Crazy in the Kitchen

In DeSalvo's family, in 1950s New Jersey, the kitchen becomes the site for fierce generational battle. Louise's step-grandmother stubbornly recreates the domestic habits of her S. Italian peasant upbringing, while she clashes painfully with Louise's convenience-food-loving mother. Louise, meanwhile, dreams of the day when she'll have her own kitchen. But as Louise grows up & travels to Italy herself, her adult discoveries give her new insight into the tensions of her childhood. In unearthing the oppressive conditions that led S. Italians to emigrate en masse to the U.S., Louise gains a subtler understanding of the struggles between her parents & their parents. In the process, she arrives at a fuller & more compassionate picture of her own roots.