Star of ‘Cooking with Nonna’ Romana Sciddurlo dies at 92

Author Rossella Rago and her grandmother, Romana Sciddurlo, hosted a popular web cooking show

Bensonhurst resident and co-star of online cooking show “Cooking with Nonna” Romana Sciddurlo died Sunday, Oct. 19, at 92.

Sciddurlo, along with her granddaughter Rossella Rago, hosted the YouTube show “Cooking with Nonna,” where the two taught viewers how to make various Italian dishes and discussed family memories. Some of the most popular videos showed them cooking chicken marsala, pizza rustica, ricotta cheesecake and zeppole.

Rago also wrote a series of “Cooking with Nonna” books. The first one featured 110 recipes from 25 Italian nonnas, including Sciddurlo, who is on the cover. She was also featured on television shows such as “Good Morning America.”

According to Rago, Sciddurlo was the first Italian nonna to share recipes on Instagram, or even the internet for that matter. They started the cooking show on YouTube in 2009.

“I held her hand through the night, keeping watch in the stillness and when I stepped away to rest, she chose that moment to go gentle, graceful, as she always was,” Rago wrote on social media. “Her story lives on in flour-dusted hands, in kitchens filled with laughter, in every memory she left behind. Her love, like her recipes, will never fade.”

Rago said that Sciddurlo had dementia and described it as “the long goodbye.”

“You lose someone in pieces, day by day,” she said. “Yet, when the final farewell comes, you learn you are never truly ready. I pray she has found eternal peace in the house with many rooms where there is no suffering, only love. Where she is finally reunited with my grandfather, the great love of her life, the name her heart never forgot.”

Sciddurlo was born in Mola di Bari and was the oldest child of her family of seven children. On the “Cooking With Nonna” website, she wrote about how she learned how to cook.

“My cooking teacher was definitely my nonna Rosa,” Sciddurlo wrote. “In those days everything was cooked on wood fire and charcoal. I remember vividly what a project it was some days to get the fire going, but nonna Rosa always found the way. During the Christmas holidays I would watch nonna Rosa bake all different kinds of sweets: Cartellate, Bocconotti, almond paste cookies and many more. These are all recipes that had been passed on to her by her ancestors.”

Fans and friends of Sciddurlo responded to her death in large numbers. Over 15,000 people commented on the post announcing the news.

“Rest in peace @rossellarago’s lovely Nonna, who brought so much joy to everyone she met,” wrote the owners of the BookMark Shoppe in Bay Ridge. “She’ll be greatly missed, but her spirit and wisdom will live on in the wonderful cookbooks she and her granddaughter created.”

Rago talked about her relationship with her grandmother.

“It is not weighed down by the duties of parenthood, nor clouded by the worries of the world,” she said. “It is pure affection, unguarded joy, a love that delights simply in your existence.

From the moment you arrive, you are their treasure, and you feel it in every embrace, every meal cooked, every song sung. It is a love less conditional, somehow even freer. When someone has known you and loved you since the moment you were born, their heart is stitched into yours. And even when they leave this world, that thread remains unbroken.”