet cucumber sandwiches. It's Mediterranean. So often, you'll get a tray of bruschetta, and there'll be different toppings on them, like a tapenade, or you might get a sausage bite with a bit of mozzarella.

 

The final course is petite desserts of some sort. And that varies depending on the season. So it's four courses.

 

You book the table, and you pick the tea. I grow 75% of the herbs that go into the tea in the garden, so you get to come and pick one of my blends. Once you book the table, you can stay there as long as you want. And then I serve you a course at a time.

 

It's a lot of fun. I love doing it. I get to be so creative. 

 

What are some of your biggest challenges?

The biggest challenge is that, from where I sit in this industrial area, people sometimes drive past me instead of stopping. It's taken me a couple of years—the first two years being very trial and error—to realize I am a destination. They have to know about me and commit to come find me.

 

It's beautiful. You go through these iron gates and say, "Voila, I'm here!" But you have to go down a road with car lots all around me.

 

But I overcame it by saying, "You know what? You just have to be a destination." And that's OK; my business is based on that.

What's been most rewarding?

My most rewarding is two things. I'm going into the fourth year of my kids' program, and I have some of the kids from four years ago, and they're growing up. They started out 10 and 11 years old, and now they're like, "Ms. Margie, can I help you? Do you have a job?" So I use them when I do high tea. They might be one of the servers, or they might be cooking in the back with me. I love that because these kids probably had between zero and 10% opportunity, and I have really seen their lives transform.

 

I feel blessed by that. Now I feel complete. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. That's probably my number one thing, and I'm anxious and excited to see where they all go and who will rise up next.

 

The other thing I'm very proud of is that I've introduced Arkansas to a way of thinking about Mediterranean. I use the word Mediterranean all the time, so there's context around it, and they understand how that's healthy. They don't think it's just a diet.

I always stress, "This is not a diet, folks; this is a lifestyle." Not only is the food important, but having food at the table makes it important because just eating while walking around, doing something in the car, or sitting in front of the TV is unhealthy.

 

You could eat an apple, but if you eat it in front of the TV, it's not healthy anymore. Health is when you sit down, have people around you, and have a conversation.

 

I'm pretty proud of that because it's moving the needle. It hasn't always been easy, but I'm starting to see some real traction.

 

I had a couple of key administrators from the University of Arkansas come to Sicily with me in October. Now, we have an exchange program between the University of Arkansas and one of the universities in Sicily. They're going to start doing student and faculty exchanges. That's a big one right there.   

 

I picked up the ball and ran with it. This is what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm going to keep doing it. 

 

 
An Urbana Farmstead class participant makes pasta.

 

What is your ultimate goal?

The core of everything is this Mediterranean lifestyle. I hope my work lives on with the connection between the farm, food production, and the table. That's probably going to have to be one of the books I write next: that connection to the table. It's the place where we meet people, and it's the lowest common denominator. We can meet at the table, and we're all equal. I love that. That's the work I want to continue cultivating: nourishing and nurturing.

 

Whether you come and book a private event, have a high tea, or are in one of my classes, we eat together no matter what. You come and take a class. I will teach you how to make pasta, and then we will eat the pasta together. I could just teach you how to make pasta, but again, there's no closure. There's not the most important part of it because just making the food is not it. I want to keep connecting the food, the farm, the table, and the community.

 

 

Everything ultimately connects to gathering around the table.

 

 

 

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